Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I wanted to create a thread of tips for rookie teams to think about to improve on their robots. Build season is rapidly approaching and I haven't seen a single thread about tips and tricks to help teams. Some examples of things that would be worth mentioning would be like:
-Low Center of Gravity
-Don't overcomplicate things
-Ectetera...Whatever y'all think would be worth mentioning!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Like you said, don't overcomplicate things, that would be my biggest tip. The problems we've had in the past is that we've tried to do things that just weren't realistic for how old our team was. Also, prototyping is a very important stage, make sure that it's decently consistent before moving on to the final.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

1. Good Bumpers!!!!!! Actually use the material FIRST recommends (I think it's condura or something like that)

2. Make sure you learn to download your code correctly

3. Have a good pit designed before going to your first event

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Whatever the size FIRST gives for the robot, build 1" under. Not design, build. Somehow, the robot will gain that inch back.


Ditto for weight: build 10# under (accomplished by designing 15# under). That way, you'll come out right at maximum--though having to grab a block of steel might be necessary.


Aim for the simpler tasks. Particularly if you don't have a lot of expertise. Sometimes, a lockdown robot that can score lots of 1-pointers can be worth more than a high-point robot that only works half the time.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

First off, to any rookies who may end up reading his, welcome to FIRST. :D It's going to be one of the best things you will experience in your time as a student. People on this forum are here to help, so don't be shy to ask for it. (Search for a previous thread on it first though.)

As for tips:

Keep it simple.
Many people have already stated it, and it can't be stated enough.

Other pieces of advice (for a rookie team):
1. Use the KOP. I've seen a fair share of team, even veteran ones, who try to build their own drive train and end up with one less competent than the KOP. The KOP may not necessarily be the best, but it's reliable and allows you to focus on your mechanisms .
2. Read the manual. ::rtm:: Take it seriously, the last thing you want is to find out you come in conflict with the rules at competition. Make sure you give yourself a practice inspection before bag.
3. Make components (relatively) easy to replace. Things break. Accidents happen. You'll save yourself a lot of headache if things like motors, motor controllers, and wires are easy to access. Access holes/points are key.
4. Design within your limits. Don't design a robot you can't build or afford. Know what your team can and can't pull off. It wouldn't be very wise for a rookie team to do a swerve drive, for instance... Also, do order parts you think you will need ahead of time. Things go out of stock pretty fast during build season.

I'll post more later if I think of some.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Ask questions before it is too late

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

A lot of teams start their brainstorming on Day 1 diving headfirst into how they might make various components on a robot. You might make a bunch of excellent robot parts, but without a well thought out strategy that robot will inevitably be playing inefficiently.

A good guideline is to leave robot part discussion off the table for at least the first day or two. Use this time to have every single team member read every line of the rules. Then, discuss how to play the game. Keep track of every idea (sticky notes and whiteboards are great for this) because even ideas that don't work can cause someone to think of something brilliant. No side conversations for the same reason.

You should be discussing how the robot is scoring points, what you think other robots will do, and how to fit yourself into an alliance (always remember that you can't do everything yourself). Look for choke-hold strategies, though there often may not be one. Once you know what the robot needs to do, you can figure out what parts are needed to achieve that.

Also, my pet peeve: don't worry about pushing matches. If you're on offense, pushing against a defender is exactly what they want you to do. If you push, you waste your time. Time is points, so instead try to avoid or evade defenders. If you're on defense, your wheels should be perpendicular to the path of your opponent, so there should be no need to push.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

With the new perimeter rules the 1" under issues is much less severe.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Pick one thing, and do it well.

Last year, our failing point was trying to design a robot that could do everything. We wanted it to have a 50-point climb and a full-court shooter. We didn't have our final climber built until the day of bag-and-tag. 3 hours before the deadline, in our first test of the mechanism, the cables broke, and we realized that the design wouldn't work. Our shooter, designed to be on top of a robot with a low CoG, did not work as a FCS because we had to turn the robot around after loading 3 disks, to fire the shooter.

Also, know the rules by heart before the second day. The night of kickoff, the game rules are your only companion until you know them backwards and forwards. This goes for every member of the team. That said, always have a copy of the rule book handy for rule checks and other references, especially during the design process. Before you even start designing and prototyping an idea, make sure it is within the rules.

It is also best if you make diagrams and drawings of some of the rules for the robot (size, weight, wire gauges, etc.) for quick reference during the designing and building of the robot.

Also, leaders and older members, delegate, delegate, delegate. You should never have idle hands/minds at meetings. There is always something that needs to be done, so, if there is someone standing around, either you need to take a step back and let someone else do what you are doing, or you need to find something for them to do. Have a list of random jobs going into a meeting, so you can assign them to idle people.

Teach new and young members, and have them work on the robot a lot! If you have a lot of seniors that do everything, there will be no one next year that know what they are doing. On top of that, what is the point of joining a robotics team if you don't get to do anything. It is a learning experience for everyone, so let it be just that.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

#1 Read the manual, cover to cover.

#2 Read the manual, cover to cover.

#3 Read the manual, cover to cover.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

#4 Repeat steps 1-3

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Quite true. OTOH, it's always a pain to arrive and discover that you're out of compliance by -><-. I've seen that a few times... and it's never fun to tell a team that they are out of compliance by dimension.


As far as the rules-reading goes, I've got a couple of things...
-There is no unimportant rule. (And, for those wanting to get a head start, the Administrative Manual has been released already. Some of those "Can we use X at the event?" questions are already answered.)
-Read ALL the Updates issued. They change the rules, sometimes significantly.
-Read ALL the Q&A. Most of it won't necessarily apply to you--but the items that do can be pretty important.
-If it has a rule number, it is not a suggestion. If it's in a blue box, it's explanation for that requirement, or clarification of it.


Oh, and one more tip for all rookies: Bring a wheeled conveyance for your robot and driver's station, marked with your team number. Your arms and legs will thank you for the wheels; the queuing staff will thank you that they can return it to you easily.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

With out a doubt, this is the best advice in my estimation. To add to that, build it and have it running within the first week before you worry about scoring mechanisms.

David

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I can think of a few:
-Show GP at the competition
-Don't drive behind success. Do your best and success will dive behind you!
-Show great sportsmanship. After all, FIRST is a "Sport," AKA, the "Sport of the Mind." We build robot athletes to participate in the sport, released on the Kickoff!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Here's a presentation Mike Corsetto and I gave to our team just a couple months ago. Should give rookie teams a good place to start.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tp700bu4l9...0workshop.pptx

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Last year was my first year mentoring a rookie team (4464), and it went much more smoothly than I think any of us had been anticipating. Here are some tips, based both on what worked for us, and what we realize we could have improved:

- Extensive preseason training, with FRC hardware. The importance of getting the students familiar with the control system, especially, prior to build season is hard to overstate. Mechanically, if the students do not have any experience with machining and/or construction, you really must get tools and parts in their hands. There is no substitute for experience and familiarity.

- Safety training! There are lots of good resources for this out there. Rookie teams should probably have a meeting or two prior to build season devoted entirely to making/reviewing safety rules and procedures, which should be written down and put in a visible place (on a poster or similar).

- Plan ahead of time, in detail, the first few meetings after kickoff. You want to have a brainstorming and discussion schedule that you can follow. Remember that you can't design a system without knowing your design constraints, which means that you must decide on a strategy before brainstorming a design. Hold practice brainstorming sessions based on past FRC games to get students used to the process. Make sure you encourage everyone to speak up and contribute ideas - I've seen far too many design discussions railroaded by a small number of very vocal team members (myself included) when other people had valuable input that simply never was put forward.

- Put a large build season calendar in a visible place, and set/mark important dates/deadlines as build season progresses. Organization is key to success.

- Specialize. After kickoff, pick one task, and build your robot to do it. Over-ambition is probably the single biggest cause of build-season disappointment I've seen, even on established teams. Keeping your sights within reason not only keeps the challenge more manageable, but enables crucial design iteration.

- Keep your designs simple. This means as few moving parts as possible. More complexity leads to more failure modes, and more failure modes leads to less success.

- When in doubt, overbuild rather than underbuild. The weight limit is a pain, but even more of a pain is having critical structural failure modes reveal themselves at competition. Exceptionally rigid/beefy mechanisms are usually not only more resistant to failure, but (especially in the case of shooters, like this past year) they often perform in a more repeatable, reliable fashion.

- Design and fabricate according to your machining capability. If you lack precision tools, match-drilling and cutting to templates are your best friends. Make sure that students know they need to keep tolerances in mind when designing.

- Make sure every structural bolt/nut assembly on the robot has some sort of locking hardware if it is feasible to do so - lock washers, nylock nuts, loctite, etc.

- Make sure your robot is serviceable. I've spent too much time at regionals than I care to recall taking apart half of a robot to replace one or two small parts. If it's not bulletproof, make every effort to ensure you can get to it and replace it in short order.

- Pick your drivers early, make a practice drive base, and practice driving. Driver ability is every bit as important as robot quality on the field.

- Make sure everyone on the team really gets gracious professionalism before attending a competition. FRC simply would not function if the atmosphere at competition were not as helpful and friendly as it is, and you need to make sure every single person on the team appreciates that, and makes it their job to uphold it.

I think this is enough for now. Most importantly, have fun.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Last post on the last page, I really think this will help rookie teams so I just wanted to make sure it wasn't missed by people looking.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I looked at that presentation. It was quite through and full of important information. Another good thing is that it is in Plain English!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

1.) Have decent looking bumpers that match the FIRST color scheme, using the recommend material is best as well. Good bumpers do not make good robots but at competitions you can usually get a feel for a robot by looking at its bumpers.

2.) Watch Karthik's presentations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apk_X-maRf8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smWy7FQ8jLE

Pay attention to his section on strategic design, especially in the 2012 one. He talks about many ways to make a competitive robot without many resources. The example that he uses is that in 2012 having a small robot that could balance well on the bridges was more valuable in most regional play than a less than mediocre shooter. Follow his priority list idea. It's simple, but it works.

3.) ::rtm:: ::rtm:: ::rtm:: ::rtm:: ::rtm::

Read the manual! Read the manual! Read the manual! Read the manual! Read the manual!

If you don't know the rules you aren't really playing. Think of that friend that wants to play Settlers of Catan, even though you don't know how, that says he will just explain the rules as he goes along. It's no fun and really hard for both of you. Learn the rules before you play.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

No matter how good of an idea it seems like, or how much weight it will save, do NOT use castors in your drivebase. Your drivers will thank you for it.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

There is a lot of information to be had on the FRC website, documents for mentors are very helpful.
You will want a robot cart at your competitions. Carrying the robot to the field gets old after the second match.
Bring the KOP to your competition. You never know what you will need (or forgot to add to the robot). You can't put on what you don't have.
Inspectors are your friends. They are they to help you or find someone who can. They are tasked with making your weekend fun and memorable for your students. They will explain all the nuances of being at your first event and help you work towards success and a possible award. Inspectors are there to help you compete (and be compliant with the rules) not to prevent you from competing.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

1. Get in touch with your Regional Director or Senior Mentor. Find out what teams are in the area.
2. Invite the area teams to your workspace - or invite yourself to theirs. Have donuts. Make friends.
3. Find out what these local teams are excellent at, then contact them for tips and tricks throughout your design and build.
4. Weeks 3-5 are the toughest - find some way to stay motivated and on-task. Don't lose sight of the fun of the program, but don't let the fun overtake the work.
5. Design your pits during build season. Note which tools and hardware you are using, so you'll have them at events.
6. Schedule in time to do programming throughout the build season.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

- As mentioned before, the Kit of Parts drive train is an invaluable resource, and out of the box, it'll out perform a good half of the 'custom' drives built in a given year. If you've got the time, and the money, using a handful of COTS components to upgrade, whether they be from AndyMark, VexPro, West Coast Products, etc, can end up being very worth while. 1114 Produced a document outlining how to build a 'Kit Bot on Steroids' which is something achievable my more teams than not and will perform well enough to keep up with just about anyone.

- Your Drive Train is the single most important (non-control system) thing on your robot. Do no compromise the drive without good reason. I can think of numerous occasions where a has shown up to an event with a broken/under-performing/bad manipulator and still made a significant contribution to their alliances efforts by being able to drive reliably, consistently and intelligently.

- Make Friends. A lot of teams, Rookie and Veterans alike seem to spend the 6 weeks of build season in a vacuum for fear of giving up the 'secret sauce'. Trust me, it's not exactly a good idea - although, every team has the right to share as little or as much as they want with the world. Sometimes a quick 5 - minute discussion with a local team (or not so local team) can be an excellent catalyst for new ideas, or improvements to current ones, or the voice of reason to a bad strategy.

- Keep it Simple. FRC History has taught us that Simple Robots can do amazing things once on the field. Find one part of the game objective, and do it very well, and you'll have a place on someone's elimination alliance more often than not. Also, on the same train of thought, be aware that it is possible to 'over-simplify' something, especially certain mechanisms - sometimes an extra motor or degree of freedom will 'add complexity' to the system - but make it easier to operate overall. It's a battle that a lot of teams fight every year, but if you're aware of it up front, it's an easy one to come out on the upside of.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Make sure you have a drivetrain. I remember that there were some climbing teams with no drivetrain. Even if you aren't going to use it, have it for in case. That way you will be able to reposition yourself, even if you are targeting only climbing!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I say double down on what Eli said here. Do this NOW.

If possible, get with an existing team before the kickoff. Work with the hardware.

Read the basic technical manuals on FIRST's FRC site.
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...ical-Resources
Don't necessarily memorize the manuals, but know the major components, what they do, and at least know where a point of information is when you need it.

You will have to learn and know how to use the control system before you can use it. Every hour you spend learning it before kickoff is an hour you do not have to spend doing it after kickoff. You will need all those hours, trust me.

Team 4464 did a lot of that work that Eli cites before the season started. They started in early November, as I recall. They qualified for St Louis.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

When is it too late? :D


Seriously, Rick, IndySam, Al Skierkiewicz, (I spelled that from memory, did I get it right?), EricH and many others on this thread have done this thing called FIRST for a very long time. (13 years for me). There is some VERY GOOD advice stated here. Follow it.

If there is one thing that I want to emphasize and that is RTFM, cover to cover and back again. Many of the question you may have during build season and many tips on building a successful robot can and will be found in the Manual. Start now with the Administrative Manual just released.

Rookies--RTFM = Read The FIRST Manual.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Andrew and I did a webcast about designing simple robots within the constraints of a limited resource team. Rookies would maybe find it useful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiImNNu32qI

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

This is the biggest piece of advice I would give to rookies as well. There's no such thing as a team that accomplishes everything on their own. Branch out and ask for help. Don't end up in your own little bubble, especially if you are a struggling veteran team.

Another big suggestion - continue to raise money throughout build and competition season. You WILL need to purchase new parts, rent buses, or get hotel rooms. You most likely will run out of money, so don't stop fundraising. Money is also crucial to being able to improve your robot throughout the season if you need to change motors or transmissions or electronics. When you get to the point where you think you have enough money, keep raising money.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I do not know if this is necessarily important, but make good friends, talk with others, socialize and maybe even exchange phone numbers! That way, if you run into a problem, you will have a contact with whom you may get help in the solution!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

This is definitely true. Even as a fourth year team, we are still in contact with some of our mentor teams for help.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

The day after the competition?

Senior Mentor contacts
http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...mentor-program

Regional Director contacts
http://www.usfirst.org/regional-contacts

And if all else fails contact:
frcteams@usfirst.org

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

It's never too early to do fundraising or look for more sponsors! You'll need every penny for your robot during build season. Try to stay ahead of the bills you make.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Set some money aside. It gets harder to fund a team beyond the first or second year, so having a reserve is important.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Agreed.

We strive to end each season with enough funds for next year's registration (including potential champs registration) on hand.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

My thoughts for rookies:

1. There's a month until kickoff. Go read last year's robot rules! A lot of them don't change from one year to the next (wire gauges, pneumatic safety rules, etc), and being familiar with them now will help when you read the new ones in January.
2. Read the rules carefully. Do it every night for the first week, then twice a week after that while you're building just to make sure you don't miss something.
3. Follow the FRC Blog, e-mail blasts, the Q&A, and team updates carefully! You never know when a rule is going to change, or something might be said that will change your interpretation of the rule. While the Q&A and team updates are the only official source for rule updates, the blog and e-mail blasts will usually clue you in if there's something big being changed.
4. Do some brainstorming and figure out what you'd like to build. Then dial it back some. Don't try to do too much! It's better to take an approach of adding capability as time permits. Taking an "all or nothing" approach usually means you end up with nothing!
5. Before you build anything else, get your drive train together and working! Get a piece of plywood and toss on the control system so you can drive it around. This is a HUGE hurdle to get through your first season, and if you can just drive around you'll be as good as (or better than) most rookies out there.
6. Watch your size and weight! The KoP chassis WILL require some cutting to meet the size requirements. Building a robot to big or too heavy are the two worst things to do - The first means a re-build at competition (for gross violations... sometimes you can jigger things to fix a small size issue), and the second means removing whole parts from your robot to get under weight (trust me... you can't expect to lose much more than 1 lb by drilling holes in things!).
7. Get a hold of a local (or even not so local if needed) experienced team, and don't be shy about asking for help!
8. Pre-inspect your robot before bagging it, so you know ahead of time what you'll need to change/fix at competition.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Have your programming team and electronics team try everything you intend to use on a breadboard early on, don't wait for the robot, or even subsystem, to be completed.
For instance: while the drive train and base are being assembled lay out the cRIO, power distribution board, digital sidecar, a motor controller, and a motor on a piece of plywood. Wire it up. Program a basic drive and test that the motor turns in the expected direction at the appropriate times. Plug its controller into another PWM and verifiy that works, rotating in the opposite direction when appropriate.
It's so much easier to try things laid out on a table with only a few connections at a time. (TAKE NOTES!)
Repeat for any sensors, relays, etc., you intend to use. It's tempting to try and lay out everything at once, but trying one thing and learning it thoroughly, is much less confusing when you are coming up to speed.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Build a demobot in the offseason, with the drivetrain your team is comfortable with. That way, the programming team will have a program test target for the drivetrain and some other functions! The programmers can get big headaches when they do not have any model to build to code onto. Also, for some things like drivetrain and other small things, prototype with Vex. It is easy to use and very good for when you want to build a prototype quickly, maybe even in a single meeting!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

For the build season:
1.determine your strategy (what you are going to do)
2.then design your robot (how you are going to do things)

Tips:
***build simple
-make everything with consistency and reliability in mind
-Make sure you can both score and aquire the scoring pieces. Many people forget about the later
- give the programmers lots of time to program the robot, drivers time to practice driving and time to debug/fix any issues. Having all your programming done before competition is good, having a good autonomous is great and giving the drivers experience driving the robot is excellent.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Don't overcomplicate things and don't overdo the build. Our robot for ultimate ascent had a 30 point climber and a 3-point shooter. However, since we did so much, our design was unreliable and we kept falling (hanging off one arm instead of 2 :(), and our shooter kept breaking. Also, if you have a problem, before attempting to fix it, find out what went wrong. That way you can isolate the problem and make sure the rebuild gets rid of that problem!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

1. If you have a mentor team, ask them to donate a previous years robot for you to study and learn from. If you don't have a mentor team - please request help from the vets in your area.
2. LTFD If you don't know what this means find out.
3. Before kickoff, establish your work area and essential tools, if you have a mentor team or sponsors get them to help you make this list and perhaps donate.
4. Before you open the KOP and start losing things, layout your strategy, schedule and the places the parts go.
5. As a rookie team, first concentrate on building a mobile reliable base and attachments that score points later.
6. In general, defense becomes more important during elimination, FIRST is a team sport you win by having your alliance out score the opposition. A mobile rugged base that can inhibit a high scoring machine by 25 to 50% can be vital to the winning alliance.
7. FIRST is a TEAM sport. Successful TEAMs utilize the Talent of Each Amazing Member.
8. Every team you meet was a rookie at some point. My first team, 255 finished 189th out of 220 at the 1999 Nationals. They were the lead seed of the National Championship in 2000. Work hard and trust each other, and you will succeed no matter how your robot performs.

Good Luck, and really enjoy your rookie year - it is special and I somewhat envy you.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

I'd like to emphasize this, and expand/rephrase it slightly.

There are usually several elements to a FIRST Robotics Competition game. There are three* robots on an alliance. If you can identify one thing in the game that is value added to the alliance, and you can do that one thing better than anybody else, you will be selected and you will make the elimination rounds.

Understanding the rules and ways to score, as well as predicting what other teams will do is hugely important. There will be many teams that try to accomplish every objective in the game. There will be several teams that accomplish every objective in the game. There will be few teams that accomplish every objective in the game well. To do well in the FRC game, you don't need to accomplish every objective in it!

If the value added game objectives are XYZ, and you are the absolute best at X, you will be the perfect match for robots that are exceptional at Y and Z but weak in X.


*as far as I can tell at this point ;)


Also, FIRST as an organization is more than a robotics competition, and while we put forth tons of time, effort, and money towards the game, the most important award a team can win has nothing to do with the game at all. So have fun competing, but always remember that FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Hey Everyone! AZDevilRobot here from team 4111 Peace Love Robots.

My team is only 3 years old and while we may not be technically rookies, our team just received a new advisor (our old one left our school) and thus are making several changes based off experience.

Here are the changes we are making and ones we (and most teams) should have been doing since our inagural year:

1. Inventory!
We could not find anything in a crowded closet and even if we did find something, we couldn't find it again. We also bought several items multiple times because we thought we did not have it. Teams need to keep track of what they have and use.

2. Sponsors!
Our first year we had lots of money from a NASA rookie grant which covered us for our first two years. However, that and JCPenney were are only sponsors for the first two years. This year, we barely covered registration with remaining money. Luckily, we are still looking for sponsors. Teams need money or can't compete.

3. Structure!
Teams can't function with everyone doing whatever they want. Our past two years we had no agenda, deadlines or game plan. Everyone came in and either did too much work or not enough. This year, we have teams assigned to sections of the robot and leaders of the teams that meet to make sure the various parts connect. Everybody will be doing something at all times.

In closing, if you do these three things and the other tips in this forum from day one, you will be successful. Good luck and to anybody from Arizona in this forum, we'll see you at the regionals!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Precision in building things is good. Build a little higher than required. However, don't overdo it. Overdoing it will not give much benefit, but waste tons of time.


^^That's something that I should remind myself about while doing homework :D^^

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

To the end of all the fundraising for the robot post in this thread, FIRST recently released a "fundraising toolkit" which may help you figure out where to start. There's a ton of good stuff in there if you're trying to figure out where the money for those gearboxes is going to come from.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

This thread isn't just about funding. We are talking a little about funding a little bit, though the sole purpose of this thread is to have a place for newbie teams to get advice from!

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Huh? Where did he say/imply the thread was just about fundraising?

Regardless, fundraising is a vital part of successful participation in FIRST, and that was useful advice.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

One of the most important pieces of advice is to try to build within your capabilities. It sounds like a tautology and is therefore easy to overlook. To make it concrete, here's my team capability checklist:

Basics:

• Do you at least have these basic tools you will almost surely need?
  • Wrenches
  • Pliers
  • Crimpers
  • Screw drivers
  • Drill
  • Drill bits
  • Taps
  • Hack saw

Materials:

• Which materials do you know how to get?
  • Aluminum bar/plate/tubing/angle/rod
  • Steel bar/plate/tubing/angle/rod
  • Titanium
  • 80/20
  • Wood
  • Plastics (Lexan, HDPE, Delrin, etc.)
  • Composites (fiberglass, carbon fiber, etc.)
  • Other?
• How quickly can you get them?
• Which materials fit in your budget?
• Which materials do your members have experience working with?

Drafting:

• Does anyone know CAD?
  • What kind?
• How about drafting by hand?

Machine shop:

• For each of mill/lathe/waterjet/laser:
  • Can you do this in house?
  • Do you have someplace you could send it?
  • How long will it take?
  • What sort of accuracy can you get?
• For 3d printing: All of the above, plus:
  • What are your material options?
  • How strong is it?
• Do you have access to welding? What type? Which materials can you work with? Turn around times?
• Do you have access to anodizing or powder coating? What kind? How long is the turn around?
• Can you work with sheet metal?
  • Do you know how to design it?
  • Do you have access to a shear and a break? What size?

Electrical:

• How long would it take your team to wire a doorbell?
• Could your team build a basic low-pass filter?
• Do you know how to make a custom PCB?

Programming:

• How many students know your chosen programming language? And how well?
• How many mentors? And how well?

I recomend actually writing down estimates for each of these questions. Every team's resources have limitations. You should know what your team's are.

A teams that understands what they can do well will do better than a team with more resources that doesn't know how to use them. Most of the wooden robots that I've seen have been above average.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Wasn't meaning to imply it was, just commenting on the previous posts focused on funding!

Having money is a necessary prerequisite to build a robot: ergo, making use of FIRST's resources for acquiring funding should be high on any-- rookie or veteran-- team's list.

Re: Robot Tips For Rookie Teams
 

Oh. no. I wasn't trying to be mean or anything. Sorry about the misunderstanding!