Ideas for the summer
 

Greetings all, I was wondering if anyone had ideas for the summer. Our team is planning to meet once a day for 3 to 4 hours each week this summer, and I'm worried we're going to be sitting ducks. Was wondering if anyone had an idea for what to work on/build ect this summer, and how to motivate the team to do it. Most of our older members love working in the summer so I'm not worried about them, but some of our new members I'm worried will find it boring or just not take interest. My hope was that we could train ourselves in new designs such as lifting ideas (never know when FIRST will throw that at us again) mecanum drive, Gyro stabilization, ect. If you have any ideas that would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ght=off+season

I did a quick search for "off season" and I got the thread above.

And I think that the things that you have pointed out are just excellent things to test out and to be able to put into your arsenal for the upcoming year. My team doesn't exactly know what to expect next year, but I know that we saw a couple of systems this year that we'd like to experiment with.

- Sunny

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

For the morale side of things, here's a couple of ideas:

-- Decide on ideas for projects before school gets out (if it hasn't already) and announce the ideas to the team. If you can, try to include a bit of "gee whiz" factor (i.e. something that the new students will readily understand will make the finished product really cool) so that the students will have motivation to stick around. This may mean thinking up more of a project than just trying a certain kind of drivetrain. Think of a project that could integrate that drivetrain (or gyro stabilization, or lifting mechanisms) instead; you'll still get the practice, but it will be more attractive.

-- The fact that you have dedicated older members is fantastic, you're in a very good position. An idea would be to assign each of your new students to one of the more experienced members. Tell them they'll be partners for the summer and will be working together. Just make clear to the veterans that the new person isn't there to just be a lacky, they should be showing them how to do things, and more importantly letting them do the work themselves when they are able. The idea here is to encourage some of your experienced to take on a bit of a mentor role. Hopefully they'll like it enough that they'll come back and help out even after they're in college. But you can also let them know this doesn't mean they can't have any of the fun themselves. Encourage them to work on the more advanced parts that maybe the new students aren't quite ready for yet; that way, the veterans and the rookies hopefully won't get in each others' way.

Good luck,
--Ryan

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

Design and build a robot cart, or even an entire pit.

Make a t-shirt-cannon robot.

Come up with an effective and organized way to bring your stuff to competitions.

Do a robotic aluminum can crusher and encourage people to recycle.

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

I'm going to have to disagree with this one. Return those cans to the store and raise money for your team. Working towards St. Louis $.10 at a time...

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

design new drive trains

presentations of course

thank you trip to sponsors

learn programming

brainstorm more ideas about next year's game

plan on how to set up next year's pit so it won't be a messy sprawl

clean you team shirt :D

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

That's not an option for the original poster. Virginia doesn't have beverage container deposits. Michigan is the only state with a ten-cent deposit on soft drink cans (though California could change that at any time).

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

Touche, Mr. Anderson...Touche...

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

Team 316 is working on designing a gyro stabilization driving chasis. We are using LabView. Any code, algorithms, ides, etc. would be of great assitance! Thanks!

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

Hmm. We made one 2008 for labview. If we still have it I'd be happy to send it to you, but i think it was only for mecanum, but I'll look at it next time i have access to the school's computer.

Re: Ideas for the summer
 

If you had the starter code from last year working, that is a reasonable starting point.
You could then change the set point to be controlled by something other than the camera, to be active even when the stick button is not pressed, and to add the steering correction to the joystick values. You may also need to describe the type of steering your robot has.

Greg McKaskle