So, well, um, what now?
 

What's up now. Speculation, rumors, Segway, what will we do over the next months untill Janurary? Well, I'm already board and I haven't been off the plane for more than 4 hours.

God, that was fun :D

No joke, on the plane I started coming up with modifications to this years robot and how we could have made it better. Obviously the game will be completly different next year, but maybe some of the new ideas will help :D

i was thinking on the plane too. i was still trying to figure out how to beat team 71. i know that they were beaten when they got hung up on the goal, but i couldn't figue out any other way.

Thats easy. Turn them around.:-D

Now what?

Its FUNDRASING TIME!!
Don't forget your offseason compitions either.


Wetzel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where am I going?
Dominos, Papa Johns, local Dew distributer, welding shops
I got my prioritys strait!:D

We had them beat in the semi-finals, match 2. We had all three goals in our scoring position, but then at the 24 second mark our robot shut off for some unknown reason and rage pushed one of them back into theirs. They beat us by one ball =(

Anyway, what happened is that 60 started on the inside instead of the outside cause we figured they needed to get to the goal faster. They grabbed two and we helped push them into scoring position. Since we pushed the two goals so fast, 71 was not able to grab onto the third. We took this oppurtunity to 'swerve' around to the other goal and push it to the others. At this point, 173 grabbed onto the goal and tried to suck up balls. We pinned them up against the railing which prevented them from moving, and whenever they tried to go around we 'crabbed' and pushed them back into 71. Like I said, this continued until the 24 second mark when we were shut off *sigh*

Also, in the finals they were beat by pushing the center goal full speed into them at the very begining, which prevented them from grabbing the other two. This also broke their bot :rolleyes:

So that is how the beast can be beat, very possible. Looking back we should have done the same strategy we used in the second match in the first. Oh well, my hats off to them, they have one hell of a tough robot :D

Re: So, well, um, what now?
 

Go to a post seasonal regional run by a team. They're fun, a little more chaotic, but you get to travel again... :D I know that my team, 357, may be going to the Tunkhannock and Wissahickon Post Seasons....

well, if 810's right side chains had not fallen/been taken off the sprokects before our final qual match, we would have probably beaten rage, and then had bragging rights and possibly even kept them from winning it all. we also could have easily beaten 71, cause we're just about as fast, if not faster, than them, and we also happened to be the strongest robot in Newton (according to the techno ticks). why did no one choose rookie teams for alliance partners? oh well, next year we have to do really good to go to nats. :D

prototype drivetrains!

BAXTER BRAWL
 

Be sure to look in off-season competition where you will see the Baxter Brawl. We will probably be posting some info on it real soon (that is if we have it for sure, although I am pretty sure we are having it :)) The date is set for the 13th, 14th, and 15th, and there should be some good teams there like maybe hot bot, wildstang, beatty, and others....

Don't worry man. #810 is one of the best rookie teams this year. Your team should quickly grow into one of the elite teams that always builds a great bot. You built a great drive train and customized the PBasic program, two of the hardest things for a rookie team to do.

Well for me, I think I'm taking a 2-year or more break from FIRST, until I finish college... or maybe I'll stay involved as just a part-time mentor or something. I've come to a point where I'm forced to make a choice between GPA and FIRST, and I think GPA is the right "career choice" thing.

Patrick

Hehe, at work I was so bored I came up with three... I think two of them are a little too hard to implement on a robot though... maybe a small car :D

Off Season
 

One of the things a FIRST team should consider is the Urban Search and Rescue Robot competition put on be FEMA. I 've seen this competiton - and I think even an average FIRST team could come up with a robot that would kick-butt. Also this is something that unfortunately, in the error of suicide bombers is an important field of study.

Also:

1999-2000 Robots have to climb onto a rasied moving platform or go up a ramp, reach up high -

Dean invents wheel chair tha can go up curbs and ramps and reach up high.

2001 robots have to balance on a teeter totter

Dean invents Segway

2002 robots move heavy goals and are manuverable.

Dean invents ..... the Segway Two - which can haul medium
loads and maybe climb stairs or curbs.

(I think Dean is using us as a large, unpaid research and development group for his inventions!)

Seal this prediction in an envelope - and then you'll know who told ya FIRST.

planning
 

We have started planning for our Chairman's Award submission. As a rookie team this year we decided not to stretch ourselves thin trying to do everything. But we will try this next year.

We are also planning on building a real cart for our robot. Brainstorming is in progress now. We know we need bigger wheels and bigger speakers than this years cart had. :)

I'm finishing up my junior year in Systems Engineering and I find myself facing the same dilemma. Personally, I've decided not to care about my GPA. I value the real world experience I get from FIRST more than I value a weak abstraction of my academic abilities.

My .02

-Joel

Baxter Bomb Squad Brawl
 

For all those who are still excited about the competition this year, the Baxter Bomb Squad will host Brawl June 14 and 15. For more information go to Off-Season/Unofficial Competitions, then Baxter Ozark Mountain Brawl. Please let us know if you can come by replying to baxter_team016@hotmail.com
Thanks

Re: Off Season
 

I find this to be really interesting. Hmm, wonder what will happen next?

Re: Re: Off Season
 

Segway 3: The Passenger Vehicle of Tomorrow

Dean will take the goals from this year, hook them all to segway and you can transport your entire family with a segway! :p

I was also wonderin at te last of rookie alliance partners. Why did no one choose rookie teams ? At te Canadian reional we won wit two rookie teams 771 and 865. At te nats warp 7 (865) was first for a lon time and ended te first day 5t in te seedins. tey ad a few bad rounds after tat at ended somewere arround 23rd. Still i was very surprised wen noone picked tis team despite a reional victory and some excellent performance earlier in te competition. I know tat if an experienced team ad been in te same situation, someone would ave picked tem. Unfortunate.

You may ave notivced my h and g key arent workin. Im still tryin to fix tem.

What now? Are you kidding????!
 

Now is the time to pick your new team members for next year.

Now is the time to plan some summer activities with your team, either to play or to fundraise.

Now is the time to re-organize your team, and plan meeting dates from now until Regionals.

Now is the time to think about drive trains.

Now is the time to think about about the animation competition.

Now is the time to consider attending all the workshops available to help with all aspects of building and maintaining your team and its success.

Now is the time to think of what you'd like to see discussed at the Team Forum in August.

Now is the time to think about how to win the Chairman's Award.

Now is the time to catalog and display your team photos and videos.

Now is the time to build your team website, or update your current one.

Now is the time to recruit a new high school near you to join FIRST next year, then help them do it.

Now is the time to think about taking your team to the next level, by employing team building exercizes, bigger fund raising, mentoring other schools, REALLY going after the Chairman's or the Woodie Flowers Award, starting a Lego League at your local middle or elementary school.

Now is the time to register for a couple Off-Season Competitions - you can just do it all over again, or you can train new field teams.

It's really not about 6 weeks, or even 3 months anymore, is it?

If you think it is, you've missed the point. FIRST never really ends, the experience just changes like the year. That's why we talk about "build season" and "competition season". They are part of the rythm of life.

Some of us graduate from high school or college and move on to the "real" world of "real" jobs (meaning they pay you) and families. Others of us started in the real world and drift in and out of the FIRST world.

But if you really, really "get it" you never quite leave entirely.

That's why you spend two years looking over obscure, ancient books on mechanical solutions to figure out a new drive train, or how to finally make that software logic error free. Why you wake up in the middle of the night with the answer to a problem you don't have yet. Why you get out of your bath and run naked down the street shouting "Eureka!" when you solve a difficult problem. (Now you really know why they call it the Archemedies division, he is the oldest recorded FIRSTer)

FIRST is meant to address the entire being, to encourage you to develop a life style of questioning why things are the way they are and if they can't be made "better". We learn how to do this on relatively simple mechanical devices we call robots. But the methodology applies to all of life.

BTW these "simple" devices are more sophisticated than some of the space probes they were launching in my youth...

ChrisH

We's doin' mad cool stuff
 

RVR is doing mad stuff over the break. We are having a "Robotics Academy" which will teach us about all things robotics.(ie. how to use Auto CAD programs, programming techniques, etc.) Then it's up to little old me to think of more fundraising ideas. (Hint to all you fundraisers out there: get a bunch of local bands and hold a Battle of the Bands. Trust me, IT WORKS!!!!) Then it's off to post season comps where we will see team 357 ( our Philly regional partner (5th place aint half shabby)) and then find new members. Talk about busy. January is only 176 days away (As of 6/11/02). Till then, have fun everyone.

Over the summer
 

Over just before finals started for my school, our team got together to talk about all things that we wanted to do over the summer, we came up with such things as:
-Work on a crab drive

-Modular controls

-Tread study

-Wall climber

-Wheel vs Walker study

-Diffrent types of controls for pilot i.e Playstation dual shock:rolleyes:

-And many other things that I can't metion cause it just might win us an award next year, but who knows:confused:

PS2 Controller
 

Whoa. That would rock! One problem: HOW WOULD YOU PLUG IT INTO THE FIRST INNOVATION CONTROL BOX? It would be cooler to use an X-Box controller. Not to diss the PS2(I own one), but the X-Box controller would be more ergonomic (wow, big word), but it would come down to personal taste. Anyway that would be much better than the joysticks we use now. A horror story about joysticks is in this year's Nats, we were paired up with a team and with about 20 seconds left the driver of our partner moved his joystick one way and he came up with the joystick in his hand. The joystick broke off the base and unfortunately we lost that match by one point (if we had won we would have gotten around 100 QP's!) Oh well:rolleyes: . reffering back to my last post on this thread I didnt even scratch the surface of what 87 is doing over the break.