Can anyone tell me any way to improve the programming?, to the level of being able to win a prize
It would help if you posted an example of your coding.
In my experience, what separates the programmers who don’t win awards from the ones that do is the willingness to self-learn. Dare to take the time program something ambitious, don’t be afraid to pass on using “plug-and-play” templates to better build your programming knowledge. And lastly, never stop learning, some of my team’s best programming achievements (Think awards at the State level and programming that contributed to Create awards at signature events and Worlds) came from us not going with the flow and pouring all of our time in to a perfect auton skills, but instead making something you don’t see everyday, like utilizing the GPS or reflectivity sensors or building a neural network. Don’t be discouraged by a lack of success measured by awards, but recognize the success you can find in growing in knowledge as a programmer.
4 Likes
From my personal experience, (and, as I’m sure many other programmers can attest to), the best way to learn is from just trying stuff. The cycle of getting an idea, reading about other’s attempts, trying it, learning from your mistakes, and getting new ideas from what you learned is an incredibly powerful teacher. Many, many times, you’ll throw yourself into something way over your head, and way out of your skill level- but that’s ok! The things you learn from ambitious projects are often far more fulfilling that the ambitious project itself.
Your primary goal shouldn’t always be winning, of course. However, I can vouch for @6210K. My team recently won the Think award at the Pikes Peak signature event. We didn’t have a perfect, consistent win point, the highest auton skills score, or a lengthy programming section on the notebook. Instead, I thought outside of the box, and spent a bunch of time developing my own visual computer program that allows a user to draw a path on a map of the field, and then the program generates a series of waypoints for the robot to follow. It wasn’t game changing, or all that complex, but it was unique and set us apart from other teams.
Overall, don’t let awards discourage you. Work on improving your skills, and keep learning, and eventually your hard work will definitely pay off. 
3 Likes