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TL/DR – The carpet that will be used for 2024 FIRST® Robotics Competition events will be the same carpet that was used in 2023 (and prior) seasons.
More Detail:
The carpet historically used at FIRST Robotics Competition events is no longer commercially available. A few teams have already learned this if they tried to recently purchase the carpet.
Due to this unavailability, we tested a new potential carpet at the Maine Summer Heat off-season event in June. (A huge “Thank you!” to the organizers of the event for allowing us to test the carpet there!) While the carpet held up well to the robot action, the gaffer’s tape that we use on the field did not stick.
Can’t use tape? How about paint?
So, we continued to work with our carpet vendor, who agreed to make our old carpet for us to use for the 2024 season.
While teams can still not purchase the official field carpet, teams have two options if they need carpet for a practice field:
The first is to work with your Program Delivery Partner to get used carpet after events.
The second option is to look at this carpet as the vendor’s recommended alternative. (Note that this carpet comes in 12 ft rolls, not the 15 ft rolls used at events, and is the same carpet tested at the offseason event, meaning tape will not stick well to the carpet.)
We continue to evaluate the future of carpet used at events, with the goal to find a commercially available product that can also be purchased by teams.
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