FTC Robotics: Tips, Tricks, Strategies, and Secrets: 2013-14 Edition 3rd Edition

I have been coaching FLL teams for last four years. This is my first year as a FTC coach. To prepare myself for what seemed like a daunting task I did several things that I hoped would allow me to prepare for this assignment: registered early, tried out Pro Engineer in summer, bought several books on Robotics, and educated myself and my team on maintaining Engineering Note book.Winning competitions is my secondary goal. My primary goal is to let young minds experience the excitement of engineering careers and get them interested in engineering and science professions and possibly in robotics. This book made my task a lot easier.I got a free copy from the authors during Sept. 11th kick-off. Right now it is with one of my team members. I am not in a position to refer back book to provide accurate descriptions. I have ordered three more copies from Amazon. I sincerely believe this book should be in the arsenal of any FTC robotics team.Here are my reasons for my recommendation:1. It introduces terms like harvesting, chassis to teams so that they can communicate using appropriate professional terms.2. This book provides several tips and tricks in building, wiring, in dealing with electrical components, and preparing for competitions. These things save lot of frustration, and make a team's preparations more rewarding. Take a look at the program snippet to prevent DC motor burn-out, for example.3. Several measures and counter measures were discussed in detail. While these may not be applicable for this season's game they provide you with an organizational framework in which to develop your own strategies.I sincerely believe this book already elevated our team preparations for this season to next level, I am sure it will do the same for yours as well.

If you are on the F.I.R.S.T. Lego League and looking to get into the high school level, this seems like a great resource. I have a personal Tetrix robot to start testing some of these tips with in preparation to coach my son's team. This book is very detailed with up-to-date info, and you can find many of the teams mentioned on twitter or facebook. I'm not sure how helpful the book would be if you don't have access to the robot though.One other note is the programming tips are for Robot C, not Labview, and I am using Labview since it is more cost effective and easier for beginners. Still very valuable for the robot building tips and techniques. This is the best book I've seen so far for the FIRST Tech Challenge (and one of the only ones)!

A good reference for my robotics learning Grandson.

This book is stunningly awesome, and has saved our team many hours of time by skipping ahead to the "best practices" instead of having to stumble through everything ourselves. Every FTC coach must read this book. Every mentor or team captain should be required to. Every team member would be served well by reading the whole thing or at least the well-organized sections about what they're working on.Very often, a team member will have a question to which I will reply, "Get the FTC book", look up whatever they're doing in the index, and hand them the book with instructions to "read tip #140" or whatever. Helps a ton to get new folks up to speed quickly.

I've coached FLL for 7 years and FTC for 4. I really wish I'd had this book my first year!! It answers so many questions and provides great tips, sources for materials, most useful tools to buy,how to make a great engineering notebook, and more practical and helpful suggestions. I've bought copies to give to friends who are new FTC coaches and I definitely keep a copy for myself and one for my team. It is a very, very useful resource.Thank you, Pope John XXIII Robotics team!

Last year's challenge. Written more for coach

It wasn't the best but it offered some helpful ideas. I expected more

This in a MUST HAVE for every new FTC robotics team. The information is very organized and progesses logically. Lots of details and tips that will help new teams learn the ropes of this competition. Our rookie team has benefitted from reading and discussing many topics described in the book. Great Job and thanks for putting this together! We bought an extra copy since our free copy was getting tattered.