Web Competitors 2008
 

Hello everyone

Thought I might start the thread regarding this years website competition. So I'm guess you guys not the ordeal of this. Just post your site, or ask for a review or critique. Lot of things have happened with web technology over the past year, and we all can't wait to see what everyone else has got under their sleeve. Good luck everyone, and I will see you at the competitions. :D

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

www.morerobotics.org
We won the best website award last year at the WI regional. Our webmasters are in the process of updating our site for the current season.

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Team 1676 has it's site and is just getting the yearly tune-up..... www.team1676.com -- Best Website 2007 NJ Regional, 2007 Website Excellence Award, 2006 Website Excellence Award!

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http://www.bedfordrobotics.org
964 is failing pretty awful right now. But it's better than throwing something together at the last minute like last season. Most of my problems are backend-related, but finding the right CMS was probably the worst culprit. I'm hoping it'll at least be acceptable by January. Anyway, I'll post later when it's all "purtied" up.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://www.sfrobotics.com

Well, I'm currently in the process of reorganizing all of the code (it was written a while ago) and fixing other things...ahh, man, I wish the rest of the web team was a bit more dedicated.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

i think the whole enter for your main page is kind of an annoyance, if you could create a redirect page or something it would be nice. I think that the family tree page is really awesome, its a cool idea, as well as the stories page. Other then the main page thing I think the site is great.

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The site looks great, but you might want to add a archive page for previous years, other then that it was pretty cool.

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Team 694 (stuypulse) is in the process of completely overhauling our site. We expect to have the new one up by the end of winter break.
Our new site will be object oriented behind the scenes, and feature web2.0-ish features up front.

http://stuypulse.com/

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Wow, I'm loving the website. The interaction of the images is cool, especially the pule at the top and in the logo. Nice work.

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It looks really cool, good job guys.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

the new team im part of will be entering the BAE website competition

http://ibots2370.net

its still in the works but its getting there


(i know i have to fix the first logo in the top left)

...forest
...2370 webmaster

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

www.powerknights.com
Wow, nice looking site! We are also in the process of overhauling our site and scrapping the phpwebsite CMS in favor of Wordpress. That link is to our current site but that will all be different soon (hopefully:p ) Look forward to seeing you at the BAE regional and good luck on your first year of competition!

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http://www.chantillyrobotics.com

any suggestions?

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literally put it together today. I am not a programmer and did not pay a dime. I used a clever combination of many free sites. I also have not decided if I will submit it we will see how it turns out. I just wanted some input if there is any to be had. Thanks everybody!

www.ERV204.TK

I made the TK account to make it easier for team members to remember the site but if i decide to submit it, do you think i should use the real address insted to elimniate the add?

204.First.googlepages.com

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Here is a link to the website I have been working on for my team. www.core2062.com What does everyone think of how it looks so far? Any suggestions?

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Wow, really nice site. It looks professional and has a lot of great content.
Is there a part of the site with your awards listed? If not, make an awards page.

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www.mvrt.com
comments and suggestions are welcome :D we're always looking to improve!

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http://www.team587.org
I guess you could call this a public beta. The content is not 100% done yet, but the overall styling should stay pretty much the same. Comments and critiques would be appreciated.

The Flaming Chickens!
 

<http://www.team1540.org/>.

Our team won the Best Website Award at PNW and Championships in our rookie year (2005, see <http://team1540.org/2005>). Our webmaster dude was too busy managing software the other two years managing the Software department to really update it for the next two years, so we didn't really have much to offer in the following years. This year we have a new dedicated webmaster who has time to actually work on it, and is also quite artistic. Also, we decided to use Drupal, instead of coding it manually.

Re: The Flaming Chickens!
 

Looks great. I always like the websites with that much content and organization. Congrats on your Chairman's Award btw :) I read the Outreach link and it looks like a lot of great work!

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://team1322.org/ We have changed our adress this year and have been adding content. We do not have an advanced web person so we don't have a fancy display. We have been using Front page because some of use don't know html. We have been trying some tricks so when some one googles us we show up.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

AdamBots.com is currently the home of Team 245 of Rochester Hills, MI - otherwise known as the AdamBots. We're currently in the process of creating a new theme for both our MediaWiki and phpBB3 forum that has more of a team look.

As far as content updates go, we'll be adding a resource section with AdamBots-Live and AdamBots eMedia sections with various files for FIRST on Linux (AdamBots-Live) and website construction/modification/updating/prettiness (AdamBots eMedia). AdamBots eMedia will include our old theme for download (MediaWiki Skin) after we take it down.

The theme is gonna be released in about a week, or possibly after the Kickoff. I'll post again here when it's up.

:yikes:

Re: The Flaming Chickens!
 

Nice site! I noticed you're using Drupal and using Clean URLs. Who's hosting do you use? 1and1.com is not very opensource friendly, but everything else is pretty good. Also, what calendar module are you using?

Re: The Flaming Chickens!
 

The content is great, the programming intro is nice!

The simple theme with the great logo is also lovely, nice work.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://uberbots.org/2008/

dunno why, but we have never submitted ours for an award.

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I wonder why too because that's a great looking website you go there!

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Phoenix Robotics

http://phoenixrobotics.net/

our writing department hasn't finished the literature for the pages yet, but most of the design work is done.

/brian

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Nice job Nick!

As a new team we hope to get more replies from you veteran folk :eek:

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

thanks (=
always a good thing to hear an outside opinon

Re: The Flaming Chickens!
 

We actually have it hosted by our school, Catlin Gabel. As far as external hosting goes, my personal website is hosted by MediaCatch.org. They offer Linux-based hosting for $47.40 a year, and they even have a thing called Fantastico, which will automatically install and configure many different software packages, including Drupal 5. However, the basic plan limits you to 350Mb of space, meaning that you might have trouble hosting tons of photos without paying for a more expensive plan.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Well, my first suggestion is to make sure that the music does not automatically play when you load the front page. Many people, including me, find it pretty annoying to open a bunch of tabs and then have to track down which page is making the noise and figure out how to shut it down.

My second suggestion is to create some separation between the links meant for visitors and the links for internal team use, such as Forms and Forums.

Re: The Flaming Chickens!
 

I can't really take credit for any of that, sadly. The Content is mostly recycled from years past, and we are in the process of updating it. The programming intro was created by our CS teacher and robotics mentor, Andrew Merrill. The theme is based on Multiflex-3, which our webmaster Devyn has heavily customized for our website.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

I have the music turned off on my computer so I don't hear it. A student that set up the entro is now graduated and has not returned our e-mails, we want to edit it and don't have his password. I was going to delete it but We have not figured out how to replace it. I set up a slide show at the same web site but was not able to make it show up on our web site. It is tough finding students that are good with web design or that want to spend time on it. Our students want to just build the robot.

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Ultimate Protection Squad

Its still being worked on. But tell me what you think?

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The theme and set-up are nice. How about adding seperate pages for sponsors and awards..etc...

Check out some of the other sites on here. They'll help you understand what pages you might want to add.

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team 342

Here is 342's site. I'm sure that there are better, but it suites us.:]

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

www.robolions.org is ours. It was designed from scratch by a member of the PR team.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

I had to start from scratch this year seeing as the last time our site was even touched was in 2003 i believe....it had annoying music and was entirely flash-based...

Only problem this year is my work looks like it was done by some kid in his basement, which it was, but still, I'm having trouble seeing how everyone else is coming up with such professional looking stuff.

Still working on content(took our mentor forever to give me the login data for our web host...)

http://www.robotiators888.org

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Some teams just have really experienced programmers, and others (like us) use a Content Management System. Examples are Wordpress (when configured properly), Drupal (ours), Joomla!, PHP-Nuke, and a whole lot more. You can give most of them a run at opensourcecms.com. I can't help you with organic web building, though. I tried, I 'faild'. ;)

http://www.bedfordrobotics.org No content at all. Waiting to switch hosts.
http://www.bedfordrobotics.org/forum Not much here either.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

team 368 who won the website award at championships this year.
mckinleyrobotics.org in Hawaii.
The former student who created the whole site learned it from scratch the previous summer, where I had a chance to work with and get to know.
He also created the main parts of the new Hawaii regional website, contracted by our own Governors office.

Check it out.:D

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Link please? :]

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I'm not from 368, but I've checked out their site several times (the part on their robot is pretty neat); so, here's the link. Kika Mana's Site

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Sorry, I meant the website for the Hawaii regional. But I'll find it myself. :p

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http://www.waialuarobotics.com/ - That's cutoff in his signature.

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The website for the Hawaii Regional can actually be found here. (http://www.firstinhawaii.org/)

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I really like the Thunder Chicken Website, it's easy to navigate and has a wonderful layout. Color Scheme is great too

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www.vthsrobotics.org

we still have to add a lot of content but most of the site is set

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I'm from cold cold Michigan and its tough looking at those nice warm looking pictures from Hawaii on there web sit. Looks nice.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Cyber Blue has been up to a lot during this year's off season. Thus, our website updates are a little behind. Forgive this, it will be up-to-date soon. Our website won the Website award at the 2007 Boilermaker Regional. www.cyberblue234.com

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Happy new years, everyone!

Here's Team 1747 HBR's little project.

http://harrisonboilerrobotics.org

Still under development.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

I was wondering if people can go to my teams website www.core2062.com and tell me how the loading speed is. We have been having some slow loading problems and I would like to fix it soon. Thanks for the help.

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Loaded up fine for me. 3 seconds was the longest it took.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://www.hamosadrobotics.net

Our team's site. It's only in beta stage, there are problems (it isn't centered, the awards page and the right bar) and most of the content isn't up yet but here it is.

Out site is a bit different because it was done all by hand, without drupal or any other CMS, we thought it would be an interesting experiment.

Gal, webmaster of team #1657

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Most teams don't use a CMS. We had to use one because no one on our team have any coding skills, so it helps out a lot, easy to delegate the sub-team heads control over their content. I've seen pretty good sites that are, in most ways, better looking and organized than one made by Drupal or Joomla.

On a side note, I just found out that we've got someone this year who CAN do web design, so I'm looking forward to that.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://www.technotitans.org/

I'm currently working on a homepage graphic for FIRST 2008 to replace the one that's up there now, for BEST 2007.

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Team 1444 has a brand new design this year. Still working with the team on content for the pages, but the design is 99% complete! Any Critiques are appriciated!!

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AdamBots.com has been updated from v2 to v3. Totally new color scheme that goes much better with our team.

Please note that we're calling that we are testing still. I've noticed some errors with the tabs in both IE6 and IE7. I've also noticed that the accordion menu works sometimes, and other times it doesn't.

If you guys could, please post some feedback.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://gwestrobotics.com/ Check it out! It looks really generic but i'm working on making it better and more conformed to the feel of our team. I'm also working on accessiblilty and stuff like that. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed!

Critisizm welcome

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

http://team219.net

I had some forum problems since last year so I needed to redo em, and I guess since this is my last year I should probably make a CMS based website for 09 so that the newer members can update it easily... (nobody seems to know html or php in my school) :D

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Be careful with the video... i think you are going to run into some copyright issues.

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The video does have the copyright right at the beginning of it, "FIRST Presents." My guess is that it's okay, after all, it is promoting FIRST.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

The intent and use of the video is irrelevant. It is still copyrighted material being redistributed (I assume) without the permission of the copyright holder. Intent only matters if it affects FIRST's decision to sue or not, and, if they do, for how much.

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There is archive ... It is on the left navigation pane, just click on the little arrow that drops down the menu for it!

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Okay, it'd be nice if FIRST could clear their copyrighting up a little. I've seen plenty of teams with the FIRST graphics (banners, game logos, all that) on their site. How's the video different from the FIRST logo?

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Because FIRST has specific rules that you can look up about logo usage (unmodified, must contain the "FIRST" letters below the logo, and on a white background). I believe everything else is restricted.

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http://www.2080.lafrc.org

If you can critique the website I would greatly appreciate it. It isn't fully done yet but still we need input on what to put on it. Thanks

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Frontpage is a terrible program for this kind of stuff, great for beginners I guess. There's a lot of junk in your code and just doesn't look organized. The design however is cool, just don't use an uncommon font like Impact, you'll run into trouble with computers that don't have that font (computers running mac or linux).

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

cybercards1529.com

!(note)Site is not updated for 2008(note)!

use this link to get around websense
http://shs.msdpt.k12.in.us/student_life/firstrobotics/index.htm

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Current website http://robotics.southriverhigh.org however I am working on a new template so it will soon look more like http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testkc3.jpg (cept much better, first logo, banner instead of grey header, content, and more fun stuff like that. )

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

www.bxsciborgs.com is our new site. It's still in development but is coming along nicely. Here's hoping for a repeat Website award *fingers crossed*.

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Generic- not really. I thought it looked rather...amazing. It looks professional and has great stuff in it. Nice job.

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We use something i call "Dynamic Fluidity" i wont go into details but its what we use, http://robo.xlx2.com/ our web team haven't finished content yet, they really haven't worked on it much tho. Tell me what you guys think.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

idk if its just me..but this comes up-
"403 Error - Forbidden
You have recieved this message because the resource you have requested is not accessable by the webserver due to file permissions or other locking conditions. Please verify that you have access rights to the requested resource or that the Apache daemon has access rights to the requested resource before trying again." =/

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Apparently their hosting package doesn't forward without www. So go to the one in his post.

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here it is

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Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Either there's a typo or your site isn't up yet. Please reply again when it's ready.

EDIT: It was a typo. FIX'D: http://www.lmrobotics.com/

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Here's Team 1403's Website: www.team1403.net

Let us know what you think. It is still being finished and updated with new things. Its our first fully functional website so we would love a lot of input.

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

The team 1731 site is simply http://www.team1731.org :)
Let me know if you have any comments in general about the site or if you have any information on putting drop down menus on that navigation bar. The site was built using Dreamweaver 8. Thanks.
---
Kyle F. CEO and Webmaster Team 1731, Fresta Valley Robotics
GO RIVETEER
Team Verse: Philippians 2:3-4

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Google "CSS drop down menus" and you'll get a plethora of hits; just pick a few of the articles, read them, and make a sweet menu.

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Typography doesn't match very well. The grunge font used on the navigation isn't the best choice. Look into something like Myriad maybe.

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Hey everyone, the site is www.firstteam397.com like I said earlier. I was wondering if I could get some feedback on the site seeing as it is a newer design.

Thanks

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www.project1726.org/2008web

We still have to transfer most of the content, but the functionality and look are finished

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

Our site can be found at http://www.asl.org/robotics/. The www is unfortunate, I know, but that's what you get for running IIS (we're using a different server, running Apache, on the school network).

As you can see, we haven't gotten much updated because we're all busy building and programming!

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http://www.team768.org

The forums are new, so they're pretty barren right now...

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

*Note, I realize that I don't have much room to talk since my design needs much work, but they asked for feedback. If this sounds mean I apologies*

Sorry, but your design comes off as dated. I would recommends against using frames as they are unneeded, and hamper functionality. For instance if someone wanted to send a link to someone about your site, unless they know to view source they could not link directly to the content. It also requires more unneeded scrolling.

Using an image instead of a <h1> for the title increases load time, and IIRC search engines like the <h1> for titles.

This is hypocritical, but if passable you should have an email address at your domain it looks much better than a gmail.com

Lastly why is Rack and Roll on the drop down after history instead of in history?

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

I've been working hard on our site this year... hope everyone likes it http://aztechs157.org/

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Thats cool, I expected criticism. The Rack N Roll is a link to the gallary from last year.

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www.dabears247.com
Give us some feedback about what you did and didn't like about it. Thanks.

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Too much dropshadow, otherwise it's pretty cool. Maybe add a little gloss on the banner and it'd be very nice.

See you at the Detroit Regional!

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Very nice! Just a small pet peeve of mine, but maybe you could get a favicon made. It's something I look for in every site. If you don't have someone who could make it, I can help create one for you.

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Team 288 the ROBO DAWGS will be entering this years website competition. Our first time in many many years.

All constructive criticism is welcome!

www.robodawgs.com

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I helped build our site at the end of last year with a couple guys from my team... now lets just hope that the kids actually submit it this year :p (they better....)

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We made our first venture into the website competition in 2007 at the AZ regional. I guess we did not get a website excellence, nor did we get DQ'd, because we never got anything back from the judging, except confirmation that we entered. Do we have to do something else?

Below is our website from last year and we'd like to use any feedback given for this year's site. Thanks in advance!

http://www.vhsnutznboltz.org

Go Boxerbots!

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

This is team 379's website which is still undergoing some construction, let us know what you think.....

http://www.girardrobotics.com/default.asp

Thanks

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Team 1518 will be entering there website again (hopefully they apply) this year, it's basically the same setup as previous years with some new content and a few security features added. The new webmaster should be upgrading the old site design soon. Constructive criticism is appreciated. :]

http://www.palmacfirst.org/

Re: Web Competitors 2008
 

I just got an email from FIRST, and they say you can use any of their animations as long as you just say "Animation Courtesey FIRST" at the bottom. I will forward this email to anyone who wants it.