The Control Award: Algorithms for the Real World

The Control Award is unique. It requires a separate submission sheet. This is your chance to geek out—but be careful. Judges aren’t always computer scientists. You need to explain complex algorithms in a way that shows mastery, not just complexity.

The Secret Sauce: “Intelligent Control”

Judges are looking for code that makes the robot “smart.” A robot that drives forward for 2 seconds is dumb. A robot that drives forward until it sees a vision target, aligns itself, spins up a flywheel to a calculated velocity, and fires? That’s smart.

1. Sensor Integration (The Eyes and Ears)

You can’t control what you can’t measure. Highlight your sensors:

• Encoders: For position tracking (Odometry).
• IMU (Gyro): For heading stability.
• Distance Sensors: For intake automation (detecting when an artifact is inside).
• Current Sensors: For detecting jams (if motor current spikes, reverse intake).

2. Advanced Filters (Cleaning the Data)

Real-world data is noisy. Raw sensor data jumps around. Mentioning filters creates an immediate “pro” impression.

• Low-Pass Filter: Smooths out jittery joystick inputs.
• Kalman Filter: Fuses multiple sensors (like Encoders + IMU) to get a “truth” estimate of position.
• PID Control: The gold standard. Explain how you tuned your P, I, and D terms to get that snappy, oscillation-free movement.

[!IMPORTANT] Show, Don’t Just Tell: Include a graph of “Target Position vs. Actual Position” to show your PID loop in action.

”Cool” Libraries and Patterns to Mention

Even if you didn’t write every line of code from scratch (nobody does), explaining how you used libraries matters.

• RoadRunner: Don’t just say “We used RoadRunner.” Say “We implemented RoadRunner for path following, tuning our kV, kA, and kStatic feedforward coefficients to minimize tracking error.”
• State Machines: “We utilized a finite state machine to manage our intake-transfer-shooter logic, preventing the driver from triggering conflicting actions.”

The “Control Award Submission Sheet”

This piece of paper is critical. You have limited space.

1. Be Specific: Don’t write “TeleOp Control.” Write “Automated Turret Tracking via Vision.”
2. Highlight Automation: TeleOp isn’t just manual driving. Did you automate the “End Game” hang? Did you automate the “Transfer” sequence? Automation reduces driver load.
3. Diagrams: You can attach diagrams! Print out your huge state machine diagram and attach it.

[!TIP] Software Check: Use FTC Coach to help articulate technical software concepts clearly to non-technical judges. It helps translate “void loop()” into “continuous monitoring logic.”

Conclusion

The Control Award goes to the team that solves hardware problems with software solutions. Ideally, your software should make your driver look better than they actually are.

If your robot moves like it has a brain of its own, you’re doing it right.