2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

I Was curious to know what were teams doing right now during there Preseason, Beside fundraising.

How Many people on your team are currently "Active" and what are they doing?

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Well, our team is working on the team website. :D And we are also looking for a new building to have our workshop / playing field in. Other than that not much, although we are deciding on what regional(s) we will go to. ;)

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Every thursday this month we have held leadership training courses to encourage leadership on our team. Now not everyone can be leaders so those who showed leadership qualites were asked to attend. However our first team meeting is October 7th where anyone interested is welcome to come. And for those whom choose to stay we will have skills training to teach anyone just about anything robotics. And thats what team 836 is doing untill the season begins.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Well, there are about 10 or so active members on our team, and right now we are sending letters to old and new sponsors to see our standing. As far as other things go, we're trying to recruit, and have meetings about what regional(s) we are going to go to, and about nationals.
We also are most likely going to assign groups and work out our schedule, since we plan on changing it around this coming season. =)
Excellent idea for a thread!

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

In a Sparky first, we are highly active right now. We have numerous robot focused and non-robot focused work going on right now. More on some of that latter on in the season.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Like what?

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

well....team 73 is taking apart one of the robots for parts and doing a mock 6 week build.....another robot to play last years game....this will teach new students what the 6 week period is like as well as give them an opportunity to get used to the new team structure this year

as an RIT student i am planning 5 or 6 seminars for new teams. we are expecting 8 new teams in Rochester and we are hoping to teach them what first is all about as well as getting rid of the shell shock of the 6 week build period


we are also still working on stuff for the regional...as always

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Be patient, we are working. It's not even close to done yet. I wish to give you a final product rather than a bunch of semi-done stuff.

Ok, here's some inside info. Remeber you didn't hear it from me, woah, oopss...

-Sparky384.com v2
-Sparky 1-5 working
-State Fair

But that's not all. Do some seaches through the forum with my name. There are hints in what I ask for help with.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Right now we are refurbashing our site and starting up our fundraising.
We're changing up some things for pre season so we'll find out in November.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

Besides working on sponsorship and collecting cans, 573 is getting a website together and participating in OCCRA (yeah, tubies..!). Most likely we will be presenting the robot at both schools' open houses in November, as well.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Other than our constant year round fundraising we have a "rebuilt" website that will go live sometime shortly. Our biggest project right now is moving our stuff to a corner of another room (electronics lab) because the school took our storage closet from us to change it into a classroom. The storage closet we had is about the size of a one car garage, while the new area is like a walk in closet. Our stuff is no longer secure as it was before and if we lose the corner storage in the electronics lab our team will have no storage available. :( This is also forcing us to get rid of extra team stuff and parts we were saving. This is just another chapter in our on going battle with the school/BOE. :mad: Earlier this year Elgin had cleaned the closet and decorated the walls with all our old side panels off our robots, that will all be history shortly.
Some members of our team are also working getting the Haunted Graveyard set up.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

ouch. The new place sounds worse than our spider farm. I'm sorry this is happing to you guys. :(

Right now we are mostly orienting the new members of the team. Tommorrow is our first mandatory parent meeting, during which we will explain the program and give out forms that need to be signed, etc. We are also working on a parent handbook.

Another project of ours is rebuilding reggie 3 (03 bot) to be a small ball handler, modeled after team paragon's robot (but w/o the 2x gripper...we just don't have time for that) to give practice to the rookie members. We are also repairing the Housywhatsit (04 bot) from the damage that occured at River Rage (none of this is serious, just routine stuff).

Of course we are doing the obvious fundraising, which is our main priority now.

We are also getting very excited to attend Bash at the Beach! :)

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

We are hosting a Lego Competiton soon, so we're in full gear for that. We also have our parent/ freshmen/ newbie orientation meeting coming up, which we're preparing for. Despite the fact that we haven't had the meeting yet, we do have new members in already, so we're giving them basic training.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Team 173 is:
-fundraising, as always
-having mechanical workshops once or twice a week (they will start in october)
-particapating in bash at the beach (oct 2)
-creating/refining a handbook
-co-sponsoring/helping run a LEGO regional in the town's middle school
-Hosting a Travis Fox Hypnomania show
-recruiting and introducing new members
-updating the website
....that's all i got for right now, i'm sure another team member can add some:D
we're busy, to say the least

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

We always do tons during the preseason. Last summer we had our two week LEGO League camp, we're mentoring 8 lego league teams, we're planning a combo FLL FRC competition for december. We have a lot of public appearances and workshops we put on, and this year we're building a new machine shop. It looks like we;re gonna be busy for a long while.

--Mandy

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

We are prepping to host our first ever *and hopefully annual!* Cooney Robotics Golf Tournament as well as setting up dates and times to go to local schools to raise awareness for FIRST and the FIRST Lego Leagues by doing some hands-on demonstrations with the Lego League kits from last year. We have about 25 "active" members now and are recruiting to have about 40 members by December.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

what do these leadership trinaing courses cover? our team might be interested in adopting a similar practice. any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Well, in addition to Fall recruiting and training, we will be setting up FLL teams, mentoring rookie teams, working on a DVD, visiting classrooms, and holding a team building event. We also go to many off-season comps and demonstrations. (see schedule below)

But the main focus of our Fall is our 5th annual off-season competition "RAMP RIOT 2004" to be held in our circle gym. (If you are interested, check out details at www.team341.com or email me) The preparation for 28 teams takes all Fall.

Oh we also start each Fall with absolutely no cash. That always keeps us busy!!!

Fall Schedule
10/2/04 -----------------------Bash at the Beach, Old Lyme, CT

10/23/04 ---------------------Duel on the Delaware, Salem CCC, Salem, NJ

10/30 & 10/31/04--------------NBC-10 Tech Expo , Ft. Wash. Expo Ctr.

10/30/04--------------------- NBE Competition, North Brunswick, NJ

11/11/04 & 11/12/04 ----------Ramp Riot Field Construction, WHS Circle Gym

11/13/04----------------------Ramp Riot 2004, WHS Circle Gym

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Team meetings for 771 havent started yet (It's only the second week back to school. They should be starting soon). But, some of us grads are mentoring the FLL teams we have at our school. As for me, I am organizing the FLL tournament on Nov 13th at the school too.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Team Meetings
Summercamps
Organizing Shop
Fundraising
Lego League
Robovations League
Exhibitions

(and oh so much more!)

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Not to mention designing a drivetrain and getting our robot ready for the SCRRF Fall classic

-Daniel

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Whose doing What?
 

I have a bunch of handouts an overview of the meetings in my locker, I will bring them home tomorrow and get some specifics.

Basically we covered team work, communication, what is a leader, what qualities does a good leader have. etc... There are about 10 of us (students) in this course and we are serious about the team. And when the upper class men leave the sophomores and freshmen will be ready to take over as leaders. This course was also meant to give us the students more control on the team, however still working with the mentors, teachers and parents.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

We are

1. prepping for BE 3 on 10/30 . It is an enormous event with lots to do.

2. doing new member orientation tomorrow- 30 newbies expected

3. learning how to use a donated industrial robot arm we just got

4. building our own robot lab. We commandeered a new work room and need to clean it out. Today 5 of us dragged 10 shelf units out and put a workbench in.
The pallet racks should arrive later this week. I think we are having more fun building our own space than we have making the robots.

5. helping form a new team in the next town- Lego League first.

6. beginning to write the Chairmans submission for the year

7. redesigning the team's favorite drive train for next season- same speed- even higher power, more modular

And school work. Raider Robotix never sleeps......


WC



:cool:

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Since WildStang is a class. the first semester we do projects, lego league competetions (for the freshamn and sophomores) and the juniors and seniors have an option of either reconstructing other robots from the past, reconsrtucting the playing firls area, and other things along those lines.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

461 does mainly PR stuff during pre-season. Whether we will go to Ford Sweet Repeat and/or Chief Delphi is still up in the air. One thing we are doing is Robot Fest. I would post stuff like crazy about it, but there is simply no information up right now. All I know is that it is at Purdue University in October. Some info is on the team page.
We also do CAD stuff, learning about machines, etc..., but this is my fourth year on the team, so all that is old news. I may try to better my skills at programming and driving for 2005. I have good ideas, both related to robotics and not, and that was pretty much a constant since I was young. I will probably improve my skills, and teach younger members how to CAD stuff up.
One thing we should do is learn how to weld and super machine parts (weight saving strategies).

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Team 1037, The SCREAM Team is gearing up for the Sweet Repeat, as we are the hosts.

We have been learning programming with Bob Koehl since last May. Every Thursday, including all summer, 5 kids come to my classroom after school and work hard. Bob built a really excellent simulator board, with motors, sensors, etc for the kids to practice on.

This Saturday, we are attending the 1st Annual Team Ford FIRST "Sick Robot Clinic" in Taylor Michigan, where all the Ford teams are coming to get all the robots in good running condition for the Sweet Repeat. We share engineers, spare parts, and help each other get everything running smoothly. The teams attending besides 1037 are 184, 280 (TNT - the host of this event), 440, 301, 557, 1250, 1256, and a new Ford rookie team - not yet numbered!

Ford is also sponsoring a pre-season competition, in which we compete with our sister Ford teams on December 18. The competition rules will be announced Saturday at the "Sick Robot Clinic".

The students on my team have updated the SCREAM logo, and we're adding that.

Our new website is almost ready to upload, with lots of photos, and stuff from the past season.

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Well as a rookie team we have a lot of groundwork to lay, but I have to say, after our first all team meeting today our team is very excited!

Here is our plan for the preseason:
- In-Team Seminars: Electrical/Pneumatics, Robovation, Programming, Mechanical Design, Drivetrain, Tools, etc
- Rookie Team Seminars: hosted by other local teams?
- Mini-Competitions: Lego Robots, paper bridge, etc.
- Subteam Work: Electrical, Programming, Webpage, Business/Marketing, Fundraising, Awards, etc.
- Build a drive train and a mechanism (arm?)
- Produce an animation
- Produce a student webpage
- Fundraising
- Tours of our company

Check out our temp webpage for more info: www.penfieldrobotics.com (I put this together, so it doesnt count as student done, but is just serving info until they put one together).

We are meeting once a week starting next week, and will be having the subteams meet whenever they can.

If anyone else knows a starting rookie team, I have a ton of our documentation already that I can provide... I just have to get it all together as a usable format!!

If any teams have awesome fundraising ideas, PM me :)

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

well S.P.A.M. has back again lots of our veterans-- about 30 something of us i dunno the grand final count and well we recruited tons of rookies so rookie camp and vets will be in the pit fixing up our old robot Twitch and keeping S.A.M. ready for the robot rodeo

we'll be doing fund-raising, community outreach programs and having fun always and some students will be chosen as the leaders--congrats to them on that and of course we'll be getting our website fully back from the server crashing down so eventually hopefully the forum on our website will be back some day

in FLL we have our team mentoring teams and in November we'll be having our Treasure Coast competition for the FLL teams

and well we'll try to do as much as we can in between all these great hurricanes :rolleyes:

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

RUHS Robotics had their first club day, 22 signups. MCHS Robotics is going to do club day. RUHS Robotics is getting into the Spirit Rally for the very first time. The entire school is required to go. MCHS captain Ryan wants George to make a 1 min promotional video for MCHS's daily tv news show (***heads up George), we are making plans for our two new videographers to create a 30 min short film to submit to local film festivals. George has the new web designed, not yet uploaded to bcrobotics.org. George has NEMO web designed, not yet uploaded. (***heads up George) Talked to El Camino College yesterday at WESCON convention. They are so excited about Robovations, their facility being used, the first competition I think is 2 weeks from today?

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

Well, I've been trying to have team meetings every week (before "club day" it was only veteran members. Now it's everybody).
Right now we're tweaking with Blondie and getting her ready for Cal Games.
We, erm, haven't really started on fundraising yet...Well, I've began writing a general fundraising letter...But parents are really good for helping with that. That's why there's going to be a parent meeting next week.

For the rest of the off-season I plan on having little "workshops" where the team gets together and learns about electronics, building, teamwork, etc. so we won't all be clueless when build season comes around.

75% of the team is made up of new members. So I kind of feel the obligation to mentor just as much as I, um, (insert verb for being captain here).
...captainate? captainize?

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

I love that... tho id watch it.. they get defensive lol thats assuming our no longer a highschool student, if your a student tho Captainize away

Re: 2005 PRESEASON: Who's doing What?
 

We (Team 900) have started up fairly early this year as we have been meeting for several weeks. We have been working on everything from recruiting to fundraising to explaining drivetrains, pneumatics, and other important aspects of a robot. We are writing letters, contacting parents and other methods of fundraising (as is everybody else I am sure). Recruiting has been a high priority thing as we rarely make it to the season with more than a dozen members, but this year we seem to be maintain 24 to 30 (we will see how long that lasts). However, we have been doing a better job of keeping the new students interested this year. Being only a two year school, it is difficult for us to maintain a strong large group of people. However, this year through all of the mechanical aspects we have been exploring, we are keeping the initial interest in tact. We have done everything from building Lego robots to dismantling transmissions from the past to explain how they worked, to explaining and designing simple pneumatic systems. We are also beginning to design an entire robot such that our Mechanical team and our CAD team can become accustomed to working together so when the season roles around we can get designs done as quickly as possible. We will also be designing a new transmission and drivetrain this preseason to give our new members the experience of doing it so when the season comes (and we actually know what motors we will be getting this year) we can quickly implement a drivetrain and transmission such that we can actually spend a significant amount of time designing features for the game (as opposed to spending 4 weeks of build time on drive systems as we have in the past).

We are also training new programmers and redesigning our website (like so many other teams. Also like several other teams, we have caught a case of the closet cramps as our school decided to pull all of our stuff from our former lab to redesign and rebuild our lab. The good thing is we get a new robotics lab, the bad thing is we have a closet so full of stuff that we can't even find our robot from two years ago. Hopefully the lab will be ready by the time the season starts.

Good luck to everybody this season though