[Sparkyshires]

Hey guys!

So I've been thinking about an off-season idea for my team. We've come to the standard ideas of a swerve drive train, t-shirt cannon, etc., but something i realized is none of these things are really as helpful as they could be in preparing for a new game. For example, if you just try and make a new drive train, that isn't very complicated for the programmers. And most programming exercises the drive team won't get very much out of it. And if you run two projects, then you don't get the integral communication between all sections of the team, which in my opinion is one of the most critical aspects of a successful off-season.

So while I was thinking about this, I came upon a thread about new game ideas. and some of them were really good! One post even had a rough outline of a game manual for a hockey game.

So what about for an off-season idea we run through a whole new mini-season? After competition is over and done with (and maybe even before) some senior members and mentors of the team will start writing up a game manual, and them after the competition and maybe a week of cool-down time, the team will try and build a robot to fit the challenge. We could modify the time-frame, and make it more lax than build-season is, so that you don't have any seriously late nights. It would also allow for much more teaching than build-season does, and it would run every section of team through what they would be experiencing during build season.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions, criticisms, or other thoughts?