Your Guide to excel in FIRST Tech Challenge: Robot Architecture, Design, Programming and Game Strategies

Coaches Sanjeev and Rajeev have coached teams that made it to all levels of robotics championship including FIRST competitions (FLL, FTC) and VEX from the states of Washington and Texas. This book describes design principles, programming ideas and strategies which have helped their teams excel at all levels of progression, with flying colors. This book is intended for team members, coaches and mentors as a primer and reference. This book summarizes design principles including different kind of drives, elements of robot architecture and design of robot as system. There is detailed explanation of various programing elements including the use of the PID controller, usage of various sensors and design and programming for a consistent and more predictable movement. Beyond the resources provided by different vendors, teams typically need custom pieces to implement their design intent. Various sections in the book describe how to build custom components and the pertinent parts and tools needed. Suggestions for making machined pieces, sheet-metal pieces and sheet metal equivalent of machined pieces is discussed as well. CAD software provides powerful tools for modeling solid part, creating assemblies, creating details for manufacturing the parts, estimating the mass and center of mass, bill of materials and kinematic analysis. A section is dedicated to introducing the basic ideas and most useful features of the CAD software. In addition to the technical information, the book has a section dedicated to apprising teams, participants and coaches of many other issues that will help them be better prepared for the competition. The book also describes many mechanisms as well as design ideas to reduce the overall timing and to enhance repeatable performance. Many programs described in the book are provided on the companion website: www.winningrobotics.com