50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Well, we're here! 50 more days until kick-off and FRC teams are mostly signed up for competitions/championships, submitting awards, fundraising, and building their Teams!

What kind of stuff is your team doing to get ready for the 2012 season?

Some of the stuff my team (772!) is doing:
- Building an off-season chassis as a prototype
- Creating a new business plan
- Fundraising by putting on dances for the grade 7/8's
- Programmers are currently learning how to program in C++, and doing the BETA testing
- Electrical is learning the uses of Pneumatic, how to set up pneumatic systems and how to correctly wire a Robot
- Mechanical is learning how to design in SolidWorks
- Animating the Safety Animation

This year we are signed up for Greater Toronto Regional West, Smoky Mountains Regional (Tennessee), Queen City Regional (Cincinnati), And FIRST Championships!! (total of 58 hours of driving! :$)

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

That is pretty much what my team is doing.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

1. Training every (new and old)
2. Learning CAD
3. Getting sponsors
4. Ordering parts
5. Getting the lab set up
6. Organizing the room, the computers, etc.
7. Deciding where to stuff the programmers
8. Stocking up on sleep for the 2012 season
9. Searching for new mentors! Anyone in the San Jose area interested?
10. Finishing this list of what to do in the final days.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

174 is doing some really awesome things.

1 - Seminars for the greenhorns as well as a refreshers for all the team members.
2 - Restructuring the way we train our team drivers/human player/coach.
3 - Restructring the design process
4 - Gathering some information from former students on what they think about the team and how it works.
5 - Prototyping a new chassis type.
6 - Buying some extra parts that we wouldn't usually buy this early in the season.
7 - Getting sleep.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 45 is
Building a prototype drivetrain
Beta testing in Labview
Building a new pit/layout
Training new members
Getting harrassed by the business lead about Chairmen's :D

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Some people count down to Christmas.... January 7th is this years Christmas!
See you in Tennessee:D

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Don't forget about practicing, Tetraman. We can always use practice. Trying to code some line sensors today...

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Your right! I Don't know about you but i really dont care about christmas compared to this years kick-off :)

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Ditto :D
The suspense for this years game is killing me.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Well atleast i Know im not alone XD

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

I am so excited also, as this is the first year we actually have a CAD team, and their will be a lot of pressure on us in the first week.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

* providing much of the support for the new City of FIRSTs FLL Qualifying Tournament
* building a robot crate for rookie FRC team #3940
* refurbishing the New Years light ball
* earning sponsorship credit by doing small jobs for AndyMark

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 33 has/is:

-competed in 4 offseason events (MARC, IGVC, IRI, Kettering Kickoff)
-competed in OCCRA (Oakland Community Competitive Robotics Association) which just finished up today.
-competing in the 2011 game: Vex Gateway (three teams)
-Demoing the robot in lots of places/events.
-Will be in a parade with teams 245 and 201.
-training new members
-Beta testing Labview
-Building a prototype drivetrain
-Further developing code on the new drivetrain
-Aquiring new sponsors and maintaining old ones.
-cleaning
-working on our website
-starting up our Chairmen's Award Submission
-stocking up on materials for 2012

Keepin' busy, Bryan

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

I can already feel the fatigue and lack of sleep coming on.
It's going to be sweet.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

why building the crate? Is everything B&T this year? I have a slightly used crate I will sell you cheap ;>

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

1) Robots bound for the FIRST Championship must be shipped in a crate.
2) Crates are useful to put a robot in when being transported in the back of a truck during less than perfect weather.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

49 days! Or if you're reading this tomorrow (or far enough east), then 48 days! :D

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

This off-season we:

• Did multiple demonstrations for the school and Boeing, and the St. Louis Science Center
• Hosted our first Robotics Open House, where we showed the public about FIRST and demonstrated FRC matches with FRC teams around the area (FLL and FTC were also there)
• Competed in the 2011 Cow Town ThrowDown
• Repaired our 2011 FRC robot within 2 weeks after the Cow Town ThrowDown
• Trained our rookies with 2 FTC teams
• Mentored new FLL teams in our district at our middle schools
• Had a group of people work on a Safety Animation
• Restored our 2008 FRC Robot "Reality Check"
• Started work on an FTC Demonstration Bot
• Probably much more I have forgotten to mention

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

All I want for Christmas is a good hint from FIRST which will never, ever happen. At least while I'm still playing the games they put out.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

WHY IS KICK-OFF TAKING SO LONG TO GET HERE?????

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

1071 just completed hosting the Inaugural Where is Wolcott? FLL (a CT FIRST Qualifying Event). We've been spending most of are time prepping for that, and for the Jr. FLL Event we'll be holding in January.

Mean while our mechanical team is been refurbishing out 2010 robot, as we've decided that we're going to continue to use that robot for future demonstrations.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 2489 members are racking up community service hours volunteering at a variety of FLL and FTC events!

We are also:

• Building a cart(with numbers on the side :P)
• Changing our 2010 robot to a test bot
• Fixing our 2011 robot for a presentation
• Holding workshops so no one gets hurt ::safety::
  And last but not least...
• Team bonding!

Can't wait till Jan. 7!

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 1318:
1)Reorganizing Buisness side of team
2)Building electric cart for robot
3)Training Subteams( CAD, Programing, Electronics, Fabrication)
4)Stocking up on parts for build season
5) community outreach and service
6)preparing chairmens entry
7)recruiting
8) getting mentors and sponsors
9)mentoring rookie team

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

1. Rebuilding t-shirt bot.
2. Working on VRC bots.
3. Hosting VRC competition.
4. Always cleaning.
5. Working with rookie team 4233.
6. Searching for more mentors.
7. Starting Chairmans award.
8. Resting up for kickoff!

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 781 (Kinetic Knights) have been / are working on the following:

-Creating a business plan
-Training our students interested in web design; they are learning HTML, PHP and CSS
-Training our design / interested students in SolidWorks so that we can effectively share designs and ideas.
-Running safety sessions with long time 781 mentor Lyle Semple (Videos available on our youtube channel, just search Kinetic Knights)
-Contacting previous sponsors
-Contacting new potential sponsors
-Looking for new mentors (and students of course, we have already gained more rookie students than number of senior students we lost at the end of last season)
-Building a full size field in a sponsor warehouse, holding our software beta testing open house at this location as well as other upcoming events.
-Buying parts
-Possibly taking part in our local Christmas parade.
-Updating our website for the 2012 season
-Just ran a successful "parents night" to introduce parents to FIRST, FRC and our team
-Rebuilt our 2011 Logomotion prototype chassis for use in testing programming next season, as well as for demonstrating code to those who are learning the programming process used in FRC
-Visiting a new sponsor located two hours from our school, they want to see our robot, and we want to see their expensive tools!
-Building a battery cart for next season
-Building a systematic inventory system so we always know what we have and what we need
-Planning on running a mock kickoff for our team, depending on our situation we could be inviting other teams in the area to practice their brainstorming skills (I would like to invite other teams since this is my own initiative)

That's all for now..
Good luck to everyone in the 2012 season as well as surviving through the holiday season without becoming anxious for the arrival of Jan 7th.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Haha
That's pretty much me right now. Our team has set a goal to have Chairman's done by kickoff, so I've been doing that a lot.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

Team 3539 has:
Moved into new build location
Learned Java programming
Built a robot shielded by 1/4'' bullet proof steel for
the macomb sherrif's dept. for target practice sessions.
Raised funds for entry fees and parts.
Trained new members
Started a new robot cart
Designed/ built a new pit set up
Designed new drive system in CAD
Many other things that I have might not have taken notice of. :)

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

So far, we've moved into a new workspace, somewhat organized a decade's worth of stuff, assembled 11 shelving units, and four workbenches, and moved about 3000 pounds of machinery from another school. My new current project is restoring old Wilton vises and a 1961 Logan lathe, using electrolysis to remove rust and paint. I also completely tore down, cleaned, and repainted a drill press that is currently awaiting reassembly.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

It's sad, but 256 is slowing down until the new year. :'(

So until then, PR (me) will be working to get everything in order for the 2012 season!

We'll be:

• Building a new cart (or at least planning out one)
• Getting awards/sponsor info in order
• Working on team aesthetics
• Organizing the team/robo room/parts
• Planning out the build season (tough)
• MAYBE attempting Chairman's (It would be our first year, and it'd be me doing it. Any help with what to do?)
• Getting more sponsors
• Attending the MVRT workshops this Saturday and the WRRF workshops the following week
• Planning out possible drive trains (Useless unless we know the game, but still fun!)
• Researching the teams attending the Silicon Valley regional, especially the rookies (Rookies attending the Silicon Valley regional or are in the NorCal area, PLEASE feel free to contact us with any questions, and we'd love to talk to/help you during the build season!)
• Desperately waiting until kickoff (January 7th, Y U SO FAR AWAY!?)

Probably many more, but that's all I can think of.

Re: 50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!
 

EWCP is planning out the rest of the year's casts. Not a hard feat as we have enough casts in the queue to do one a week though ship date. (Holidays excepted) We can't handle that amount of time though and I think you'd get sick of the Dustin giggling.

We are also setting up our infrastructure. Emails, calendars, group chat, message boards, websites. None of this sets itself up. We are also hard at work creating new tools and resources for teams to use (and for us to use internally).

In the short term, I'm working on setting up stuff for our drive system mini talks. I think that's happening after work tomorrow.