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Phil Mack 09-10-2007 19:12

Pre-build season activities
 
Hello,
Our team is working out our schedule for pre-build season training. It's been making me wonder how much other teams spend before January kickoff.

We are working on a program to teach about how to use equipment, how to develop and evaluate ideas, practice developing ideas using previous FRC/Vex games, general stuff about FIRST, and more.

So essentially, how much time does your team spend together before kickoff, and what do you do?

Do you meet many times for short meetings on weeknights, or fewer times with longer meetings on weekends? Do you start in August/September with the schools calendar, or earlier, or later?

Of the activities that you do, which do you find most valuable in the pre-season? What would you add if you had more time?

Thanks in advance
~Phil

Billfred 09-10-2007 19:51

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
1618 got started back in early September. The team meets twice a month during the pre-season for about two hours. Among the items we've done or are doing:

-Fix Uppercut so that it scores tubes (after just ten months of trying!)
-Coordinate a few fundraisers, since Annapolis is a smidge further than downtown Columbia
-Get smaller groups of folks working on learning the things we've got to learn before Kickoff (particularly since we've grown a bit since last season--like 300-400% growth)

Kyle 09-10-2007 20:26

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
MOE meets once a week on Monday nights from September until Kickoff with breaks for holidays and stuff with other events on weekends and other week day's sprinkled in sometimes.
During the weekly meetings the students work on team building exercises learning safety practices and proper use of the tools and machines and also basic engineering, design and FIRST principles so that when the kick off occurs our students are ready for the challenge ahead.

=Martin=Taylor= 09-10-2007 20:39

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
We have:

*1 meeting a week (except over breaks) = 16 hrs.
*8-10 build sessions to construct a prototype chassis (Which is built by the new people to train them) = 32-40 hrs.

Total = aprox 50 hrs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil Mack (Post 645435)
Of the activities that you do, which do you find most valuable in the pre-season? What would you add if you had more time?

Designing and building a chassis prior to competition is a HUGE advantage. For one thing, there is no time limit and you can work as long as you want on it. It can be used to train new members on machine tools - while allowing them to actually assemble something useful. After its mechanically complete, it can be used as a prototype base for the 2008 season and latter as a practice bot (once the real one is shipped). It'll also give those programmers something to do :D

If we had more time I would definitely train more people in CAD.

Cooley744 09-10-2007 20:49

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
Our whole team is never together at one point in time. Not even for competitions. Well, maybe for the kickoff/season game introduction, but even so, someone is always missing.

StephLee 09-10-2007 22:28

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
1629 doesn't stop meeting at any point, so I'm not entirely sure what the right answer would be. We spent a significant amount of time working on the '07 bot over the summer, making modifications and doing re-designs, but we also spent a lot of time on summer camps and other activities. We've met twice a month at the very least since the end of last season, and we're planning on holding a few "crash course" meetings for safe tool operation. I can't be sure how much time we'll spend just on that since this is the first year we're holding meetings just for that purpose, but I put 100+ hours because of all the time we spent over the summer.

Dan Petrovic 09-10-2007 22:37

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
It's less than 10 hours a week for any given person, but for the team as a whole, once the training starts up, there is something going on every night and sometimes concurrent with anotherthing. It could get up to a total of 20 hours a week for the entire team.

Last week I spent about 7 hours involved with FIRST things. Two meetings for getting the rookies' hands dirty with Vex and one meeting for getting rookies familiar with the controls of our robot for River Rage.

Training is a very good thing. You don't want to take the time to train people during build season when you can do it prior to build season. It doesn't allow for much free time until March of next year, but everyone benefits from it.

Edit: I voted less than 10 for me individually while it should have easily been over 100 hours from now until Kickoff for the whole team. I didn't read the question carefully...

Chief Pride 10-10-2007 07:32

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
actually, most of our team still meets every day! o.O

T3_1565 10-10-2007 09:06

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
our team meets twice a week on tuesdays and thursday. We started on the week after school started. We are busy training people on the do's and don'ts of FIRST and prototyping some wicked design plans for everything!!

akedomakona 10-10-2007 09:27

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
Team 168 has been meeting since the first day of school. The whole team meets Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2:30 until 6. We are building a go-cart out of First parts. We will unvail it at the Orlando regional. We model the building of it after the robot, it's a great way to train rookies and get us working like a team before build season starts.

Alan Anderson 10-10-2007 09:28

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
The TechnoKats have had team meetings once a week since school began. We've also had some extra shop cleanup days and robot drive practice sessions, a late-night bonfire party, and a very long day at the Autumn Robotics Competition. Our upcoming plans for the next few months include holding software training sessions, refurbishing our practice field, doing the annual overhaul of our New Year's drop ball, going to a corn maze, rearranging the shop space to accommodate a new mill, etc. I expect we'll set some specific project plans at our meeting this afternoon.

synth3tk 11-10-2007 22:15

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
Heh, our team is really small, and the mentality shows. No one wanted to do anything outside of FIRST season even after I offered to take care of organizing the events and activities. The teacher did just start a robotics class this school year, so we're hoping that more students show interest, then maybe we'll start doing off-season stuff.

T3_1565 11-10-2007 22:17

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by blakcheez (Post 645764)
Heh, our team is really small, and the mentality shows. No one wanted to do anything outside of FIRST season even after I offered to take care of organizing the events and activities. The teacher did just start a robotics class this school year, so we're hoping that more students show interest, then maybe we'll start doing off-season stuff.

haha us too! We have meetings, but that doesn't mean we get much done in that time. I have actually found this year that all of our new guys/girls are showing much more interest and attention to what is being shown that in pervious years

Horray for us! :D

synth3tk 11-10-2007 22:27

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
ROFL!!! That's good to hear! I've got like this whole dream team in my mind. Course it's also about other people too. I guess, since it's this whole "team" effort kinda thing. But I feel that we can be a better team than we were. Still had fun though, can't deny that.

T3_1565 11-10-2007 22:46

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
oh yeah it is loads of fun. And I always find that people get hooked after they complain about the fact there are so many meetings and blah blah, and "I wasted my weekend" etc etc. when we are done competing people are always like "OHHHHH This is a Robotics competition!!! This is sweet!! let's build EVERYTHING!!!" which ends up being too late lol.

Thankfully as I said, the rookies are showing some spirit this time around! Without the mindblowing experience of a FIRST competition.

synth3tk 11-10-2007 23:02

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
The other, much bigger, problem is that our school administration is... a bit... "stingy" with the funds and time spent in the building. I can't seem to get us a warehouse or shop outside the school to work in, and that stops us from attending other events. I would've loved to sign us up to help a pre-rookie team for Brunswick Eruption and other cool things. But during the regionals one of the board members came down and met us, talked, and watched a little bit, and he said he'll talk to the board about helping out some more. Either way, a team's a team, and in the end, it's better than nothing. :)

Pavan Dave 11-10-2007 23:04

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
*Sorry I voted wrong. -- I understood the question as "How many hours a week/day on average does your team meet?"

We spend sessions of three to four hours (aproximately six) to learn FLL and get familiar with the LEGO kits. Aftewards we mentor FLL teams and help out, host, and run, the BEST tournament and the FLL tournament.

On an average week a student spends between 5-15 hours depending on the requirements for elementary school they are mentoring but sometimes more or less depending on if we are working robotics tournaments.

We don't do much FRC work until January though.

T3_1565 11-10-2007 23:06

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
yep the team is still alive which is a good thing! our rookie year (2005) got us our own classroom for that year only. We lost our team for 2006 due to lack of teacher interest, and now the team is back and we share a classroom with a programming/ engineering class (half the classroom is computers the other have has work stations to, say, repair computers).

So we understand the problems with the higher ups! lol but we are proud that we are still alive and kicking and ready to show everyone what we can do! this pre-season is huge in comparision to previous years (last year more importantly)

JaneYoung 11-10-2007 23:28

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
We compete in a fall competition called BEST. It is not FIRST related but a lot of the training, development, etc., meshes nicely with FIRST training/development. It is an intensive build/program and demands a lot out of a team. The hours accumulate easily.

Edit:
Things I like to see worked on with each new season approaching:
- shop safety and understanding why things like closed shoes are important.
- we have learned that fundraising and outreach are on-going. They can be done well during the summer months if students/parents are interested. There is usually a group of returning members that stay interested and will work with you. If doing these in the fall, we try to have big impact with a little bit of time. The students have to focus on school and other activities.
- team building. Anytime an opportunity arises, it is awesome to have a team building exercise available. An evening of fun and team building is good.
- student brainstorming in the area of development they would like to work on. We're learning this year how valuable and time well spent this is.

GaryVoshol 12-10-2007 07:49

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
Weekly meetings in the fall, so students get to know each other and general topics can be covered. Programming, gears, drivetrain, arms, etc. Not everyone is there every time, but then not everyone is there every minute of build season either.

A few social activities were held.

Several fundraising events have been held or are planned - cold calls on local businesses, a bowl-a-thon, restaurant nights, etc.

Over the summer, about 7 or 8 students helped with a 4-week LEGO camp.

3dude_2231 12-10-2007 19:53

Re: Pre-build season activities
 
we're don't really know at the moment, how things would turn up
but we are hoping to maximize the number of pre-season-meeting,

but as our team is mostly constructed of newbies, we need to find the balance:
not to lose their excitement, but with it not to lose precious time.

I'd say we would have some 20 hrs of newbie-guidance (or "refreshment time" for the "veterans")
+a few hours of strategy-planning for those guys who know how FIRST games usually look like =]
at the beginning of the season we would unite both groups.


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