Does your team read the ENTIRE FIRST manual?

[Rohith Surampudi]

in light of recent threads, and posting, i thought id take a poll of which teams read the ENTIRE manual, and which teams do not, if you do not read the entire manual, please provide your reasoning in a post below.


hopefully this thread will be productive and show reasoning why teams should read the entire manual


edit: ps. when i mean "your team, i mean an individual on your team who can answer questions regarding rules, or everyone"

[Libby K]

yes and no.

Personally, I did. 1923, not so much. I'm the one they go to for clarification, but they all know the basics.

[Chris Marra]

I personally read the entire manual on the ride home from Kickoff, but the majority of the team does not read the entire manual. We do kind of make it mandatory that everyone read The Robot, The Game, and The Field, and subteams like CADD read Awards for their own purposes. It becomes pretty obvious when someone does not know the basic details of the Game, and for the people on 177 who do read the entire manual, they get asked a lot of questions during discussions of strategy and design.

[JamesByrne]

we have people who read diferent sections, waht are you going to do if you do not read it.

[Michelle Celio]

Those who have read it have read the entire thing. But the amount that has NOT more than doubles those who have. I personally read it at least 2 but it's not like I have it memorized. But I tend to know about where something should be.

[Lil' Lavery]

We give a rules test on The Game, The Robot, The Arena, and The Tournament to every team member (including animation, vex, financing, website, etc.)
Some other team members read the other sections (namely mentors, team captains, and our "rules guru").

[George1902]

I read the whole manual each year. Anyone who wants to be on our drive team will be quizzed on the manual. I'm pretty sure we'll give our pit crew a quiz on at least the safety and robot rules sections.

[GMAdan]

Our team mandates you read the game and then you read your area like electrical reads electrial and drive train reads what goes to that.

[lukevanoort]

No. I have read most of it every year I have been on the team. A few sections like the team organization section I skim instead of thoroughly reading them. However, most of the rest of the team doesn't, which leads to some mixups. (Like last year when someone on the team ordered an illegal solenoid, and this year when an illegal pneumatic cylinder was purchased)

[EricH]

I read the whole thing. At least twice. Every year. I am the "go-to" person on rules for my team (though I'm not the Q&A person) because I know the manual well. I have to look for the exact rule number, but I know what it says and where to look. Most of the team knows the game and the robot and the arena decently enough.

[LightWaves1636]

It's mainly the student leaders who read the entire thing and then individual team members read what they want to read or need to read. Like the members who want to be a driver or human element reads the game and etc.

[Beth Sweet]

For the most part, returning people can skim half the manual, only looking at parts that have changed from last year (aka, we still submit team info on TIMS as always).

Everyone needs to read the important stuff, the game, arena, etc (awards for websiters and animators and Chairmansers...) but past that, it should be used as a reference material previous to just asking.

It's what I keep trying to convince my professors, in the real world, you don't have to memorize anything, you can look things up. But if you need the answer, you need to try to look it up first.

[MrForbes]

It's what I keep trying to convince my professors, in the real world, you don't have to memorize anything, you can look things up.

That is more true in some professions than in others....and having a good grasp of many important facts, without the need to look them up, can really improve your ability to do your job in most professions.

Having said that, our team (and myself) do the same thing that you do, and we have to look up many rules to figure out what they really say :)

[EHaskins]

I personally have read the entire manual, but I don't think anyone else on the team except the mentors have even seen it. :ahh:

[Setsanto]

I have read the entire manual, as I'm the sort of rules guy on our team, but every one else on our team is supposed to read 6 7 and 8, as they pertain the most to everyone.

[Uncrash]

I'd like to say I read the entire manual, but thats a tedious task.

And time consuming.

However, information is shared well enough so that everyone knows what their build/construction parameters are, and we have copies for any reference the team needs.

Also, the drive team is well-versed in what does and does not cause fouls. That in itself is one of the most important principles stressed.

That does not mean, though, that our driver is a pacifist on the field...

[raymaniac]

I personally do not read the entire manual, just some of it (Game, Robot, Arena, Awards). So I just have a basic understanding of it, but I'm on animation, I don't need to be an expert on all of it.

[Danielle H]

On 393, we print and give out copies of the manual to certain people who are in charge of at least skimming the entire thing and knowing its contents fairly well. There are some of us that are in the process of reading the whole thing and keeping up on the updates.

I know that I get the updates, print them out, and give them to our manufacturing head, the head engineer, a website person, the team captain, and I keep a copy. We'll then read them and update our manual accordingly.

We have a copy of the manual that stays at the school called the "2007 FIRST Bible." We keep it in case those of us that have a copy of the manual fail to bring them to a meeting.

Though not all of us read the entire thing... the entire team is pretty much required to be at least familiar with any and all sections that pertain to their specific sub-team... or else we could have some major problems come Week 6....

[Sean Marks]

I personally have read the majority of the manual. our team has 2 people that read the whole thing. :)

[Danielle H]

I'm one of.. I think, 4... that read, are reading, or have read 99.9% of the manual.....

[Arefin Bari]

Alright, I will be honest. We don't have that many members on team 1345 who reads the whole manual. We mentors assign a kid or two to read the whole manual so we can get answers very quickly when we need it. Personally, I read the whole manual ONCE, I particularly pay attention to the game, the robot and the arena sections of the manual. Other sections, I just skim through. There is a manual sitting in the classroom, so whenever we need it, we have it right infront of us.

[FoxWil]

We arent readers we are doers.

[Tytus Gerrish]

I have never actually read the manual. but when a question arrises about something devious I'm trying to get away with I do a quick crl+f on the pdf and see if I can make my evil schemes matearlize

[imax48236]

I read most of the manual, and printed out a nice copy of it for the team to share. I suggest that other teams do this, it is a valuable tool for our team as a quick reference if we need to check a rule.

With color images, fancy tabs and its own binder, our rulebook pwns.

[JaneYoung]

My post isn't a response to any made - it is something I have been thinking about for awhile. It's a lot of money to lay out for a team to participate in an extraordinary competition called FIRST and to not read the manual or understand the significance of the manual is wasteful. The manual is what keeps the train on the tracks, on schedule, and running smoothly. Without the manual, there is no FIRST competition. So if we don't spend some time studying the rules and understanding them, we are not getting the full benefit of the competition and the money invested. We are doing a disservice to ourselves and to our sponsors by not putting everything we have into the competition.

Reading the manual, reading the updates, using the FIRST Q&A - are ways of investing wisely. If one person is the rules guru for the team, that's great but everyone on the team should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the process of reading the manual. It is a sound investment.

[coko19]

we assign people different parts of the manual to read so one person isnt burdond with it all

[Ericgehrken]

I myself am the rules master for team 195. I had to read the entire manual. Now everyone asks me questions about the rules because they didn't read the manual. I think if you want to be a part of a team then you should read the entire manual before doing anything.

[DonRotolo]

We give a rules test on The Game, The Robot, The Arena, and The Tournament to every team member (including animation, vex, financing, website, etc.)
Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.
It is a sound investment.
Darn it Jane, there you go being the voice of reason again! THANK YOU!


I said it once, I'll say it again: How can you design something without knowing the specifications?

Don

[raymaniac]

Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.

If you fail the test, you get to take a different one. If you take it 5* times and still can't pass it, you don't get to go on any of the trips.

*I think. I'm not exactly sure about the number.

[Pavan Dave]

I have read the entire manual, as I'm the sort of rules guy on our team, but every one else on our team is supposed to read 6 7 and 8, as they pertain the most to everyone.


I have read the manual from cover to cover once. I think that on our team most of the people are pretty familiar with the rules but do not read from cover to cover because some parts are not as necessary depending on what you do on the team and usually the other sections like awards and stuff are answered by veterans so my answer is that 100% of the team does not read cover to cover, but almost every member is familiar to at least Section 6, 7, 8.

Pavan.

[Alexa Stott]

Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.

Don

Team 25 also gives a test out to the team on important parts of the manual, as well as a little bit of team history. Last year, the test was to see who would be allowed in the pits.

This year, it's more to just make sure everyone knows the rules and knows information about the team in case a judge happens to start asking them questions.

[Lil' Lavery]

If you fail the test, you get to take a different one. If you take it 5* times and still can't pass it, you don't get to go on any of the trips.

*I think. I'm not exactly sure about the number.

We've never had that much trouble getting everyone to pass before this year. Typically we only have to give it twice (maybe 3) times for everyone to pass it. After seeing so many people failing, we changed our penalty from not attending the trips to not counting their hours (team members must maintain a certain % of hours to go on the trips) until they passed. Also, the leadership will definitely keep in mind how long it took a student to pass the test when selecting our pit and drive crews.

[Triple D]

our team needed to read the whole manual and the monday after kickoff the teacher who mentors us gave everybody a quiz on it

[Athleticgirl389]

I consider it my light reading during classes I could care less about :D Took me about 2 school days to read the whole thing lol.