Ftc Robotics: Tips, Tricks, Strategies, and Secrets

(This is the first edition. The second edition for the 2011/12 season is now available and is recommended.) FIRST Tech Challenge is the fastest growing robotics competition for High School students, but there has never before been a single volume to instruct new and veteran teams alike on how to navigate the competitions' rich complexities.This book contains the accumulated wisdom of several champion teams who have won major state level championships as captain teams.The volume is organized into sections covering every aspect of FTC competition, each section containing bite-sized chunks of information: a single sentence describing a tip, trick, strategy, or secret used by top ranked teams, followed by a paragraph or two of examples, explanations, pictures, or diagrams. Hundreds of these recommendations are detailed in this book. By following these recommendations, your team is sure to improve, and maybe even become a champion team as a result!

Pope John XXIII High School in Sparta, New Jersey has competed in FTC Robotics for three years. In the 2008/09 season they were a winning alliance partner at the New Jersey Championships and they placed second as a captain team in the New York City championships. They were ranked 8th in their division at the World Championships that season. In the 2009/10 season, they fielded two competitive teams: Team 247 and Team 248. Team 248 won the New Jersey State Championships as captain team, and Team 247 won the New York City Championships as captain team. Thus both teams qualified for the World Championships, and are preparing to compete as of this writing. Because of their success, many teams ask them questions about many topics: "Where did you get that nice rolling cart?", "Why don't you use gears on the wheels?" etc. Those questions were the inspiration for this book. FTC Robotics is one of the most complex high school level activities in existence, but there is no central source of information to help new teams get up to speed or veteran teams improve their game. This volume is meant to fill that gap and help level the playing field.