What to do in the off-season
 

We are a small team that did really well this year. Someone mentioned that some teams work at robotics year round.

We do have some things planned. We are bringing our robot to some sponsers to show what they helped with and possibly get new sponsers. We will also be showing it at our schools and local events which may help get more students and adults to join. We have at least one off season competition and hope to get next year's drivers some practice. We also have some students that plan on learning Labview so they can become more involved in programming next year.

I am curious what other teams do while waiting for next year's kick-off in 262 days.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We always design and possibly build any cool mechanisms or drivetrains we saw or thought of during the season so that if we want to apply them some year in the future we know the ins and outs of it.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We teach a lot during the offseason, getting new kids started with the Pro-Engineer and C++ software. I would suggest if you are a small team trying to get more members in, especially younger members so they can learn.

We are doing an Offseason base as well, working on perfecting a swerve drive for next season.

Oh and of course the most important part, MONEY. Getting new sponsors for the upcoming year.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Currently we're trying to get our workspace back from the massive explosion of tools and parts that it now is. I'm currently working on changing the wheel mounts so the chains don't pop off the sprocket every ten minutes.

Over the summer we plan to build ourselves a new, better crate that can unfold into a workspace like some of the other teams did. Is it true that 2826 Wave's crate unfolded into that awesome metal scaffolding around their workspace? (10,000 Lakes) I've got to get me one of those.
Anyone have any ideas for a good crate-that-unfolds-into-a-workspace?

We're also trying to get more sponsors, and get the kicker to shoot the ball more that ten feet, and preferably not straight on the ground, any ideas there?


Thaine

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Sounds like you are off to a great start! Follow up on the things that you mentioned and what others have said. Add one important element to the list. Have fun together! We do this a few different ways. We have a team picnic, go to 6 flags together and have a team banquet. Just being together and getting to know each other during the off season will help tremendously.

I would venture a guess that most of the really good teams take a little time off to regroup and reintroduce themselves to family. But for the most part it is a year round activity. Our students push us to continue to meet and grow and learn together. They came back from Atlanta and generated a 3 page list of things they want to do.

1. Last word of advise, look at those things that you can separate from build season and accomplish now. You already hit on a few:
2. Work on web page
3. Teach others about things like programming, CAD, animation
4. Get new sponsors
5. Send thank you letters to your sponsors
6. Attend an off season event
7. Attend an off season workshop
8. Enter a 4th of July Parade with Robot
9. Have a booth at a Fair
10. Ask yourself what happened during build season, and what knowldge was most lacking, teach yourselves that new skill.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We hope OzRam will be coming down to RiverRage this year! There's also Mayhem in Merrimack. Those are two great locals for NH teams. Off-season comps are important for many reasons.

Aside from robot building and teaching and of course boatloads of fundraising, we're going to be having a lot of social gatherings for teambuilding. One of our freshmen, who is an absolute rising star, has been gathering kids together on the weekends for bowling and movies and stuff like that. I'm hoping to actually have some free time to get out and see the team. Picnics, BBQs, etc are great, and NH has some stellar State Parks for big gatherings like that.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Ther are alot 0of fun things to build! last off season, we build a T-Shirt launcher, to teach teh new students teh basics of robotics, and to use at school pep rallies!

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Thanks, all, for the interesting replies. As just one part of the team (1st year electrical mentor) I do not know all the plans but it looks as if we do have alot of the suggestions covered.

jblay-Some of our seniors want to rebuild the robot from 2007, maybe because it was their first year? I don't know if it will happen but it could be fun.

steelerborn-This year we used Labview and Autocad Inventor, both things that can be leaned and practiced during the off-season. I am trying to get ACAD Electrical so they can learn to make schematics if any of them are interested.

We are also trying everything we can think of to spread the word about what we accomplished and how much fun we had and how rewarding it has been, and hope to attract more students, mentors and sponsors. Last year we started an FLL team which we should probably be promoting at the same time.

Thaine-Our workspace is also a classroom so we could not get too carried away. The biggest cause of chains coming off that I have seen is usually misalignment or improper tension but I am sure there are others. We experimented with our kicker alot before putting it in the robot. We ended up with a large cylindar pushing an aproximately 3/4" horizontal tube below the center of the ball and were easily able to kick over the bump.

Sunshine-Great list. I think that we have most of it covered. I failed to mention anything about your first suggestion - having fun together. I think that is why we have been successful this year. This team has enjoyed eachother's company all year and already have fun things lined up.

Isaac-We have talked about River Rage and Mayhem and from the sounds of it you will definately see Oz-Ram at at least one. I would like to be at both but it is not up to me. So much good can come out of being there from recruitment of people and sponsors to practice for our new drivers, and it sounds like alot of fun.

BEEKMAN-How do you build a tee shirt launcher?

Finally, thanks again to all for the suggestions. It is good to see that others want to continue and not just wait till next year and I hope this thread will help other teams also.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

It's weird. If anything, I kind of think off season has more of an impact than the regular season. During the regular season, students and mentors alike are many times so focused on the game at hand and continuous improvements and all that, they sometimes get a game focused tunnel vision (not that there's anything really wrong with that). However, the off season allows students to step back, actually breathe for the first time in months, and really see a broad perspective of things.

That being said, I wish our team did more in the off season than it does. We do a few demos, at least one competition (normally Wolcott but that might change this year), new management elections, reflections on the past year, a team dinner, then we're done until September where we do things like demos, team introductions, and B@tB. We're also working on improving our FTC team, so hopefully that'll get some work in preseason. I'm pretty envious of the teams that don't stop meeting and working, even if sparingly, over the summer.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

When I was a student on 1714, I calculated that we averaged one demonstration per week. I would not recommend this. :P

Some things that you can do in the offseason:

• Learn CAD. It can't hurt, at all, and with a whole summer to play with it, you'll learn a thing or two.
• Design or build a robot for the VRC. Even if you never have a physical robot, and even if you never compete, getting practice analyzing a game is always a good thing.

Some things a team can do in the offseason:

• Break into VRC teams. Having two or three of these is probably the best way to train new members in robotics, ever.
• Work on an offseason project. Saw an awesome swerve drive this year? Try and make your own, learn some lessons from it. Challenge yourself.
• Get some new sponsors. I'm personally really envious of 148 and 217's support from IFI, so I'll be hitting up every sheet metal manufacturing facility in the area to get some parts of my own.
• Demo and fundraise! Demonstrations help spread the message of FIRST, and fundraisers can do that while you simeltaneously make some money for yourself.
• Attend offseasons. By far the best value in FIRST. Shaker right now is planning on 5 off seasons.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

I've always been a huge proponent of off-season events. Some north-east events are

• BattleCry@WPI (Worcester, MA) =May 7,8 *FULL*
• PARC (Tunkhannock, PA) =May 8th
• Beantown Blitz (Boston, MA) =May 22nd
• Mayhem in Merrimack (Merrimack, NH) =June 5th
• Where's Wolcott? (Wolcott, CT) =June 5th
• RiverRage (Manchester, NH) ~October
• Bash@TheBeach (Old Lyme, CT) ~October
• Duel On the Delaware ~October
• Ramp Riot (Ambler, PA) ~November
• RaChaCha Ruckus (Rochester, NY) ~November

This list is just compiled using Google etc. Please correct me if any of this info is incorrect.

I've found that off-season events are a great way to (inexpensively) get more play out of that extremely expensive robot that you and your team worked so long and so hard over! And, if you plan your trip well, you can plan in all sorts of team-building activities!

Jacob

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Off season? More like on season, our season is always on. We develop new ideas, teach students about building, electrical, pneumatics, and tools. Work on programming, web design, networking, business planning, fundraising, and community service. We help with local teams to promote FRC and FLL. Help put on fall FRC and FLL events. Cook meals for the homeless, fund raise for those in need. It never ends.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

PARC XIII

Tunkhannock Area High school
120 West Tioga Street
Tunkhannock, PA 18657

Registration fee: $150

Doors Open at 7:00 AM and practice starts at 8:00 AM

Team registration page: http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/registration.aspx

Volunteer registration page:http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/Volunteer.aspx

Chicken BBQ tickets: http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/BBQ.aspx

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We have been trying diferent kicker designs and now that the season is over we finally came up with a good one http://www.team1322.org/ideas.htm#Kicker . We are using two 1 ½ pneumatics to push two springs to latch the kicker. Than we are stretching the springs with the pneumatics, once they are stretched we can use a small pneumatic to release the kicker that kicks 35 ft. We also found that when latched and in the stretch position we cam very the distance using a VEX motor connected to a variable pressure regulator.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Thanks.

Even though that's basically what we had for a kicker (huge super-piston pulls back giant spring, use a smaller piston to release a door latch to let the kicker swing) I think we might try that. I also heard of simple ideas like sticking a hammer on a servo and apparently that works.

Anyone have any recommendations for CAD software that is free/cheap and you can get a library of FIRST parts for it? (Not demo versions, please) I need to work on my CAD skills in the off-season, and Google Sketchup is just a tiny bit awkward for making robots with, and I haven't found any FIRST parts so far.

We also have no major (non-local) sponsors, how do you people generally scout for sponsors? That also explains our lack of money, and, coincidentally, plethora of mechanical problems, lack of members, and low seed (see mechanical problems).

When's the best time/way to recruit members? WE have four active members currently, and no captain, aside from I'm acting captain until we pick a captain or something.



Thaine

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

There are a few different free CAD programs at no cost for you.
The ones I use are Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks.

You can obtain a free student Autodesk License by signing up at www.students.autodesk.com. After making an account, you can download all the programs for free (If you are a student of course).

You can also obtain a free solidworks license by contacting your local reseller and explain to them that you are from FIRST. They have a special version of solidworks called Solidworks Student Design kit.

Personally, I prefer Solidworks over Inventor. It is much easier to use and much more intuitive.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Thanks a lot, When I went to their website, I thought the "student license" was a six-week trial version for the build season. :o

I'll have to look that up.


Thaine

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

I signed up as a student at Autodesk. It appears you have to be at least 14 and know your school email address for a verification that you are indeed a student. I think you need to renew your license like every 13 months? Of course license ends when you don't go to any school.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

The Autodesk software packages have 13 MONTH licenses. You can easily go all the way through high school plus one month and never ever run out of CAD software.

It is the real deal. Full featured, all day long !!

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Honestly, about 75% of what we do as a team is during the off-season.
-Prototyping
-Service Projects (blood drives, community cleanups)
-Team Building Activities
-Administrative duties
-Funding activities and Partnerships
-Ordering of Materials
-Upgrade/revise/improve our facilities
-400+ person fundraiser luau
-End of Year Banquet
-VEX season-build, tournaments, and workshops
-Off-season events (varies)
-CAD projects
-Robot demonstrations at various events
-FRC sustainability and program management workshops
-Hawaii Regional Planning Committee

And of course, my day job.
-District Grant Coordinator
-Lead Robotics Coordinator and Mentor
-Learning Center Coordinator
-21st CCLC Grant Coordinator
-Technology Cadre Team
-Private foundations Grant Coordinator

And most importantly, full-time Dad!

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We are doing:

-A game night
-3 major fundraisers
-About a dozen demonstrations
-3 two or three day off season events.
-Can Bus development
-Field dismantling and rebuilding back to a 'standard' field
-Update of our computer systems in the room, along with a rewire of our network
-Tear apart of our practice bot and set-up of a bench controls system so we can start programming on day 1 of the new season
-Rework of our business plan
-Rework of our chairman's award
-Cleanup of our network server (this has been ongoing after we moved from a single 500 gb harddrive to 3 TB of storage with raid backup in a NAS. Slow process with a bunch of 10+ gigabyte movie files.

Those are currently scheduled. We have 18 events currently with team member names against them but no dates applied yet - we're fitting them in as we can.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Hahaha my team is the same way. The "off"-season is a great time to work on stuff you normally can't accomplish during build and competition seasons. One of the team's mottos is " A new season starts the moment an old season ends, so new ideas never go out of season."

Some of the things the firebirds will be doing this off-season:

-Host an end of Year Team Bonfire
-Learn CAD
-Make buttons (No matter how many we make during build season we always run out :D )
- Modify past robots to shoot candy
- take modified candy robots to a local 4th of July parade
- Attend Local off-season competitions. (We had a blast at PARC! thanks 222)
-Visit retirement homes with our robot
-Have strategic planning meetings.
-Clean our shop after four months of intense use
-Visit our sponsors and give presentations about our past season.
- Go to local girl scout summer camps and give robotics demonstrations
-work on our website
- Hold a recruitment picnic to meet girls who are interested in joining the team
- Hold seminars to teach incoming members about different aspects of the team
-Start FRC rookie teams
-Hold seminars to teach new FRC rookie teams about robot components and team building
-Pack and send parts to our team in Ghanna
-Start and continue to Mentor FLL teams
-Build an off-season community service robot
-Raise Money for the American Heart Association,(we drive the robots in the Philadelphia Heart Walk.)
-Visit lcoal schools to teach kids about Heart Health with our heart-bot "tinman"
-Hold two fundraisers

Hahaha not to mention the fact that all the rising seniors on the team ( including me :) ) have to write colleges essays and fill out applications this summer/fall. Needless to say I am going to be very busy this off-season. :D

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Let's see...

Let plan to:
CAD
Build a robot
Demos at local science summer camps
Present to some local interested companies
Prepare for off-season event. (This is huge for us cause we get to attract new members with competition early).

- Sunny

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

From what I hear so far (I haven't been able to attend a team meeting lately):

• TARDEC competition
• MARC competition
• IRI competition
• Kettering Kickoff competition
• Dawgbot (a small bot using the NI control system that is mostly a programming project to design autonomous stuff (tracking down soccer balls and bringing them back mostly)
• New battery cart
• Perhaps the Stairmaster (which cannot die, it's been around for two years) that can lift things up the stairs in our one of our sponsor's machine shop to our loft workspace)
• The 503 party June 18th
• Other LAN parties/get-togethers that haven't been arranged yet

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

The Stairmaster is actually used to move the robot up and down the stairs without having people carry it. None of the machines downstairs would be able to fit on it (with the previous designs that we have).

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Our team doesn't participate in any specific events during the off-season, but if yours is the same you can still learn things involving robotics. I'm working on the team website over summer, for example, but you could also get the CAD student software or LabVIEW installed on a home computer to mess around with.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Hi Guys,
I'm a mentor on team 342. Don't forget that we are holding the Summer pyGames www.summerpygames.org this summer. SPAM, MORT, the Red Devils, and the Burning Magnetos are all participating from the FRC as well as a local FTC team. The Goal is to make a educational video game in 6 weeks with your team. This gives the programmers & graphic art students something fun to do!
I just found out we are going to be giving away 7 netbooks for the top prize! Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

catch up on the sleep we missed during the rest of the year and purge the mountain dew from our bloodstreams

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Hahaha.... I actually laughed pretty hard at that :rolleyes:
...because it's true! I had a headache for a full week due to massive absorption of Mountain Dew at the Cleveland Regional. But it was definitely worth it :D

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Some of the other team leaders and I on 662 have been talking alot about the off-season lately and the main things we've come up with are:
1. LOTS of demos at our local middle schools and even elementary schools
2. Hosting an "Engineering Fun Day" for middle and elementary schoolers
and 3. Getting involved in charity... even if it has nothing to do with robotics or engineering (I'm tossing around the idea of a Knit-a-thon haha)

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Wait a minute...There actually is an "off-season" ?

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

For some teams that never had the support to do anything all year 'round, yes.

We're just now finally getting to our first "off-season", and it's starting off with a bang. We've got a rib cook-off to demonstrate at for the next three days, starting this afternoon, we are planning a movie night at a local church and a bowling night at a local alley for fundraising, ordering HexBugs to sell at various events locally, scouting out a viable off-season event or two that we can attend, and training our new members (from our constant recruiting) in the ways of safety, tool usage, programming, and more.

Fundraising, training, maybe design a bunch of different chassis, or try out some new code. Work on a nice pit display for next year, maybe make a cool cart that can hold your tools, go volunteer in the community (Adopt-A-Highway, read at the library, visit your local VA hospital, etc), the possibilities are truly endless.

Basically, take what you can't do or haven't done during the FIRST season, and apply it to off-season. Then add in some things you do anyway during the FIRST season (ex., competitions, except these are on a smaller scale than a regional), and you've got yourself a year-round group, who will be prepared for the next "season" of FIRST.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We (MARS 2614) are doing a FIRST-like summer challenge this year. Working with the hallways in the building we meet in, a few of us designed a summer challenge and divided up into a red team and a blue team (approx. 10-15 on each team). The challenge is more like FLL style, one robot at a time, and there is a portion that the drviers cannot see.
The robot starts at the end of the hallway. It goes forward, driving through a set of cones (we won't know the configuration of the cones until the day of competition). Once it is past the cones, it rounds a corner, and the driver can no longer see the robot. This requires teams to work with sensors or a camera. At the end of this hallway, the robots have to pick up 6 pvc cubes (1 cubic foot), 3 stacks of 2, and elevated 3ft off the floor. The robot then has to come back thru the cones, and deliver the cubes to a large box. THEN, it will push the box over the start line (box is 50 lbs). Teams get points for neatness, Autodesk design, and for the lightest robot. There are also scoring for the cubes and pennalties if you hit a cone. So, this requires teams to think about traction, light-weight, workign with sensors, and with arm mechanisms.
Keep in mind that we are supposed to use parts WE ALREADY HAVE so the team can save money.

I have attached the rule book for this challenge, if you want to take a look. Great job Luke, btw.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Oh yeah, it also is a great way to get kids involved as soon as they join in the "pre-season." It is a GREAT way to get the public and sponsors involved as well! :)

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuHFWsja1Lw

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vPlQIgsxQ

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGtbBz1sQo

or maybe even

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elb0LZCQ9oI

but if your really feeling adventurous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM

-q :]

(p.s. if your in the chicagoland area this weekend be sure to check out Brickworld 2010!)

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Hey 1922! :)

During the off-season, we go to multiple off-season competitions. We hope you had fun at Mayhem in Merrimack :) but also check out River Rage in Manchester (they switch off between the multiple Manchester, NH high schools). It's the oldest off-season held around early November and lots of teams go. Over the summer, specifically, we do a lot of volunteer work at community events but by no means do we completely fill our students' schedules... after all it is summer vacation! We have some team bonding activities (today we're all going to see Toy Story 3!) mostly over the summer. Then, when the school year starts back up again, we have 'Robot U' which is teaching the new members (and veterans who have been working on certain types of tasks who want to learn the other ones) about the basics in things like mechanical, electrical, software, business, and strategy. We found this year that what worked for us is not having the rookies come to all of our weekly meetings before kickoff, but rather have them come every other week and make sure those meetings contain something fun to keep them both involved and interested. When not during the 'peak FIRST season', for us it's really just a mixture of team bonding, community events, off-season competitions, learning with each other, and of course fundraising! If you can find the mixture/schedule of those things that works for your team then you're golden :).

WE LOVE YOU OZ-RAM!

Thanks,
Gen

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Thanks for the kind words, Gen. We had a blast in Merrimack. We had our younger members driving and it was fun watching them get better and more confident as the day went on.

I have been hearing about River Rage since I joined the team this past year so we better be going. Our newest mentor and former member of team 229 has mentioned trying to get us into the Rochester Ruckus also. We have also run a few demos at sponsers and at school events and let people drive our robot (I am glad that bumpers are mandatory).

This has been a funny thread as it keeps coming back to life. It has been interesting to see how busy some teams are but I think many of our members devote so much time during the regular season that they need the rest or need to spend time doing real life stuff.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Erm, a lot of work and time? Haha, we used a lot of old parts from older robots. Ours used two wheels direct driven off of CIM's to shoot out a T-Shirt. Other teams use compressed air, but compressing air in PVC is risky buisness. There are a lot of way to do it, and its a great summer project and its fun to show it off to your school!

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

building things in the off season is always a fun way to spend time. It also gives good opportunity to learn more about designing and build robot mechanisms.

This year my team has build a new kicker. Even though it hasn't actually been used in a competition yet I learned quite a lot designing and then building it.

Over the summer I want to push to return some of the old robots we have to working order. Since we have quite a few up on the top shelf not quite in working order.

During the fall my team is going to make a test bed to prototype on next build season. This also is something kids on my team shall learn from. We plan on getting all the members involved in the planning of it so that we can catch new members and teach them a bit about robots. Nothing teaches better then doing.

We do car washes and pasta dinners during the summer and fall to raise money to offset trip costs for students.

my team goes to a couple off season events during the spring and bash at the beach in the fall. We do demos for our main sponsors and for the towns our team is from. we even take the robot in parades!

We have a picnic to celebrate the end of the school year and to say goodbye to our senior friends.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Some team's are all year round, it depends on what you feel best suits your team.
We turned to a year round structure last summer and it helped us so much this year.It allowed us to get things that weren't robot related out of teh way so that when build did come, we didn't have as much on our plate as we had in the past.
We use our 'off-season' to recruit new sponsors, as well as give final updates to our current sponsors about how the season went, what we did, etc... We also use the summer to revise our team documents (such as our business plan and By-laws), and hold/participate in more community outreach events, and demo's for schools (this usually happens right after nationals). This year we are going to be doing some maintenance of our server and work on re-designing our website a little bit. We are hoping to also at least start working on our awards submissions for the following year.

As mentioned previously, the 'off-season' is a great time to teach. We use off-season events to show interested students what a competiton atmosphere is like, and the prep for those competitions as mini-build seasons/training sessions. It's also a great time to let returning members do a little mentoring.
Now, this past year was my senior year and I'm not a mechanically inclined person so i handled most of the business aspects of the team (talking to judges, awards submissions, etc...) but the off season allowed me to find students that were interested in the business stuff I worked on and train them so they know exactly what needs to get done next year and how to do it. I found it a lot easier to do after build then during, just because it wasn't as hectic; not that it's impossible during build, because some of the learning has to be done that way, but we all know tensions can get high. lol

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

Watch TV - really.

Take a look at www.LetsGoDesign.tv, a new interactive web series by SolidWorks. Follow my friend and fellow engineer Jeremy Lucini as he takes you through the design process of a new product. Its not a robot, but the concepts of engineering design are classic - whether you are in a competition or developing a capstone design project. You can vote on which way the project will go, do you choose Steel or Aluminum, do you choose option A or option B?

Episode 1: Importing hand sketches and getting things to take shape
Episode 2: Trying out some radical ideas
Episode 3 : Making partnership and simulating the design

Episode 4 will be released shortly marrying beauty with manufacturing techniques and driving a sustainable design

LetsGoDesign.tv uses engineers and designers from SolidWorks and our customers. Design ideas are driven from the SolidWorks community. Its pretty cool.

Marie

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

For the last three years, we have run a team summer project. In this project, we have focused on a technology area which we believed would be beneficial for the team to understand. We define the problem and scope. We build prototypes. We test these and develop the mathematics behind them based on these tests and first principles.

In the first summer project we explores "twitch" (biaxial tank) drive and 6wd tank. Hitherto, we had always built 4-wheel (either 2 or 4 wd) robots. As a result, we learned first-hand the benefit of 6wd over 4wd (and that 2wd with a 4-wheel robot was to generally avoided).

In our second summer project we developed a 4-wheel independent pivot drive-train. While this drive-train is motor-intensive, it allows a lot of very interesting fly-by-wire drive modes. Programming becomes first & foremost! We used this drive-train in our 2010 robot and have not been disappointed (It's our best robot ever).

This summer's program focued on our robot's shortcomings in preparation for competition at IRI. The main work was on the possessor which finally did). This was our first time at IRI. The team did well and we in no way embarrassed ourselves in front of this august group.

Re: What to do in the off-season
 

We also use this time to:

* Recruit students
* Recruit mentors
* Raise money
* Connect with the community