eve,

the answer to reliable robot performance is quite long and involved - too long for everyone on the list to respond.

Battery power, design, sensors, dust, and robot alignment all have an impact on accuracy and reliability - program length by itself is probably not a factor but programming itself might be.  One of the GREAT benefits from your team attending a competition and learning from observing other teams.

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 2, 2011, at 11:12 AM, "Eve M. Heshler" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Another question...Our robot always performed the first half of our 
> program flawlessly, but it seems like now that we are on the second 
> half it is not going where we need it to go. Is it possible the program is 
> too long? You know...the old telephone game where the message ends 
> up jumbled at the end because everyone has heard it and repeated it 
> differently? I'm thinking we may need to send it back to base at the 
> point where it is malfunctioning and send it back out to complete the 
> second half. It is only 6" from base anyway. I hope it is not a problem 
> with our robot. It will perform perfectly again once it dies down to a 
> certain battery level, so my other option is we are running it so much at 
> practice that it is affecting our program. 
> 
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