he only thing you may want to pay close attention to is the position of the field mat on your table because, depending on how your table was built vs how a tournament table was built, there may be differences in how close the edge of the mat is to the wall.  If it is right up to the wall on your table and a 1/2 inch away on a tournament table and you line up to the wall in base and your program calls for traveling a certain distance, then your robot may travel not far enough (that 1/2 inch).  Hopefully I am not too confusing.  I will say that I have run into this very situation and it was a very definite lesson learned for our team.
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Wally Walter
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] Robot Starting Point in Base

Hi Mary,
 
The rules don't preclude the robot touching the wall when starting at base, only that nothing goes over the wall.
 
Using the wall to align the robot is a very smart strategy.  It is fast and reasonably accurate. 
 
I have a section on consistent mission starts in my robot fundamentals training module.  You can find it at http://www.masteringlegorobot.com/robot-fundamentals, starting on page 29.
 
Wally Walter
VA DC/FLL Coaches' Mentor
 
 
On 10/23/12, Mary<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
I apologize if this has been answered already, but wanted to check with the
experts! I seem to recall last year, the rules prohibited the robot starting position
to be against a wall. We are working on our starting positions for all of our
missions and are finding it hard to have each member start the robot the same,
therefore the mission can run a bit differently. One team member wanted to have
the robot start against the wall each time.

Is that allowed?

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