Israeli team asking for volunteers to drive their robot at Champs

[Leav]

Hello,

Team 3358 is a from a religious jewish school, and all the students and teachers are orthodox jews. This means that they can not drive their robot or do any other work during the "Shabbat" (sunset friday till sundown saturday).

On their behalf I am requesting assistance from teams willing to drive and operate the robot during most of friday and saturday.

We would ideally like a group of 4-5 people who would work together with the team on thursday and friday morning to familiarize themselves with the robot and the team's tools, and then take over later on friday to drive the robot and take care of it all the way through the rest of the competition.

This is a great opportunity for a team to get some field experience for a new drive team.

ideally we would like:

2 drivers
1 coach
1 human player
1-2 pit crew


Please feel free to ask questions, and please discuss this with your team leaders before committing to anything.

Teams willing to fill in all the above spots will be given priority since it simplifies the process, but it would also be cool to assemble an allstar team made from students from many teams, so don't hold back! :)

Thanks from the YTPT J.E.T.S (http://www.ytpt.co.il/robotica/index.html), and the FIRST Israel community!

-Leav

[billbo911]

Hello,

Team 3358 is a from a religious jewish school, and all the students and teachers are orthodox jews. This means that they can not drive their robot or do any other work during the "Shabbat" (sunset friday till sundown saturday).

On their behalf I am requesting assistance from teams willing to drive and operate the robot during most of friday and saturday.

We would ideally like a group of 4-5 people who would work together with the team on thursday and friday morning to familiarize themselves with the robot and the team's tools, and then take over later on friday to drive the robot and take care of it all the way through the rest of the competition.

This is a great opportunity for a team to get some field experience for a new drive team.

ideally we would like:

2 drivers
1 coach
1 human player
1-2 pit crew


Please feel free to ask questions, and please discuss this with your team leaders before committing to anything.

Teams willing to fill in all the above spots will be given priority since it simplifies the process, but it would also be cool to assemble an allstar team made from students from many teams, so don't hold back! :)

Thanks from the YTPT J.E.T.S (http://www.ytpt.co.il/robotica/index.html), and the FIRST Israel community!

-Leav

I will mention this to my team this afternoon! We will be in St. Louis with our primary drive team and our backup drive team. This would be an awesome opportunity for FIRST to show support for ALL people of ALL faiths. What an excellent way to also demonstrate Gracious Professionalism!

[Alex Cormier]

That would be really fun to coach. I am somewhat interested.

Hmm...

[thedries]

MORT will also be traveling with a pair of eager alternate drivers to St. Louis, as well as capable pit crew members. I will have to speak with them to see if they would be willing to donate their time. This is an interesting situation and we would love to help out in any way we can. I will get back to you when I know more.

[Leav]

I will mention this to my team this afternoon!
That would be really fun to coach. I am somewhat interested.
This is an interesting situation and we would love to help out in any way we can.

Thank you all for being so enthusiastic about this! :)
To you and all others who will post here later: I hope we can all work together to form the best team we can for 3358, so that their robot will show it's full potential!

[Alex Cormier]

Thank you all for being so enthusiastic about this! :)
To you and all others who will post here later: I hope we can all work together to form the best team we can for 3358, so that their robot will show it's full potential!

Have any pictures of the robot?

[XaulZan11]

My first thought was that this could be a great opportunity for some Dean's List finalists who are in St. Louis without their team.

[rsisk]

Hmm, my daughter is a dean's list finalist, drove for our team in San Diego, coached for her team in LA, and will be in St. Louis without a team. Sounds like the perfect candidate for the 3358 drive team. I forwarded her the link, but she is in school right now and cannot respond. I'm sure she would be thrilled to be part of the drive team.

Danielle would prefer to be a driver but would also accept a position on the pit team. I have PMed you her contact information.

[Jon236]

Have any pictures of the robot?


Alex.....I am looking for them and will post them when I find them!

[ktress357]

Team 357 may be able to offer two or three students to help out. I'm talking to my team's head mentor now about it. We have team members with three years of driver/ operator practice that may be able to help out,also we have a couple students which got some practice as human player this build season, and a lot of our members have a lot of practice working as pit crew. I will see what we can do, and let you know.

[pandamonium]

I am an alumni who mentors our teams strategy and Drive team. We have a very good secondary team who really want as much experience as possible. They would really enjoy this opportunity and I can guarantee they will do a great job.

We have a very skilled driver who is a senior. She has won 2 off season events with different robots. She is very good at adapting to different controls and is a quick learner.

We also have a coach that has been itching to get more field time. He loves strategy and eats, sleeps, and breaths first.

I can get you video of them driving and perhaps give them a chance to interview for this role. I have a feeling you will have a ton of interest and may need to hold try outs!

I am really excited about this!

[Ryan Himmelblau]

This sounds like an amazing idea. Being Jewish myself I can really sympathies with 3358. I have posted this link on my team's forums, and will talk with them about this at our next class meeting. We always take a large number of students down to worlds and I'm sure some of them would love to help.

Personally, I can volunteer to help out with any of their mechanical needs. (At my Scouting Mentor's discretion of course)

[Ed Law]

Hmm, my daughter is a dean's list finalist, drove for our team in San Diego, coached for her team in LA, and will be in St. Louis without a team. Sounds like the perfect candidate for the 3358 drive team. I forwarded her the link, but she is in school right now and cannot respond. I'm sure she would be thrilled to be part of the drive team.

My son is also a Dean's list finalist from Michigan. He was drive coach of the team for the last 3 years and is very good at it. He is also in charge of the pit and can fix any mechanical, pneumatics, electrical and control system issues. He will also be there without a team as we did not qualify for the first time in our 3 short years. My son goes to a public school that is mostly Jewish families.

I think it is a great idea to let these Dean's list finalists without their team work together.

I will be there also and as an automotive engineer for almost 25 years, I can be available to help support this all-star Dean's list finalist team.

[JaneYoung]

Leav,

When you get the team put together that will represent 3358, please post here in CD with their information. Also, please post a photo of the 3358 teams together. This is so cool.

Jane

[Jon236]

Leav,

When you get the team put together that will represent 3358, please post here in CD with their information. Also, please post a photo of the 3358 teams together. This is so cool.

Jane


Jane,

You should have been there a couple of years ago when I introduced Greg Needel's team to 2214, the Yamin Orde Youth Village. The kids from 2214 were virtually all Ethiopians, so they were very tall, very black and very Jewish. Greg's kids were all short Afro-American Baptists. As I pointed out....'now, you probably thought all Jews are white.' FIRST is great at impacting culture!

[Leav]

Leav,

When you get the team put together that will represent 3358, please post here in CD with their information. Also, please post a photo of the 3358 teams together. This is so cool.

Jane

I'll be sure to do that, and I agree: this is so cool :)



CRITICAL UPDATE!
Jon has reminded me that the volunteers can't be jewish themselves (if they were then it would be as if 3358 was asking another jewish person to break jewish tradition)!
so this is a bit weird, but i'm going to have to ask that jewish people do not volunteer... (this is a bit awkward...)

To everyone reading this:
I am going to give everyone a day to think about this before we start working on finalizing the team.
so if you want to help: talk to your team, make sure you can, and post here.

[viperred396]

I will pass this along to our drive team! This seems to be a great way to get some people involved who would not normally go to CMP

[karomata]

Hi,

My mentor, pandamonium, mentioned me earlier. I'm the secondary coach for my team, 1511, and i have received approval to help your team if you'd like. I can coach and i am also an eletrical pit student, so i could help there, but my main focus is on coaching. I was also part of the presenting crew that won chairman's in Washington DC.

heres my email adress:
moelhelw@gmail.com
I'd love to help you guys out.
thanks
karomata

[superbotman]

I am fortunate enough to have my whole team going, so I can not totally abandon them, but if you want any help I would love to. I expect I will not be doing much in my pit anyways.

Good Luck!

[Leav]

I'd like to thank everyone for the enthusiasm to volunteer!

two reminders:

if you're volunteering, please let me know for what position (you can edit your posts, i'll re-read through everything later).
a lot of individuals are volunteering, which is awesome!!! if possible i'd love to hear from teams who can fill more than one role so that we get a team together who already knows how to work together.

[Jon236]

Here are some pictures of 3358's robot with Referee Nadin (formerly of Team Tamra 1946) and Field Manager Rob MacIntyre in the background. Courtesy of Israel Zeierman, one of my judges.

[superbotman]

We will give you
2 drivers
1 coach
1 human player
and they will be trained because we have a shadow bot

[GaryVoshol]

My son is also a Dean's list finalist from Michigan. He was drive coach of the team for the last 3 years and is very good at it. He is also in charge of the pit and can fix any mechanical, pneumatics, electrical and control system issues. He will also be there without a team as we did not qualify for the first time in our 3 short years. My son goes to a public school that is mostly Jewish families.

I think it is a great idea to let these Dean's list finalists without their team work together.

I will be there also and as an automotive engineer for almost 25 years, I can be available to help support this all-star Dean's list finalist team.

I agree, Jason would be a great addition to the team.

[viperred396]

leav,

I have pm'ed you our details

Thanks,
Bryan

[The Lucas]

MOE 365 would be honored to provide assistance to the JETS (3358) during Shabbat. It was a great experience for our students to be a part of a similar effort to help teams 1576 & 2214 during the 2008 championship (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31398). The 2008 effort was organised by Jon Mittelman (236) with volunteers from current Hall of Fame Teams 16, 111, 175, 236, 341 & 365 (236 won CA in '09 and 341 in '10, an interesting coincidence). I think the multi-team effort is the right approach, it was the best part of 08 IMHO. Dean's List students attending without teams are good candidates for competition team.

We will be able to contribute 1 or more students full time to help 3358. Our MOEbile pit crew (2nd pit crew with students from all of our subteams assembled, whose only task is to assist other teams) is always underutilized at Championships, since the majority of the team do not require any assistance after their first event. Members of the MOEbile pit crew are accustomed to spending long periods of time (sometimes the entirety of the qualification rounds) in another team's pit. They also coordinate with other MOEbile Pit and Pit Crew members to solve specific problems in their area of expertise (i.e. I will be called in if there is a hard to identify control system issue ;) ) Our next meeting is on Wed, where we will tell the team about this situation and identify volunteers.

According to their website (http://www.ytpt.co.il/robotica/index.html), 3358 uses mecanum wheels. Ideally, the driver should have mecanum drive experience. Several members of our MOEbile pit have off-season comp team experience (one actually choose MOEbile pit crew over comp team this year) but we have never used a mecanum drive. Teams like 357 are more likely to have experienced mecanum drivers.

Something everyone can do is cheer for 3358 during their matches. Everyone in their eventual division, when you hear them announced, get up and cheer. Teams form other divisions, look at the schedule and go cheer for 3358 and their surrogate drivers. Trust me this is something you want to see, and no one wants silence when a team is introduced

[superbotman]

Sorry I was short earlier. we were about to start a team meeting, but if you want we could supply an entire drive team. As I said before we have robots, including one that plays this year's game that the drive team can work with to prep for the competition. The human player would either have two half competitions worth of experience (the two throwers traded off at our comps.).
Or they would train more with us throwers for the rest of the time up to the competition. The coach has not done much coaching so far, but he has been instrumental to analyzing the games at our regionals this year.

I do not know if we could provide people dedicated to your pit, but we would be happy to help whenever necessary.

[Matt704]

I am going to the world championships because I am a Dean's List Finalist.

I would defiantly be willing to help you help.
I have been the team driver for team 704 for the past 5 years and I do have championship experience.

If you would like my help you can e-mail me at matt17@sbcglobal.net

If you would like to see some of my driving here is a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuyUM9LV7O0

[Jon236]

MOE 365 would be honored to provide assistance to the JETS (3358) during Shabbat. It was a great experience for our students to be a part of a similar effort to help teams 1576 & 2214 during the 2008 championship (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31398). The 2008 effort was organised by Jon Mittelman (236) with volunteers from current Hall of Fame Teams 16, 111, 175, 236, 341 & 365 (236 won CA in '09 and 341 in '10, an interesting coincidence). I think the multi-team effort is the right approach, it was the best part of 08 IMHO. Dean's List students attending without teams are good candidates for competition team.



Thank you for the mention, but my son David (TechnoTicks 2000-2002) did most of the legwork. He has been active after graduating high school, including stints as Scorer in Israel and CT. After a stint in the US Navy, he is currently finishing a year abroad at the University of Leeds as part of his work for a degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Connecticut. FIRST was instrumental in inspiring his career choice, as well as that of my son Daniel (WPI 2010), currently a Mechanical Engineer at Electric Boat. My dedication to FIRST is to a great measure a result of the great influence FIRST has had on my sons. Besides, as we all know, there is no exit strategy!

[Rjmartin127]

On discretion of my mentors, I am interested in helping in the pits. Of course if my team and mentors are ok with it.

[James1902]

1902's main Driver and Coach will be in St. Louis

Our Human Player may be going and a capable Manipulator will be going as well.

Our Driver is mechanically minded and a very quick study

We would love to help out if you would like

[Alan Anderson]

1902...would love to help out if you would like

My wife doesn't think help from Exploding Bacon would be kosher. :D

[JaneYoung]

Jane,

You should have been there a couple of years ago when I introduced Greg Needel's team to 2214, the Yamin Orde Youth Village. The kids from 2214 were virtually all Ethiopians, so they were very tall, very black and very Jewish. Greg's kids were all short Afro-American Baptists. As I pointed out....'now, you probably thought all Jews are white.' FIRST is great at impacting culture!

Jon,

I would have loved to have been there. I remember some of the posts and stories you have shared with us about the experiences you have had. They have all made me smile and very happy to see so much positive impact occurring.

@Alan - your wife has an awesome sense of humor.

Jane

[pandamonium]

I believe that there areas many as 6 teams from Israel registered is this a problem only one team is experiencing?

[Leav]

I believe that there areas many as 6 teams from Israel registered is this a problem only one team is experiencing?

6 teams are indeed attending the championship, but this is only a problem for one of them since only one team is comprised of religious students.

If you'd like to know more - wikipedia, As always, proves to be a good source of information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel
I can give you the short version right now: we're a complicated country... :rolleyes:



----------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding finalizing the team:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going on vacation for the weekend (Thursday-Saturday), so I'll leave this open until Sunday.
On Sunday I'll contact everyone who volunteered (anyone who has posted here or contacted me via PM by then) we can work together to build the best volunteer team to help 3358!

Thanks again for volunteering... you are all reminding me why I love this community and FIRST so much :)

[pfreivald]

Team 1551 will have our drive team at Championship and almost definitely will NOT be competing (we're still waitlisted), so we'd love to participate!

[HannahF]

Team 433 would also like to offer our help in any way that we can.

One of our senior drivers has volunteered to fill any of the drive team spaces needed.
She has two years of field experience (regional and championship level) as 1st driver and 3 years of off season experience as first driver and operator. We also use mecanum wheels so it should not be hard for her to adapt to your controls.

My programming mentor also wanted me to ask what language team 3358 programs in because if labview, we would be glad to provide a programmer and mentor for their pit as well as any other help you would need throughout the competition.

~Hannah

[Bob Steele]

Team 1983 would be happy to help in any way that they can.
We are honored that some of our brothers and sisters in Israel are participating and obeying the sabbath law at the same time.

Our pit is yours if you need any help.
I would suggest that you form a helper group that are from the Division that you are assigned. You will find this out closer to the CMP.

Let us know any way that we can help.

[rees2001]

I have some kids that would be happy to help in any way possible. One of them actually recommended 1551. As Partick pointed out they will have thier drive team there but probably not be competing. I know they are familiar with mecanum and have used it as a drive for many years. Let me know if you need anything.

Will they have other things they need help with while in St. Louis like scouting?

[pfreivald]

I spoke to my team this afternoon, and the six students and I are all very excited at the prospect, so please let us know what we can do to assist!

As Rees said, we've been using mecanum for a couple of years.

[zachmartin1806]

Please check for a PM from FIRST Team 1806 in regards to this thread.

[treffk]

Team 1802 will have a few people there to observe one is a driver. Just let me know if you will need them.

[Koko Ed]

Leav also has requested that teams sign his team flag that was left at the side of Curie last season that I will be returning to another Isreali team at St. Louis. It's an Isreali national flag but he said it's ok (I hope it is) . I will leave it at the side of the field with a couple of fabric markers for anyone who is on Curie or Archimedes to feel free to sign for them.

[ktress357]

Hi, my name is Kyle Tress, and I'm a dean’s list finalist from last year on team 357. I talked to my team and if you would like we have 3 team members and 2 mentors which would be more than happy to help out. I am one of the team members that would like to volunteer. I have about 3 ½ years of regular season driver team experience, and about 3 years of off season drive team experience. Of those years 3 of the years I was driver. Most of my experience is with Maccum drive seeing how our team has used it every year but one in the time I have been on the team. I have also worked in the pit on my team for the past four years. The other team member has about 1 ½ years of off season operator experience. He has also about 3 years of experience of working in the pits. The third team member has about 3 years of experience working in the pit and has had experience being human player for about the last 2 years. All of the students have been on the team for the past four years.

The one mentor has about one year experience of coaching and about two years experience of working with the students in the pit. The final mentor has never been coach but has worked with the students in the pit for many years. If you need two more students to help out to work in the pit, I may be able to get some of the first and second year members of our team to help out, but I’m not positive if they can yet. If you would like any of us to volunteer and help out, we would be more than happy to. If you have any questions, just let me know.

All just an idea, but if in the end you pick a single team to volunteer, you may want to try and ask FIRST if they could put you in the same division and have your pits next to each other. I’m not sure if they would go for it, but I know it would make it a lot easier for the team who is picked to volunteer.

Thanks,

Kyle Tress

[SGK]

BUZZ 175 supported 2214, the Yamin Orde Youth Village, a couple years ago. Two of our students had a blast. Even wearing the Israeli flag and "ready" to say "Team 2214 graciously accepts" in Hebrew!!

I will see if we have any students available.

:) :) :) :) :)

[BandChick]

Team 1089 isn't competing at the Championships this year, but our lead driver and strategist will be at the event. We were hoping for a team to Rent-a-Helper for the weekend, and we'd definitely be interested in helping you out whatever you need!

[thedries]

Assuming the division lists are correct, it looks like 11 and 3358 will be in the same division ( Newton ). I talked everything over with my team, and we be happy to offer any assistance they might need. While I agree that their best bet would be to use a drive team that has worked together before, we will still have our 2 alternate drivers available should they require it, as well as a full pit team to help with any repairs they might require.

[Jon236]

This is great.....in just 3 days, FIRSTers from 26 teams have stepped up to help 3358! Thanks everybody!

[Jeffy]

I would like to sign up team 2410's drive team, because unfortuantely we did not qualify this year :/.
A quick bio:
Robot driver (Jeff):
-Senior
-Operator freshman and sophmore year
-Driver Junior and Senior year
-Has driven in the elims 6 times, 6 matches in the Finals
-Driven (in order of past to present) 4wd tank, meccanum, and 8wd tank w/ shifting

Operator (David):
-Senior
-Has been the operator for team 2334 for the past 3 years
-His first year with 2410 and he is doing great
-Lead programmer and C++ wizard

Coach (Sean):
-Senior
-This is his first year
-Played robo coach a few matches in 2008
-Does a great job giving us logo updates

We are also up for pit crew if you need a hand. I ussualy handle mechanical stuff and Sean and David are the team leads on electronics.

Now you know the team :P.

[re_link]

Being a member of the Miracle Workerz mobile pit crew and with my mechanical and electrical experience, I would absolutely love to work with your team as a member of the pit crew!

Patrick Harrington

[Leav]

UPDATE - April 19th

(did that grab your attention? :p)

Ok, I think I PM'd everyone who specifically offered to volunteer, and sent them a link to a form for them to fill. If you didn't get PM'd, Don't sweat it! just PM me and let me know what position you'd like to be in.

I'm sorry for not being more on top of things, but some personal stuff got in the way.

My intention is to finalize the list tomorrow, I'll keep everyone posted!

-Leav

[Ana Paula]

Hi, my name is Ana Paula Lamas I´m team member of Fervot 3462, we are a Rookie team from Mexico, I read your message and think this is a great opportunity to work with and meet other teams, my team would be glad to help you in whatever you need. =) my e-mail adress is ana_lamas_20@hotmail.com please let us know.

[pfreivald]

Okay, Leav is away from a computer at the moment and apologizes that he can't post this message himself, but I have volunteered to give the following information in regards to 3358 at Championship:

First, thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has volunteered! The outpouring of support is wonderful, and we wish there was room for everyone to drive, coach, etc., as they indicated they wanted to. We tried to spread things out amongst multiple teams as best as possible.

Second, there will still be a need for pit crew and scouting, so even if your name didn't make "the list", your effort in those capacities will be most appreciated.

Third, the list, assuming everyone is still interested:

Danielle Sisk (2493; Dean's List finalist) will be Pit Crew Lead.
Jason Law (2834; Dean's List finalist) will be the Drive Coach.
Justin Johnson (357) will be the Human Player.
Adam Dean and Alex Whipple (1551) will be the Drivers.
Hannah Farrell (433) will be the Programmer.
Chris Lin (365) will be on minibot detail.
Michael Crane (357) will be Lead Mentor of the amalgam team, with me running backup as needed.

Everyone else who volunteered to be on the pit crew and/or to do scouting, etc., your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

[Leav]

Hi everyone,

very sorry to have dragged this out so long, but there were several "unscheduled events" going on during the last week which really kept me busy and away from a computer.

I'd like to thank everyone who volunteered to help, and wish you all a great championship.

This experience has been very heartwarming and I'm proud to be part of same community as you all.

make St. Louis 2011 a championship to remember!

-Leav