Forum: General Forum
01-01-2017, 01:26 PM
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Replies: 7
Views: 968
Re: Championship Conferences - Who Goes?
Our students and mentors go to these. We typically review the conference schedule prior to the trip, do an interest sign-up, and then try to build as much accommodation into our schedule as possible....
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Forum: General Forum
12-27-2016, 05:41 PM
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Replies: 14
Views: 1,176
Re: Best Coach Bus Company?
I just realized you may be looking for district competition. Below works better for a long trip like Worlds. For shorter trips, you probably should talk to your local school districts. They often...
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Forum: General Forum
12-22-2016, 09:44 AM
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Replies: 9
Views: 729
Re: RGB LED Lights
We've used FastLED (http://fastled.io) in the past with success. Power comes through the Arduino so your power source whatever is powering that. We powered ours by plugging it into the RoboRIO's USB...
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Forum: General Forum
12-14-2016, 12:38 PM
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Replies: 15
Views: 996
Re: Meeting Schedule
The difference between having a plan and not having one is night and day. I hope you can convince your teammates to have enough faith to try it.
In the meantime, your team has only the memory of the...
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Forum: Scouting
12-09-2016, 11:44 AM
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Replies: 13
Views: 1,658
Re: Convincing a team to go electronic
Your strategists and scouters are really the ones to make or break this argument. Their jobs are directly affected by it, for better or worse.
A lot depends on what kind of data they find important....
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Forum: General Forum
10-30-2016, 05:07 PM
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Replies: 13
Views: 1,144
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Forum: Rumor Mill
09-27-2016, 10:38 AM
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Replies: 41
Views: 6,780
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Forum: Rumor Mill
09-25-2016, 07:25 PM
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Replies: 41
Views: 6,780
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Forum: General Forum
09-22-2016, 02:10 PM
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Replies: 26
Views: 2,943
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Forum: General Forum
09-22-2016, 01:25 PM
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Replies: 80
Views: 5,678
Re: STEM vs. STEAM
It was meant to be a curation of my train of thought but maybe you have a point. I welcome alternate meanings for "(The) Art(s)" to compare.
I didn't consider the end of my post to be so much of a...
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Forum: General Forum
09-22-2016, 11:04 AM
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Replies: 80
Views: 5,678
Re: STEM vs. STEAM
For a long time, I thought the A in STEAM stood for "and", as in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Silly me. :)
To explain my POV, I need to preface this with some definitions. There may be...
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Forum: General Forum
09-22-2016, 10:09 AM
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Replies: 86
Views: 8,874
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Forum: General Forum
09-11-2016, 04:18 PM
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Replies: 42
Views: 4,213
Re: Is FIRST about Robot?
Participating in FIRST is a lot like practicing yoga. There are skills and techniques you perform but they should never be practiced in a way that is counterproductive to the goal.
FIRST's mission...
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Forum: Off-Season Events
09-09-2016, 11:45 PM
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Replies: 37
Views: 2,513
Re: How many off season events?
We're doing 4 this year. Normally we do week 0 at Suffield Shakedown too but we missed it this year.
CT Champs
BattleCry@WPI
Bash at the Beach
Tech Valley Robot Rumble
We love our off-season...
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Forum: Technical Discussion
09-08-2016, 01:53 PM
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Replies: 31
Views: 2,213
Re: Uses of Lexan
Lucky you! Lexan is wonderful stuff. Strong relative to its mass. Our team has found it very useful for protecting electronics. I'm sure your team will discover all sorts of ways to put it to good...
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Forum: General Forum
09-03-2016, 06:17 PM
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Replies: 61
Views: 9,267
Re: FIRST 4 year game theme cycle theory
I saw it as a 2 year pattern of fine motor control vs gross motor control. It makes sense to use a ball with gross motor control since it works best with a highly symmetric object. Fine motor control...
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Forum: General Forum
09-02-2016, 06:11 PM
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Replies: 31
Views: 2,521
Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
I have a hunch that Waterbury and Hartford will be filled with CT teams after 2nd event selection, given that there are nearly 50 CT teams and UMass Dartmouth was popular with CT teams (CT accounted...
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Forum: General Forum
09-02-2016, 11:13 AM
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Replies: 70
Views: 5,015
Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
Our build schedule is:
M-F 6:30pm-9pm
Sat 8am-4pm
Sun (extra credit) 9am-5pm
Attendence during midterms is optional. Our schedule favors nights and weekends due to all of our mentors being working...
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Forum: General Forum
09-02-2016, 10:54 AM
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Replies: 31
Views: 2,521
Re: 2017 - New England District Event Schedule
Sorry to see no UMass Dartmouth this year. I know we'll be thinking long and hard about our options. Typically we like to do 3 district events that are well spaced. 5 weeks with NECMP on week 6 makes...
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Forum: General Forum
08-30-2016, 11:02 AM
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Replies: 15
Views: 1,876
Re: Team Member Accountability
To get to the bottom of what's happening, I think you need to find out why some of your students aren't doing the work. It's normal to have a few new people who end up leaving the team because it...
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Forum: General Forum
07-01-2016, 04:20 PM
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Replies: 24
Views: 1,409
Re: FRC Java or Labview?
Generally I'd say that going with Java is optimal if your team feels they have a basic understanding of programming in general. The main pros for me is:
1) it makes it a lot easier to exploit version...
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Forum: General Forum
06-07-2016, 12:02 PM
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Replies: 5
Views: 1,547
Re: When Worlds Collide
The other day, I found a clip of our robot from 2008 (Overdrive) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYKhFX27Pk) playing the 2014 game, Aerial Assist...
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Forum: General Forum
06-02-2016, 11:34 AM
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Replies: 57
Views: 7,166
Re: The negative effects of FRC
This is true. However, I believe that the time limits and access to robots is meant to keep a lid on the ever-escalating desire for teams to pour even more time and resources into FRC. Whether or not...
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Forum: General Forum
06-01-2016, 04:05 PM
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Replies: 57
Views: 7,166
Re: The negative effects of FRC
Upon further reflection, I wanted to address the work-life balance you're talking about. This of course is not FIRST's responsibility. It is something that everyone needs to work out for themselves....
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Forum: General Forum
05-31-2016, 03:33 PM
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Replies: 57
Views: 7,166
Re: The negative effects of FRC
One of the things our team has been working on is self-care. That means getting adequate sleep, food, and generally giving yourself a break when your stress starts to get too high. It's a lot harder...
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We may be changing cheese heads for cheesy poofs, but in the imortal words of Gen. MacArthur "we shall return" (team # 2437) - cdebo [more] 
