Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

1) If your team has "optional days" or days where only a mentor and a student or two from the group you work with plans on coming in to work do everything you can to try to get in and work on those days. If you aren't "invited", see if another group could use your help; just get your foot in the door because the days where you get one-on-one time with a mentor are the days where you learn more and you get the chance to show what you can do or learn how to do new things, resulting in more responsibilty and more complex and fun jobs you get! The more time, effort, and interest you put in, the more you get out!

2) Don't be afraid to ask questions...odds are someone else has the same question as you do!

3) Branch out and try new things, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish

4) Build season can be overwhelming, take a break if you need one and don't get worked up over the little things...find a returning member or mentor to talk to if you are frustrated, confused, or upset.

5) Everyone makes mistakes...it's ok

6) Have Fun!

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

The green sticker means it is the driver's badge, not the mentor's badge. (Yes, we did make that mistake, and no, it wasn't in the manual.)

That reminds me, don't listen to lavery.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

an engineer will never finish their design so give them a hard deadline.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

Is this a joke?

That's not correct at all. The green dot is absolutely for the coach's badge.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

I do believe it's the coaches, but it obviously doesn't matter much as they went through a season wearing it the wrong way.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

I'm sorry, got switched around. Been a long day. Your absolutely right. You might have noticed, I'm not on the drive crew.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

I have seen things as a rookie twice. Once as a student on a new rookie team and my first year as a mentor when I worked with a rookie team at college.

As a student, I wish I knew when we were rookies network, network, network. Whether it be a spare part or even an alliance, new friendships never hurt.

As a mentor during our rookie season, well I could probably write a book on what I wished I knew before starting that adventure. But one of the best lessons from that year...Even if the math says no, well sometimes the robot says yes and does what it wants anyways.

......

On a side note I remember a few teams at BMR back in 2006 that didn't understand the dot on the badge and thought it was the team captain's badge.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

This year, I learned to get started building as early as possible. Having to assemble/reassemble half of our robot at our regional wasn't fun.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

I'd say, AndyMark.biz and the importance of a good drivetrain.

Unless you really know what you're doing, I'd go with an entirely off the shelf and KOP base drivetrain.


Actually, Dave's advice is very good in this case.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

Some more nuggets of wisdom:

a) Unless it's acting as an axle, you generally don't need any fastener bigger than 1/4".

b) The kit wheels hold up, really! If you need more traction, skin 'em for incline conveyor belting--but you can do fine without it, and you definitely don't need anything bricklike on them.

c) Ignore everything after "If you need more traction..." in point B unless you have a working grasp of the effects. Read Chris Hibner's white paper on the topic; it's five years old, but it's still just as relevant as ever.

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

Adam gets it. My previous comment was quite serious.

What would I tell a rookie? Learn to swim.

Figure out what you have to do to keep your head above water. When you hit the start of FRC build season, you will likely feel like you are drowning in new information, ideas, people to know, things to do, things to learn, and even team politics. Many forces will conspire to overwhelm you with a sea of demands on all your available time.

As a rookie, the very first thing that you have to do find out how to navigate through all this new stuff. Find someone that knows how to swim through it already. Follow them. Watch what they do. Figure out what works. Learn how they differentiate between what is important, and the meaningless drivel that is mixed in. Learn to swim with them. And don't be afraid to ask for help and advice; your team mates can be life-savers when the last week of build season hits, and the robot still has four weeks worth of work to be done and there are thirty pounds to carve off and you have been running on 90 minutes of sleep for the past four days and you feel like you are about to go down for the third time. Think of your experienced team mates as your swimming instructors, and your mentors as your life guards.

If you do, you will learn to survive and float through the tough times during the build season and the competitions (and there will be some). If you don't, it will be like trying to doggy-paddle in a heavy surf - you won't make much progress, and you will quickly tire of the whole adventure.

-dave



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Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

Do not expect others to solve your problems. Work hard at solving them yourself. Having others do that work for you doesn't teach you a darned thing except how to be dependent.
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Read the manual, it really does contain almost every fact you need to know. The manual is your best friend, read it often and completely.
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Google is your friend. Find your answers there.
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Chief Delphi is your other friend. What google doesn't know, someone here does. And we love to share.
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Take time off, don't try to go 60 hours a week, you'll burn out by week 3.
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Lastly: Don't Panic. Everything always works out at the competiton, if you ask for help.

Don

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Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

1. Fun later, work now.
2. Don't be afraid to ask for help.
3. Winning isn't everything.
4. Try to stay out of drama on the team and if possible try to prevent it.
5. Bus drivers like to save gas, bring extra jackets.
6. Despite what you may think, most people on the team do know more than you.
7. Read the manual.
8. Find one drive team early in the season and stay with them.

Where's the hint... maybe it's every other letter. :D

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

Many will feel a part of something bigger. That's ok, you are.
Many will feel a passion and it will fuel your drive, your creativity, your ability to think outside the box. That's ok, too.
Many will fail at time management, risking a lot: grades, homework, sleep, build decisions. That's an area to work on, improve, and appreciate.
Many will inspire and be inspired as rookies. That's not just ok, that's awesome.

Flexibility and agility work well with constants and change - constant change.

Great thread.
Jane

Re: What Do You Wish You Would Have Known Your Rookie Year?
 

1)Keep up your school work. Even if it means missing a meeting or two. If you don't want to do that, finish it before and after robotics each night.

2)15 minute naps are better than longer naps. The human brain is wired in such a way that a 15 min. nap is restful and waking up will not have any effects on it but any longer than around 15 min. and things start getting messed up and you become less alert and feel worse than before.

Say you start your homework at 9 and you have maybe 5 solid hours of homework. I, personally, start getting tired and lose focus after a few hours. Split the 5 hours into 2, 2, and 1 hour periods with 15 min. naps in between.

3)Do the homework where you actually have to think first and save busywork for last.

During the build season, I went a few nights sleepless (i.e. no more sleep than a few 15 min. naps), got 3-4 hours on bad nights, and 6 hours on good nights.

This is just what worked for me.

Also, I find that my writing skill seems to improve as I get increasingly sleep deprived. If this is true for you also, make sure to check your work in the morning.

Oh, buy an annoying as heck, screeching, almost painful alarm clock with a short snooze button (3-5 min. tops, none of that 10 min. junk) and get accustomed to using it before build season so when you hear it, you get up automatically. I got so accustomed to mine that I would get a little adrenaline rush every time our programmer's watch went off (as it beeps once every hour) since it's pitch is about the same.

Make every second count. Don't be afraid to take a break.

Here was my usual weekday schedule during build season:

Wake up at 5:30, get on the bus by 6:15, get a half hour of sleep, finish homework, school starts at 7:30, school ends at 2:20, stay at school relaxing, answering email, and taking care of planning somewhat, get to robotics by 5, get back from robotics at 9:30-10 each night, shower and eat dinner (yeah, I eat lateish), start my homework around 11, and keep working until I finished. I had to get up around 5:30 each morning to catch our bus since I lived 7 miles away from the school. I moved to about a 5 min. walk from our school now so I can afford to sleep an extra hour. :D

Nobody said FIRST would be easy.

-Vivek