Re: Goals for 2012
 

1. Be able to score in autonomous...
1a. ... and endgame...
1b. ...using Kinect for some function well.
2. Finish fast so we can actually have practice time.
3. Play on the field with WildStang at North Star
3a. Be on the winning side, either with or against them
4. Winning record...
4a. ...getting picked.
5. Award of some sort.
6. Get school district staff to come to the competition.

Re: Goals for 2012
 

I suppose mine aren't so ambitious, but they imply stretch goals similar to what's been posted:

1.) Be the best at the endgame this year, regardless of the main scoring goal
2.) Perform some of the decision aiding and numerical analysis techniques I've learned with my degree to find a quiet lucrative niche
3.) Seed #1 again
4.) Have a full render of the robot in various configurations, regardless of whether it's before or after the robot is built. (Often it's easier to spot a problem in build, redesign it via prototyping, and simply put the prototype on the bot...)
5.) Make a launch video and a wrap video

Re: Goals for 2012
 

My goals for our team are:

1. Fundraise more money
2. finish building the robot by week 4 to be able to test drive it
3. win the Los Angeles Regional
4. Go to St. Louis

These are my goals and you can help us fundraise by clicking the link below

Re: Goals for 2012
 

1. Win the Peachtree Regional
2. Build a 2nd robot
3. Go through the entire design process properly
4. Have loads of fun!
5. Bond together as a team.
6. Have the FTC members attend our regional, and us attend the FTC State competition!

Re: Goals for 2012
 

1. Win Chesnut Hill and Mt. Olive Districts or be Finalists
2. Win Rookie All- Star at the MAR Championships
3. Finish building 1st robot on time
4. Build second robot
5. Win at least 1 technical award
6. Aim High

Re: Goals for 2012
 

1) Win the first Montreal Regional
2) Have a practice robot completed
3) Post more regularly on CD
4) Inspire students the same way other mentors inspired me

Re: Goals for 2012
 

Thanks! I've put a lot of time and effort into this and there is some new stuff that I haven't seen any team do before that will be going up about 1/2 way through the season!

Re: Goals for 2012
 

I wouldn't mind a solid week of practice before a competition.

Re: Goals for 2012
 

1) Win the Palmetto Regional. (Fun fact: eight years in, no team has won it back-to-back; only 11 has won it more than once (2004--then 2v2--and 2006.))
1a) If 2815 doesn't do it, have SOMEONE from Columbia win the Palmetto Regional. (2815's gotten one gold and one silver, 1398's won it once, 1293's been stuck in semifinal hell for two years running, and 3976's got a solid start. I like the odds here.)
2) Win the Chairman's Award. (I don't know if we stack up, but I think it's always worth giving it a swing. Even those who miss are almost always doing good things.)
3) Win the Imagery Award. (This is my inner marketing guy screaming.)
4) Make SCRIW II even better than the first. (More teams, more smoothness of operation, more fun. It was hard this year since a couple of teams knew the concept, but now people know what we're about.)
5) Demo more. (We've done more and more events around town, but I think getting into the rhythm of showing off often is crucial to long-term sustainability.)
6) Have fun. (It's easy to get pulled away by infuriating GDC rulings, school district fiery hoops, weather delays, and shipping snafus...but this is supposed to be fun for everyone. Sometimes it takes a boot to the head to keep it that way. :))

Re: Goals for 2012
 

11 hopes to extend that record. They came very close to it last year.

Re: Goals for 2012
 

1. Two completed robots on Stop Build Day
2. A robot that competes in the top 25% at our regional (easily makes elims)
3. A team that's ready to do anything to make the above happen

Re: Goals for 2012
 

From a competition perspective I am surprised more people don't have "Win Championship" as a goal. We actually write it on the board on kickoff day when talking about strategy. Oddly enough our goal for a few years was "Make it to Einstein", but then we were making it and losing in the semis. We then changed our goal to "Win Championship".

Why is this important? Making this statement actually changes some of our decision making throughout the season. It drives us to never stop improving because we are not rated on our top goal until the end of the season. Also, gameplay always changes a bit over the competition season. When discussing strategies the question we try to answer is how will this game play on Einstein? It also affects robot design in that reliability becomes even more important when trying to play up 12-15 matches in one day. There are also small things like an argument had between 2 mentors about putting the compressor on the robot where one states, "When we are on Einstein, put the robot on the field and then have to wait for a Dean speech we are going to want the compressor on the robot". All of these seemingly small things add up to preparing us for the Championship.

So what's my point here? Don't be afraid to dream big and therefore plan big. I am always amazed at what my team is capable of and don't think anyone should discount their team's abilities to achieve big goals. What happens if you don't achieve your goal? Not much, it’s just a robot competition. However, it does allow you to evaluate why you missed it and change what you do the next season.

"Never expect it, always prepare for it".

-Eric

Re: Goals for 2012
 

These are the goals we had way back in aim high
1. Build a robot.
2. Don’t let it get destroyed.
3. Get picked by one of the top eight teams.

Re: Goals for 2012
 

Re: Goals for 2012
 

Keep the design simple, build it tough, and drive it like you stole it. And BE one of the top eight teams. :)