What are teams doing in the summer?
 

I would like to know what other teams do (if anything) Durring the off season

Organizing and competing in the IRI

I'm cruising CD and taking a CNC machining class at the local community college two nights a week with a fellow graduated member of our team. Another member of our team is coming up with some remarkable fundraising plans - this guy is like he could be a spokesperson on those late night get rich quick infomercials. (the ones that actualy work ;)). Another member of our team is trying to get robotics summer camps going but I think it's too late, he thinks not. And last we are all meeting this Thursday to discuss fundraising. That's us so far.

My team does NOTHING during the summer, at least as a team. Some people individually work on aspects of the robot over the summer, like wheels. I really think that my team should do some fundraisers, but.. ehh. LOL.

We are planing to build a practice bot

We have done 2 summer carwashes so far

and i Am playing with all the extra parts ,building hoverbots, drive-train elements, projectile weapons and such

Oh BTY We need money, so if anyone has some sugestions on how to get sponsors e-mail them to me... TytysG@cpplgoose.com

Raising money with car washes, and taking classes at ITT Tech

We're fundraising, doing presentations, attempting to set up at least one Lego League team (the school is appropriately named Woburn Jr.), and a lot of individual things for each member to do. For the core members of the team, robotics season never ends. As I'm sure most of you know.

Yeah, Greg likes wheels.

I'm working on drive train and stuff by myself at various times. I have to order a model kit so I can have something better to look at and work with.

As for the fundraiser, you organize it. I believe we had this chat before about taking initiative instead of saying 'should' so much :D :D :D :D :D

A lot of...
 

We have to raise something like 40 k next year, so we got a couple of carwashes started. We wanted a LEGO camp so we can raise about 10 k didn't work out. Umm.... so the majority of the team our mentor hopes that we start on our some 100 hours of FIRST community service for our chairmans award. Oh yeah and we, the mechanical team are building pratice LEGO bots to see which drive train we plan on having next year, and together we're building an automatic transmission, or at least a multiple gear ratio system that we can shift on the fly.

This summer, our team is getting ready to compete in IRI. Soon, we're also going to start building on our museum, as well as start working on our community service projects, and our preperations for the upcoming OCCRA season. Of course, I'm sure that we'll end up having at least a couple of parties in there somewhere.....

3 letters:

IRI

Oh, and myself and 2 other teammates just finished teaching a class to a bunch of 7-12 year olds about basic engineering.


Other then that....thats it

Our team is not meeting, but some of the members are still very active in FIRST and will be attending off-season comps without the team.

Doing animation tutorials, preparing for IRI :), and playing with the Lego Mindstorms kit (go middle school robotics! :D )

We are showing our robot off at local daycares, daycamps, and other places trying to show ppl what FIRST is and who we are.

what we used to do
 

well in past years the students used to hold meetings over the summer to deligate some small stuff and to keep in touch mostly they were just small parties, but since i went to college im not sure if they are doing nething nemore

We have five team members taking a welding class at jr college, including another girl.

Team members and a few other robotics' team members have been attending the free weekly robotics classes given by our Northrop mentor Robotics engineer Dr Wagner.

We are teaching a beginning and advanced summer camp Our team captains attended Legoland teacher training courtesy of Roboeducators.

We are revamping our 2001 champ.

We got 3 Lego Leagues going.

We are submitting a proposal for our team to be a
reality show
Our just graduated videographer (he works at a production company) and our jr in high school webmaster/graphics guy (he has many more talents than that including brainstorming these kinds of ideas) are the brains and the doers for that.

We are working the school's bingo to make the team some money.

We have our weekly open house.

Our jr in high school webmaster is finishing up a new 2004 web.

Our school is waiting to hear that our very first real robotics year round curriculum teacher said yes. He'd start Sep. He's been teaching robotics for years.

In August the school's auto shop will be remodeled to include a robotics shop.

Our year end robotics banquet had to be put off til August.

the Team 25 summer plans
 

we have a few things going and different members are in charge of the various projects

1. for the month of July our students are running a Lego League summer day camp (second year)

2. we will be driving to Indiana for that finals rematch at IRI. Big Mike and Goober are setting this one up.

3. fund raising- car washes and the next big Hawaiian shirt sale

4. working with the NJ regional committee to improve the NJ regional for 2004. Nuggets is getting active in this one

5. rebuilding our storage room a bit to accomodate another robot

Despite losing 1/3 of our team due to seniors graduating, we have a whole new mission and membership guidelines for 2004. The work will be tremendous. Our school just acknowledged RR as a "team" on the same par as the football team. In the fall we return with a head coach and assistant coach and a greater recognition by the district.

There is always something to do at Raider Robotix

WC:cool:

While my team has no group effort individual members take it upon themselves 2 build drive chains and the such. The only thing we are doing besides attending dinner at Dean's House (NYC Chairman's Award winners) is having a beach party.

Build a practice bot
Rebuilding a bot that was scavenged for parts
Build a 3 wheel holonomic drive bot
Learn how to use the gyro very accurately
Combine the last two
Make the translational that didn't REALLY work... well, make it work
That's it I think?

Team 48 Summer Activities:

1. Attend the IRI (of course!)
2. Two team paintball outings (and counting)
3. Team Picnic
4. Pool party
5. Barbeque
6. Plan fall robotics educational curriculum for the students
7. Various robot demonstrations
8. Engineer and student recruiting

My team is boring... We aren't doing anything... Just a team party and I'm the only one on my team that goes on CD except for one other that goes on rarely...

A lot of brat frys to raise money! Other than that, enjoying the "time off" before school starts up again. We've got some recruiting to do for next season! :)

- Katie

our team is doing alot of public displays and things, trying to gain members and mentors for the next season... Also we did a bottle drive that got us alot and also we might be doing another fundraiser, im not sure yet. On my own i am going to IRI (thanks Cliff and Dave [222]) and also will be doing some other FIRST things on my own/with others...
~Mike

Me? Working with Wayne C. and Aignam to breathe life into project RINOS to expand FIRST in ways never before done.
And reflecting sunlight (I am one white boy.)

Offseason? We don't need no stinkin' offseason.

Work!! More work!!!

What did you guys get me into now.....


he he

WC

We modified our 2000 and 2001 robots so that we could help out team 166 by participating in their demo on the 4th of july.

You can see pictures of the finished robots here, here, and here.

me and a few other people on team 343 are planning commuity service for next yrs. season! trying to think of stuff that could make us closer to the 2004 chairman's award.

It's great you're having a community outreach program- we just recently placed a larger requirement on our members for community service seperate from the team as well...

Do charity not for an award, but for the reward.


Oh, and if you need help in organizing it or have tips to send along, contact me. I'm interested to hear how you guys have it organized.

we arent really doing if for the chairman's award. we love doing stuff for people in our commuity. we are just trying to get our name out into the commuity. there are people who dont know who we are. we just thought that since the commuity is always giving to us, and we have a load of sponsers we need to do something for them. give what they gave to us back to them, suport them like they suported us!!!

team 5 is doing a fundraiser at the Michigan Internation Speedway sellin ice cream. wake up at 5:30 a.m., get home at 9:30 p.m.........*ahhhh*, what i do for my passion ;)

We're building serveral projects, and also spreading robotics to other cities around our state.

There`s a big project, called the Hexapod, we call it "big dog", because it's big, but it's short.

We`ll start fundraising in September, because we have to take care of other things.

Team 115 isn't doing much...
I got a few people together and we're making a cool motorized cart for next year's robot. It's supposed to be a secret, but very few people from 115 surf CD, so their chances are slim. Otherwise, I'm taking an Autodesk Inventor class, and I know our programmer is taking some programming classes.

Simply put, we aren't doing anything major as a team.

Oh yeh, forgot to mention it, but I'm also working on a cool drive train.

Cool cart and cool drive train?! I need a vacation :)

we are probably going to make a new cart for our robot. we've been using the same one since we 1st started which has been only 4 yrs now! we thought about putting a radio in it. how cool! thanks to all you guys who do have radios in your's for giving us a idea!

Wow, same one for 4 years? I guess it must be pretty sturdy. The one I made this year was interesting. It broke down if you unscrew 8 bolts, and it had huge 8" castors. By the way, if you can, I highly reccomend that you motorize this cart. If you went to nationals at Houtston, and had the pleasure of pushing your robot up the ramps to the competition area, you'll know perfectly well why this kind of cart is a must.
And by the way, most teams that have music on their carts have cd players, not radios.

We used a cart from 2000 for four years. It was a real piece of junk, too. The only robot that ever fit on it was the 2000 bot. Every robot after that was about an inch too wide at the wheels. But... it did the job, I suppose.

Yeh, our team's old cart was like that too. It was just a really big platform on wheels, so every year we would bolt on the wheel stoppers in a different place. People are lazy.

I don't even know how old that cart was. Last year we used a dolly. This year I made a new one, because we needed the cart to be hollow so we could get at the bottom of our robot to tighten all the bolts. I'm currently making next year's one. All aluminum extrusion, powered by 2 van doors, 20" wheels, 200 watt sound system. And it folds!!! I made it so we can take it to Nats. Sic!

our cart has been very sturdy! its great and still is! all of our robots we have bulit has fit on top of it. we have made them to fit! its black and silver (of course) and has all of our sponsers on it. it has worked very well! :cool:

There's been some action out at Lightning Robotics, and all of it good. We've kept most of the people meeting through the summer, and are working on a R&D project which I am not authorized to discuss here ;). We've held a team BBQ, organized a car wash, and developed our Parent booster club, called the RPMs (Robotics Parents and Mentors). In the near future, we've planned another car wash, and are looking into some electrical/mechanical community service. I don't know if it'll pan out, but we'll see. So, could somebody explain what this "off season" is?

This summer and this coming fall a bunch of young engineers from Hamilton Sundstrand (including myself) are organizing a miniature FIRST competition for the students when classes start. We have created our own game and built a playing field measuring 8' x 12'. Using extra budget money, we bought 6 customized robotics kits and will hold classes in the fall to teach kids about robot construction (machining, software, electronics, design, etc). We designed a game as close to FIRST as we can so when the design/build phase hits us in January, the students know how to build a robot and know what to expect when we start competing in regionals. One of the bigger problems I noticed, at least on our team, is that students aren't confident of themselves when it comes to designing and spouting off ideas. They have great ideas, but don't voice them because there are too many older people (mentors & engineers) around and some feel intimidated, hence why us young engineers are coordinating the off-season. The students seem to feel more comfortable around us than the older members, since we are closer in age to them.

<Shameless Plug>

If anyone is in the area of Watertown or Oakville CT this Saturday and wants to get their car washed, stop by Bradshaw Jeep on Main St. and have your car washed by the Sie-H²O-Bots for a donation of $5..

Cause hey, If we can build robots, we can surely wash your car!!!

</Shameless Plug>

Oh, BTW, Fundraising and more fundraising to answer the original question posed by this thread!!!

Well most of our team (including myself) are on vacation. I was in Italy for 2 months so things are being planned slowly in forum conversations, but we will be completely done by the start of school.

Our team is working to revamp EVERY aspect of the team. We are changing the name, motto, team outlook EVERYTHING. So far I have a 26 page outline which describes our fundraising plans all the way down to how every little aspect of the team will be carried out.

Its taken me and 3 other students almost 2 months to complete the document because we wanted to build it off ideas we had written down from the 2003 competition and ensure that it is pragmatic and self explanatory. I must say that this truly is a revolutionary document for us! People say that things dont always work as well as they are written down on paper, but I plan to make sure that everything is followed as closely as possible.

So basically, thats it! Massive planning which we plan to carry out very soon. As soon as school starts in the first week we will begin to assemble and recruit new members, then we are competing in the NEW Toronto Lego League with our newly assembled: St. Michael's Jr. Robotics Team.

BTW in a meeting we held 1 month ago team members agreed on our new team name. We have named ourselves the: St. Michael's ArchAngels or ArchAngel Robotics. Under the bigger team we have two divisions: ArchAngels Sr. Team and ArchAngels Jr. Team. We have our new logo and our website is nearly completed the planning stages.

I hope to see everyone again next year healthy and prepared for yet another year of amazing robotics!

Cheers!

The Megaforce thought and thought all summer long...But now that school is back in session we can put our thoughts to action. *sigh* We're gonna have to work hard. =|

1089 is looking into a car wash this weekend, which hopefully will work. other than that we've been thinking about what to improve on from this year for next year, and mostly i've just been trying to sort out my schedule so i can plan time to come back and help with these guys. i know erik and i have been discussing the drive train and some of the changes we want to make for next year and i know that we are also going to be ordering more shirts to raise money (since they were so popular).

that's all for now, but i'm sure once school starts we'll all be more active.

we are most likely organizing this summer... since our team has a new team leader and couple new officers... when the school starts back up... i think our team is going to compete @ Robot Rodeo @ kissimmee...... looking forward for another exciting season... lata days....