Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

This year one of our teams mentors is backing to spend more time with his family. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to write up a schedule for the build season. Looking for feedback on what I have so far.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

If when you say Chairman's you are just talking about the essay, I'm not sure what your preseason looks like but if possible, you may want to try and finish Chairman's prior to build season. If you are talking just about the presentation or video, I think that is fine to leave some of until the season.

Also, other awards...if you are talking about something like Woodie Flowers, if you need to start from scratch, I would leave more than week 2/3 and maybe 4 to do it if possible so that you can have a revision period.

Every team is different so it really will just depend on how many/what type of people you have and what works for you.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

Thanks for the feedback. We are starting the Chairman's award soon. We have done it in the past. I should have been more specific on that one. I was referring to the video and the presentation.

We usually have a group of kids that have nothing to do so this year I was thinking we get them started on other awards like Woodie Flowers. This is something to keep kids busy as well as get a good idea of what the award involves.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

Again if pre season is a option the first bullet and probably the second bullet week 1 electrical and all of week 1 programming can be done prior to kickoff for the most part

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

Sadly we don't do much for preseason. The lead mentor doesn't like to do anything outside of the build season. Unfortunately we don't have other mentors to step up to do this since we have 5 FTC teams as well.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

Wow 5 ftc. How big is your school?

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

Each graduating class is around 2,000 students average. We have 8-9 kids per team. I help with all 5 so I keep my self very busy pre-season.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

How big is the FRC team?

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

FRC team starts with around 25-30 students but there is drop out as with all high school programs. We usually end with 20-25 at the end of the season.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

In that case I would say it looks reasonable. Week 6 should include week 0 event. Also drive team category even if it is a old robot. A good driver is key to success

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

I would suggest you have the Chairman's team start work in September when school begins and have it finished before kickoff. You have a lot on the plates of the mechanical team in week 1. I recommend assigning other people (possibly freeing up some of the award submitters) to building field elements and do that during the first weeks of build season while the other members study the game and rules. Or if the award members are not mechanically inclined, have them do the book work while the mechanical team does the hands on building of field elements. Then the award members explain the game rules to the rest of the team.

We found this year it was helpful for the team to see the field elements in person when they were brainstorming the drive system and strategizing which points to score.

I can sympathize with your lead mentor not wanting to be involved outside of build season. The reality is FRC is a 12 month commitment and prep for FRC build season starts in September (which coincides with the kickoff for FTC unfortunately). You may want to look at your senior members to take over lead roles on the awards and work independantly while providing updates to the lead mentor weekly or bi-weekly. The submission period opens in November. Imagine the pressure you could relieve during build season it that work was done before kickoff. It would be like adding 3 members to your roster for build season.

Hope this is helpful. Good Luck.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

I recognize that I don't know all the details of your team's situation and that it's a bit late for this year, but it seems like students on your team could work on some of these tasks on their own time during the preseason.

Do you have established systems for team communication? We meet throughout the year, but even so, my students do a lot of work outside our meeting times, largely because we only meet about 4 hours a week during the offseason, and 9-12 hours a week during build season. Could your programming team look up how to install C++ now and do it before the season starts? Maybe go through some tutorials over break? Award info is already posted - maybe marketing team could look over it now so they're not rushing.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

I'm not going to lie. These first two weeks of programming scare me. I read the other posts and I can understand that you don't have much preseason time, but it seems like you're moving from a different language to C++ this year (since you have to install it). But even if you aren't switching to C++ it seems like you are intending to train your programmers in the first two weeks of the season which seems like a bad idea to me. I don't know all the circumstances of your team but it seems like it could be very easy for your programming to go very wrong.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

I'll offer the general comment that you should allocate more time for most things that you have on there. For instance you only 1 week of actual robot programming. Often programming projects work by programming small chunks at a time, testing them, and them moving on. Other times people try to write a bunch of code up front and then do a bunch of testing afterword (not what I recommend). But either way there will be a ton of code writing all throughout the process. Considering that you are teaching students week 1, I might allocate 3 or 4 weeks to programming on the actual robot.

Re: Team Structure and Build Schedule
 

I most definitely agree with both of these comments. Although you will definitely have to do some installation and updating of your programming tools after kickoff and that should be completed in week 1, the C++ training and learning to code really needs to be done off-season. It is unrealistic to think that you can learn to code and write all the code needed for your robot in the 6-week build season. This is especially true when you have inexperienced programmers. They will need time to test their code and figure out what the problems are... and then fix them. Writing our robot code is a process that we engage in for the entire build season... although we sometimes have to scrap code that has been written (but probably not tested) due to changes in the robot as it is being designed and built we consider that just an opportunity to get more experience. Testing is critical and then using the pieces already created to form the autonomous mode(s) will provide a lot more reliability and maintainability of your software. Good luck!