Competition
The game challenge is different every year, and as such, many aspects change year-to-year. However, games are always played on a 12' by 12' square or diamond field covered in rubberized floor tiles. The game is played by two alliances (red and blue) of two teams each, for a total of four robots on the field each match. At the start of a match, the robots cannot exceed 18" in height, width or length, but can expand during play. In each match, there is an autonomous period followed by an operator-controlled period. Depending on the year, the autonomous period can range from 20 to 45 seconds (30 is the most common) and the operator period lasts 2 minutes.
Along with building and programming a robot, FTC teams are required to create an 'Engineering Notebook' that documents their build season and team experience. It helps teams to reflect on positive and negative experiences and how to improve. It also shows the judges at tournaments what the teams have overcome throughout the year.
Read more about this topic: FIRST Tech Challenge
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)
“Playing games with agreed upon rules helps children learn to live by rules, establish the delicate balance between competition and cooperation, between fair play and justice and exploitation and abuse of these for personal gain. It helps them learn to manage the warmth of winning and the hurt of losing; it helps them to believe that there will be another chance to win the next time.”
—James P. Comer (20th century)
“Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.”
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)