1. FTC Build a Better Robot Cougar Robotics 4251

2. Game Analysis

3. Points! Points! Points! Where are the points? What are the limits? Are there unlimited points opportunities? o Like lifting in Bowled Over!

4. Time How long will things take? Are there low/no value goals that will simply waste time?

5. Other Robots How easy will defense be? o Rack was easy to defend in Ring It Up! How many robots does it take to accomplish a given task? o Lifting in Ring It Up!

6. Your Robot What qualities should a robot have, let’s take drivetrain for example o Ring It Up! - powerful, hold/take a position in front of rack  Scoring opportunities space constrained o Bowled Over - agility, speed more important than power  Scoring opportunities all over the field o Get Over It! - drive train that could navigate all the terrain.

7. Design Principles and Strategies

8. KISS o Keep It Super Simple Tool Design First Leapfrog Development o Never go backwards Repetitive Testing o Repetitive Testing Competitive Development

9. Heartbeat Using a twitching servo before both autonomous and tele-op as a heartbeat A proactive robot health check so you can know when to call for a power cycle Last controller on the daisy chain We did this last year, but the rules have changed so we can’t do this What can we do instead?

10. Heartbeat

11. Checklists Checklist on body of robot for field setup Checklist in pit for between match maintenance

12. Checklists

13. Anderson Powerpoles® Tamiya vs Powerpole® Powerpole® is a registered trademark of Anderson Power Products®

14. Samantha Bracket

15. Grounding Chains Build your own grounding chains

16. Grounding Ground the frame Connect the frame Plastic acts as a capacitor Ground your plastic Ground your electronics

17. Build a Static Detector Battery Case -$1.15 Resistor - $0.03 Capacitor - $0.07 Switch - $0.25 Transistor - $0.33 Connecters – $0.26 LED – $0.01 Total - $2.10

18. Electronics Testing

19. Useful Websites Official Game Forum o http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forum.php http://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forum.php Chief Delphi o http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=146 http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=146 ROBOTC Forum o http://www.robotc.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=52 http://www.robotc.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=52 Xander Soldaat o http://botbench.com/blog/ http://botbench.com/blog/ Cougar Robotics o http://cougarrobot.com/ http://cougarrobot.com/ Landroids o http://landroids.org http://landroids.org

20. More Useful Websites Hitechnic o http://www.hitechnic.com/ http://www.hitechnic.com/ Lego Education o http://www.legoeducation.us/ http://www.legoeducation.us/ Digikey o http://www.digikey.com/ http://www.digikey.com/ McMaster-Carr o http://www.mcmaster.com/# http://www.mcmaster.com/#

21. Contact Information Coach Jamie- coach@cougarrobot.comcoach@cougarrobot.com Coach Judy- scientist@cougarrobot.comscientist@cougarrobot.com Kids- – joey@cougarrobot.com joey@cougarrobot.com – evan@cougarrobot.com evan@cougarrobot.com – sean@cougarrobot.com sean@cougarrobot.com – nathan@cougarrobot.com nathan@cougarrobot.com – reeve@cougarrobot.com reeve@cougarrobot.com