At GT we run a 10 week program for all the area teams. The teams meet each week at Georgia Tech for 2 hours. We split each session into two parts: the first is a lecture, the second is a hands on activity. The program ends with a final project for which we are using Lego Mindstorms this year.
Here are the topics we cover:
Introduction to FIRST and how to start a team
Team Building
Basic Physics
Design Methodologies
Drive train design and Motor selection
Manipulator and Pneumatics
Electronics
Control system and Programming
Machine Shop safety
Final Project competition
Our sessions started yesterday with about 15 teams and 100 people in attendance. We expect even more next week. We have some of our presentations from last year posted on our site at
www.robojackets.org (look for the FIRST group link at the bottom). If anyone is interested in some of the material we develop for these sessions, please let me know. I would be more than happy to share.