Week Before

• Make sure team T-Shirts or Sweatshirts are at coach's house, not at team members' houses.  Keep together, so one team member forgetting T-Shirt doesn't mean one team member is left out of "uniform".
• Print out 3 sets of the research presentation for the judges.
• Print out tournament info including driving directions

Day Before

• Fill up car with gas (or fully charge car Mr. Fancypants), allowing team 10 more minutes of sleep
• Charge camera batteries
• Charge cell phones
• Unload camera memory card (video consumes a lot of memory)
• Practice full matches including routine when team comes up to table
• Time practices
• Know what your backup plans are when you run out of time
• Practice Research Presentation, get someone to ask questions
• Practice Presenting programming you'd like to show Robot Design judges
• Change of tires (fine tune programming with this better traction)
• Change of batteries (fine tune programming with this faster speed)
• Plan food, make lunches
• Pack printouts of any rules, Q&A Rulings, or emails from Scott Evans you think might help for a controversial aspect of your scoring/robot design
• Pack Team Information Sheets
• Pack Team Waiver Forms
• Pack Research Project and Posters
• Pack Research Project Printouts
• Pack boxes of spare Lego parts (our totes are great for this)
• Pack Field Setup Kit and Table if you're bringing it
• Bring things to car that can be cold or withstand condensation (not laptop nor robot)
• Bring extra batteries
• Bring laptop charger, mouse, & USB cable
• Copy the robot program files onto a flash drive.
• Get driving directions near driver

Morning of Tournament

• Everyone brings their cell phones
• Bring camera and camera batteries
• Laptop and Robot to car
• Bring breakfast and eat in car
• Bring music for longer trips to tournaments

Arriving at Tournament

• Set up research project in pit area (or possibly outside, find a public place)
• Set up field for practice
• Check out match tables as soon as possible

Getting Ready for Match

• Consider new Batteries
• Inspect robot for anything out of the ordinary
• Inspect robot for things that often get loose (our small gears)
• Set up robot (we take off side of robot to make way for crash test dummy)
• Position arms
• Make sure all attachments are in tray
• Make sure your first program is selected and ready to run (in our case the light sensor calibration)

Walking up to Match Table

• Calibrate Light Sensor
• Look to see that mat is positioned correctly.  Ask refs to fix if not.
• Look to see that all field objects are positioned correctly
• Lift field objects that should be able to be lifted easily.
• Put things in/on robot that need to be inside.
• Inspect robot again.
• Have someone start stopwatch at "LEGO"