Pre-Season Preparation
 

Hello! I am part of team 4079, and I was wondering what the best way was to prepare for the build season. Our mentors feel that we lack a lot of skills, such as learning sensors, pneumatic, and chassis standards. I want to know what projects or ways you guys have used to prepare. Thank you!

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Last year we worked on developing our teams swerve drive. Along with more advanced manufacturing and assembly. This year we are going to try and remake our teams electronics as we have had some problems with consistency.

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Look for any online seminars or videos posted centered around FRC skill sets. Check manufacturer instructions, consult other teams near you, and send messages to any other teams or individuals (local or distant) you think will have your answers. Don't hesitate to reach out! You can even search some keywords here on CD and find entire threads with already existing discussions on what you may want to know.

Even forums that are not CD may have your answers, so look in other places, as well.

There may even be a workshop run by your local teams to help with FRC season preparation. My team has run mentor and student seminars for teams in the Sacramento/San Francisco Bay Area, and the results were great!

Everyone involved in FRC who has the knowledge should be willing and able to help. If you have any specific questions, private message me, and I can answer your question myself, or I can direct you to someone on my team who has more knowledge than I do in a certain subject. We have a couple mentors that have been on the team for more than 10 years, myself being on 701 with this upcoming season being my sixth, plus students that are experts in their committee, from business plans, fundraising, and outreach, to mechanical, programming, and electrical!

I'm looking forward to what you need to ask!

This is my team's handbook. It's not necessarily related to robot building, but it can give you an idea of our team structure that keeps us going season after season:
http://www.vandenrobotics.com/#!handbook/cra3

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Something that my team does is work to improve and make changes to last years robot. For example we used electronic actuators on our 2014 bot and so this year, in order to improve our pneumatics knowledge, we are switching out those electronic ones for pneumatic actuators. In your case you could also add sensors to your existing robot.

I also agree with bEdhEd when he says to just research online. Videos can be immensely helpful and so can old CD threads. Looking at robots built for past games could also be useful.

Best of luck to you and your team!!

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Don't forget team building activities, if you have new members you want to make sure they feel welcome.

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Pneumatics is something extremely valuable to learn in the off season. It opens up a whole new world of linear motions your robot can have. I would hold off on drivetrains for now. For the past few years, the kitbots have been pretty darn good and can shave a week or two off of your build schedule allowing you to concentrate on game piece manipulations. The GDC tests each game with the kitbot to make sure teams who use it will at least be able to play the game. You might also check out the Vex Drive in a Day stuff as well as 1114's Kitbot on Steroids (though it might be somewhat outdated). All of these drive systems are very well developed by people who really know what they're doing.

Other things you can do to help out in the development of your team are learning CAD, having machine tool training, safety training, hand tool training, etc. As you mentioned in the OP, I would recommend learning how to use sensors as well. I would start with the sensors that are used most often, then work your way down. That is, I would probably start off with learning encoders (grayhill or U.S. Digital), then work with gyros and accelerometers, then you can work on stuff like Reed sensors for pneumatics, limit switches, and potentiometers. Encoders are very useful for driving autonomous mode and things like arm positions. Gyros and accerometers can be coupled with encoders to help out with determining position and orientation for things like autonomous mode (and I believe straight drive?). Reed sensors allow you to pick up the status of special pneumatics with magnets on the pistons. Limit switches generally consist of a lever bar pressing a button. They're not used as much anymore as they used to, but can be an extra level of protection so an arm doesn't collide with your robot. They usually work...usually. Potentiometers can be used as rheostats. Basically, they're a variable resistor that will change the voltage (through Ohm's Law) with respect to a change in position (either linear or rotary, depending on the pot). They can sometimes be used instead of encoders, but unlike encoders, they can't go an infinite number of turns (most can't go more than 1 rotation) and they're also, generally, not very linear (that is, change in voltage/change in position isn't always constant).

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Try to get ahead of or at least keep up with your school work. Get some sleep now so you start as rested as possible at kickoff. MY $.02

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Make a comprehensive plan!

Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

A comprehensive plan that is developed and agreed upon by your team leaders prior to build season is more valuable than any technical improvements your team can make between now and January 3rd. Guaranteed.

You can win a competition using a robot with no sensors that you finished 2 weeks early and got hours of driver practice with.

You can't win a competition with a robot that doesn't move because you wasted your build season fumbling around without a comprehensive plan.

1114 has a great build season schedule in this pdf that 1678 bases their build season schedule on. I recommend you take this schedule, modify it to meet your team's resources/goals, and agree on it as a team.

If you do just one thing before January 3rd, please do this.

-Mike

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

We actually just did a webinar on this exact topic. Here's a link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALASWt2uDqw

I've also attached an updated version of the presentation slides.

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

There is always something to learn. For example, you could memorize tap and drill sizes, motor speeds, research materials, study robot photos from previous years, find out what products are available, study the hundreds of white papers and presentations written by veterans, learn CAD, memorize formulas, etc. Anything that could save you even the smallest amount of time during build season is beneficial. I have been compiling calculators, presentations, robot photos, build notebooks, and reference sheets into one folder for my personal and team's use. You might find it useful.

FRC Resources folder

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

We're setting members up with a training exercise in the form of a mock game (the "SECOND Robotics Competition").


Since students aren't building full-scale robots, some of the intricacies of FRC are lost. As far as a simulated build season goes, however, we're finding that it's pushing us towards a stronger team, as well as a growth in some technical skills (CAD, programming, strategic planning/design).

One of our activities, for example, involves having members contact "sponsors" (veterans on the team) in order to raise fake currency for their SECOND teams. That spares us the complications of real money, but does effectively simulate the costs of registration, materials, etc. as that need arises in reality.

Re: Pre-Season Preparation
 

Last year we had a lot of brand new team members, and almost none of them had the necessary skills to participate meaningfully in build season. We had an eight week training in the fall, from late October to mid-December, right after recruitment and off-season events were over. We had two outside instructors in (for CAD and for C++) and used mentors and our team captains for the rest of the instruction. The topics were an introduction to engineering and build season, CAD (two weeks), programming, tool use, electrical/pneumatic systems, and then two weeks of a mock kickoff and design process. We meet twice a week, and our first meeting was classroom instruction and our second was hands-on practice. Students went home with links and resources to continue their training if that was the area they liked.

This year, we have been spending time tearing down and rebuilding our 2011 robot with the new students who are joining, so that they can get some hands-on experience. In early November, we will do another formal training like last year.