Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

lol plane tickets were my birthday present:D

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

It seems like a good time to drag this old chestnut out of the fire. I'll add one to start:

Bring lots of water and even more patience.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

- Parts don't fail engineers do.

- Organize for a parent or mentor to wash shirts.

- If you get more then 3 hours of sleep during a competition, you don't have the right room mates.

- If chiefdelphi hasn't consumed all of online activities yet it soon will.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Some advice for programmers

When your code works and then stops working don't listen to the engineers who tell you, "maybe the code broke." Code doesn't break. It also does not make mistakes.

Don't get irritated when people say that everything is the programmer's fault. They are just jealous that we can do our part in 2 hrs at 2am the day before the open house but it takes them 6 weeks to get a functional robot. :)

Caffeine is no substitute to sleep in a nice comfy, warm, bed. (You can tell that last year I lived 5 minutes from our shop :D)

Murphy was a genius, the only time you cant connect to program your controller will be in the pits, at nationals, before your last match.

Advice in general

In general, if 3/4 of people on CD disagree with your interpretation of some physics equation it is PROBABLY wrong.

Engineering decisions should NOT involve feelings. Don't get bent out of shape when your team mates don't like your idea, there is probably a good reason why the mentor says that it is impossible to do.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

A few gleamed from 449's experiences

-Should you decide to not secure your battery, make sure it doesn't fall on the main breaker and turn off the robot (actually happened)

-don't store stuff on/in the robot before a match. If you forget to take it out...well, a flashlight jammed up our drivetrain once. We use headlamps now.

-A very important one: a) Have a first-aid kit and b) know where it is

-on a related topic, you might want a mini fire extinguisher (thanks 75). You probably won't need it, but if you do, you'll really need it.

-the crazy ideas sometimes work.

-have replacement parts for everything. Remember, "the only difference between something that might break and something that absolutely won't break is that the part that absolutely won't break is impossible to get at and repair." Douglas Adams (something to this effect)

-when talking to judges: be enthusiastic, but stay coherent. Having a designated spokesperson helps

-Make sure your scouts are your team representatives for alliance picking. They will know who to pick; drivers usually only see their own matches.

-if you are borrowing button making equipment, make sure the owners know that it will be used heavily ("the blade is dull! how many buttons did you make? A thousand?" "uh...yeah. Or more")

-Have a lot of fun

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Make sure everyone doesn't leave for lunch when the robot needs to be weighed and inspected before finals, leaving only 1 very hungry mentor to get it done.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Some things for engineers

- If you think you screwed up, check. It's easier to do physics/math/check your numbers in classroom during silent reading:yikes: , I mean at a meeting/math class, then at a event.

- If you think your wrong, then you probably need to redo it.

- When in doubt graph it.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Is it me, or did they use the ideas in this thread for the list on NEMO?

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I have to say one of the most important things when at the Competitions is ALWAYS check and recheck the robot BEFORE a match, because we all know that a robot that dies after autonomous mode does a whole lot.

NEVER SNAP PLEXIGLASS!!!!
Trust me last year we had about 30 seconds to replace the wire that fed power to the distribution block, and there were so many people around that i could not properly access the area and ended up ripping the plexiglass off the side and ripping apart my thumb. Fun times (NAWT)... But bet your behind that that wire still got changed out!!

Also the head electrical person should ALWAYS carry the following (cargo pants are MADE for this!)

-Zip Ties
-Wire Cutters/ strippers
-PWM cable
-Pocket Knife
-Electrical Tape

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

dont get emotionaly evoled with anyone on your team(most of the time);)

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Indeed, a paper with this title in on NEMO, and credits ideas posted in 2005-2006 on chief delphi and Rick Tyler right at the top.

http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/first_competition_tips.pdf

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Rest your throat if your gonna cheer your team on...
Don't come on an empty stomach, if you do don't forget money
Scout the competition...

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

it may also be a good idea to have safety pins (i've seen some teams with pins and latches that have "remove before flight" tags attached, it's a great idea, since they'll be in untill you put your robot on the feild, and they can prevent MAJOR injury...

-Z

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

when the blue smoke rises from the control board,

it don't work no more...

and it's probly quite hot, and should be disconnected and left to cool before touching...


same goes for speed controllers, motors, solenoids, and anything else electronic (including laptops...)

-Z

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

If your robot has devices that could suddenly swing around, whether or not the robot is on, use extra caution. There's no way around that extra caution sometimes--you just have to use it! (I've been hit in the hard hat by a robot arm that was...err...a little "floppy", shall we say? Hence the hard hat that you rarely see me without at an FRC event.)

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Whenever the robot goes anywhere, put the most loud and obnoxious person on your team in front, shouting "ROBOT COMING THROUGH!! ROBOT!!". It's by far the easiest way to rack up safety tokens.

It may have already been said, but:

Never ever ever let the magic smoke out of your electronics.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Heh, don't ever, nor ever ever, get involved during the build or competition season. This is one of our team rules. Things get too complicated, people get distracted, time gets wasted, and most of the time students get burned out, causing feelings to get hurt.

What I wish I'd known:
Reprioritize your time from what it was in the build season. If your relationship survived the long days of the build season, now is the time to mend fences and compromise where possible.

Bleh. 2008 wasn't so good for me in this respect. :o

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

About getting involved in relationships, on 397 it is not against the rules. Relationships are great, if you feel strongly about someone that is fine and none of my business. The second it becomes my business then we have a problem. If I see team members kissing I WILL yell at them. This goes for at competition too, if I see two people kissing I will yell at them, this includes people I DONT know.

That being said, robotics is a great way to meet people, don't be afraid to talk to people. You never know when you will find a new friend, even if it is someone completely different than you.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I was thinking more of getting in the way of solid(and organized) thinking

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I wish I would have known how really helpful the experienced teams are.

They are such a huge resource for teams who are struggling or team who just need a little advice.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Here's a rule that really makes FIRST about engineering:

Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

This includes ordering standard parts before you need them. We're still having trouble with that.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

That FIRST talks in riddles when giving game hints

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I hope NEMO doesn't mind derivative work. Here is my take (pdf attached; 28.3 KB) at a condensed and edited version of these 101+ hints. The document is titled "FIRST Best Practices: Team Behavior during Build Season and at Competition."

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I just had to quote this. Team 1089 at Nationals this year is proof of this if there ever was. Despite all of the random non robot things that went wrong, our cRio died. Thankfully another team let us borrow one they just won and we went to upload the code and our programming laptop died. But our smart programmers backed it up on a flash drive... which they lost... so they had to reprogram the robot on Friday night. There's a whole thread about this somewhere. We ended up losing every match except for the one our cRio died in which we tied... this leads to my tip.

It doesn't matter what goes wrong as long as you have fun. We all thought this was one of our best trips, even though we were second to last in our divison.

101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

a robot is nothing like a race car, trust me i thought so, i had no idea where the spark plugs had to go...until someone pointed out their were no spark plugs lolz.

when your parents join your robotics team its not a bad thing, you get to have a bit more freedom on trips, and you can have takeout meals that are different from the teams, who doesn't love getting Chinese food or a grilled cheese after about most the build was all about pizza that you couldn't really stand anymore. Don't get me wrong i love pizza, but the Pizza hut near our build spot burns the pizza, and no where else will take a phone call from the school for the deaf seriously.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I have a couple to add if it's not too late. This year was my first (and last as a student) I learned a couple valuable lessons:

-Know EVERYTHING about your robot because as long as you're wearing your team name you're fair game for questions.

-When someone asks what language your programmers speak don't answer English (that was my rookie mistake to the Judges...somehow we still got Engineering Inspiration)

-People want to hear about your robot from you so don't be shy and let the mentors talk because frankly no one at the regional really cares what they have to say (Don't get me wrong I love our mentors but the senators, business execs, and misc. fans want to hear about how the program impacts students)

-Oh and you can never have enough buttons.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

You WILL NOT have Presidents' Day off, and you can forget about having Saturdays off as well. Oh, and about halfway through February, you should be prepared for at least one week of staying up way past midnight, even though its a school night. Its often advantageous to just bring a change of clothes, and change in the locker rooms when you wake up on the shop floor at 7 AM.:o

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I have some to add. Partly from talking to new teammates the night before IRI. Sorry if I missed some in the long thread.

Meet people and teams and talk to them, a lot. Don't focus TOO much on your own team, or one task, but incorporate a hefty chunk of social interaction with your experience. Not only is FIRST a great way to network and know interesting people, you'll have a lot more fun (and a marginally higher chance of getting picked if you look at it that way) if you interact with other teams at events. Be friendly and talk! Most every collaboration or partnership starts by meeting at regional events, and you'll meet friends you'll never have gotten to know otherwise.

Find a cool gimmick and abuse it! Sure it's silly, but I bet half of the attention 1714's gotten (not that we have that much notoriety in FIRST (yet!)) is in our cheeseheads, all-polycarbonate robots, and diamond plated crate. Don't let it compromise your competitiveness or fun, but it's certainly a way to improve your regional experience while simultaneously increasing exposure and notoriety.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

1. make sure at all times you know who you are playing with, and playing against.

2. get ready to lose your voice

3. bring a water bottle

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I'd suggest teams bring a whiteboard in their pits for this very purpose, and the entire drive crew has an abridged schedule on them at all times.

My voice is actually still cracking from IRI.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Personally, I like to bring a pair of ear plugs. It can get kind of noisy in there epecially when Dean shows up. Being able to have your own personal quiet space for a few minutes is very helpful for the adults. :)

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Time to resurrect this old chestnut? For the newbies?

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

No idea if anyone has said this but:

No matter how geeky you are, or how not geeky you are - one FIRST competition and your hooked.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

I completely agree, this entire organization is an amazing feat and idea. Dean Kamen is a genius :D

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Pretend its a 5 week build season, submit awards on Feb. 17th (for 2010) the day before they are due, read the updates in addition to the manual, read Chief Delphi daily, and practice extended periods of no sleep.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Always have a back up code. Corruption is always bad, even on computers.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Bring everything, even the kitchen sink, because if you don't bring it, you will definitely need it!

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

During my first several years mentoring Team 95, I made soooo many trips to the Home Depot for various tools, parts, and stuff, and that's with us bringing everything and the kitchen sink.

I actually got quite popular with some of the other teams in the pit with my "Going to Home Depot, anyone need anything?" offers.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Make sure someone is counting the number of rules posted.

???. Make sure your mechanical guys know what it means to switch around the air and motor PWMs and air hoses without labeling them, and their potential implications.
???. Make sure your robot is enabled before you compete AND the bridge eternet is plugged into #1 port on the cRIO.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

???. when staying at a hotel that serves hot breakfast, make sure you wake up early enough to get some
???+1. pack emergency food (such as poptarts) in case you miss the hot breakfast

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Do not forget to connect to the arena's ip. This happened at our Ruckus... it was not fun.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Not being prepared for the Alliance Selection
Especially with the way the seeding is done this year, there are good chances that rookie teams could be ranked pretty high after the qualification matches. It is hard to watch a high seed not knowing which team to select. Be proud that you managed to be ranked high and start thinking about alliance selection right away on Thursday. Even if you only have one person scouting, it is better than none. You could be ranked 12th and be brought into the top 8. Be prepared.

Not asking for help
There should be little reason that we do not have all robots running at the matches... NO ROBOT LEFT BEHIND. If you take a look at how the pits are arranged, you will notice that the low number (veteran) teams are mixed in between the high number (rookie) teams. Most regionals do this expecting the coopertition between the teams. If your robot is not working, just ask for help. Use the pit boss and their microphone to ask for help, you will be amazed how many other teams will be at your side in seconds.

Fixing everything before inspection
If your robot is a 60%-70% ready for matches, and all the hardware is there do the inspection as early as you can. The inspectors may find a major item that needs to be repaired or changed prior to competing. It is much better to find it out early than later.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Pay more attention to the times not spent building the robot. In the end it's those times that will mean the most.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

-Safety first never last have a future not a past............ oh yeah and injury forums suck (comes from the guys with a scare in the shape of Idaho for not wearing a jacket while welding)

-Act like an idiot, everyone else is at competition

-No idea is stupid

-No matter what happens during the season, have fun and learn at least one new thing (one year i learned pneumatic started with ph :p )

-If no one else take up leadership on something, take it, you might be good at it.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

when one goes on the field wether for alliance selection or to drive in a match, always use the bathroom before you go out...you never know when the rest of your team in the stands is gonna try to make you dance :ahh:

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

If you're on the drive team, you may not eat lunch....

When in atlanta, bring comfortable shows...its a looong walk for the driver and operator

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

always bring extra tread for your wheels if you want to keep your turning (at least with the hightop tread plactions >.<)

always bring about 10 batteries so that the very slow charge time doesn't kill you (we had to change batteries every match cos of how we drained em with our kicker)

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

[lame joke]I have to question this ancient piece of wisdom from 2005. Surely if a piece of shrapnel is flying towards me, I'd want to protect my brain rather than my eyes? Then again life would suck if I'm blind, so maybe brain death is a better alternative.[/lame joke]

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

When on the team you may not eat lunch. I can't tell you how many times I have missed lunch at competitions.

Just in general, wear comfortable shoes... and bring fresh socks!

This. Don't even joke about this.

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

-Expect to lose your voice. (Don't worry, you'll get it back in a few days :p)
-Make sure you have a compartment in your backpack solely for buttons.
-There will be problems with the robot during matches, so make sure you prepare yourself for anything that happens.

(still thinking of things)

Re: 101 Things I Wish I'd Known Before My First FIRST Tournament
 

Since IndySam started one of the myriad of advice threads, I thought I would drag this old horse out for one more day in the sun. I've also created a VRC version at http://www.vexforum.com/wiki/index.p...X_ Tournament . Enjoy!