🏆 Competition · All Roles · Print This

Competition Day Cheat Sheet

⚡ Morning — Robot

Battery charged — 100% before leaving pit

ENG

All ports respond on Brain port screen

ENG

Auton selector works — cycle all routines

ENG

Drive test — straight, left, right, 10 ft

DRV

Intake test — collect 3 game elements

DRV

Endgame test — full sequence once

DRV

All shaft collars tight — thumb press test

ENG

📦 Morning — Pit Bag

2 extra batteries charged

Laptop + charger for code uploads

Brain download cable (USB-A to micro-USB)

Spare motor (min 2, same cartridges)

Spare cables (V5 smart cable set)

Allen keys (3/32", 5/64", 3/16")

Notebook printed and labeled

Scouting sheets printed

🏎 Pre-Match Sequence

T−10 min: Queue for field

ALL

T−8 min: Inspect opponent robot

STRAT

T−5 min: Select auton routine

ENG

T−5 min: IMU calibrated (Brain shows ready)

ENG

T−3 min: Coordinate with alliance

STRAT

T−2 min: Robot placed at start position

DRV

T−1 min: Match brief reviewed

ALL

⚡ During Match

Driver cues

First 5s: execute auton, hands off

0:55 remaining: endgame signal from strategist

0:30 remaining: endgame sequence START

Strategist reads

Opponent robot type? (pusher / scorer / defender)

Score delta at 1:00 remaining?

Alliance coordination: who covers which zone?

📝 After Match — Debrief (3 min)

1. Did the auton work? Yes / No — and why?

2. What was the most points we left on the field?

3. What does the engineer fix before the next match?

Robot check after every match

All ports responding on Brain

No cables loose or pinched

Battery swapped if below 50%

🚨 Emergency Protocols

Motor swap (90 seconds)

Unplug cable → unscrew 2 motor bolts → pull motor → seat new motor → screw 2 bolts → replug cable → Brain check

Cable failure

Reseat both ends firmly. Try swapping to any open port and update port number in code. If Brain shows "?", port is dead — move to spare port.

Auton wrong start position

Cycle auton selector to "Safe" routine (pure drive forward). Never run an untested auton from panic. Consistent 4 pts > broken 18.

⚙ STEM Highlight Engineering: Human Factors & Cognitive Load Management

Competition checklists are a direct application of human factors engineering — designing processes to match human cognitive limitations under stress. Research shows that under time pressure, working memory decreases by up to 40%, making critical steps easy to skip. Aviation uses preflight checklists for the same reason: expert pilots still follow them because high-stakes environments demand systematic verification over memory. The competition day sequence transforms a complex, stressful process into a reliable, repeatable procedure.

🎤 Interview line: “We use a structured competition day checklist because cognitive load increases under match pressure. Experienced teams miss inspection details and queue steps all the time — not because they don’t know them, but because they’re context-switching across too many tasks simultaneously. Our checklist eliminates that failure mode.”