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Unread 13-06-2005, 10:41
Jaine Perotti Jaine Perotti is offline
...misses her old team.
AKA: BurningQuestion
FRC #0716 (The Who'sCTEKS)
Team Role: Alumni
 
Join Date: May 2004
Rookie Year: 2003
Location: Melbourne, FL
Posts: 979
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Re: Reduced-space Demos?

Team 716 has done many demos with reduced space.

Having led several demos, I find that my main concern is the safety of the audience members while a kid (or an adult) is driving. The first presentation I ever did was for an elementary school in Pine Plains, NY (we were making a presentation about robotics in the hope that we could start a lego team there). As the kids were coming in, we handed out different color question marks (our logo), and whoever got a certain color could come up and drive. We were presenting in a school gym, and the kids were sitting on bleachers, and others were on the floor. As kids were driving, there were several times when I had to grab the joysticks to prevent the robot from crashing into audience members who were sitting on the floor or in the very first row of bleachers. Although we also have a dongle (and I am always ready to flip the switch), I wish that there were a better way to keep spectators safe. With a dongle, you may hit the switch too late, or the robot may continue to move with momentum.

At another demo I did, we had our robot at a Tri-State business expo, and were basically trying to spread community awareness about our team - we werent trying to solicit for donations as much as we were trying to get publicity. We brought a mini-bar from the 2004 game, and we demonstrated how the robot could hang on the bar. Personally, I like the 2004 robot/game the best for demonstration, because hanging off the bar is a pretty cool feat to watch, plus a reduced size version of the bar can easily be built. It doesn't take up much room, and it is very attention-grabbing. However, even with this reduced-space setup, I was still concerned for the safety of the crowd. Even though we had experienced drivers, the crowd was not as likely to make good decisions about maintaining a safe distance. Because the robot was in the aisle, it would not allow people to pass by very easily. I also think that the audience would have felt safer if there had been some sort of a barrier. Therefore, I have the following solution:

Build a "portable field barrier" that would serve as a boundary for the robot-driving area. The field would look similar to the basic fence that surrounds a FIRST playing field, except made from lower cost materials, such as plywood. Build it so that the pieces of it are segmented - so that you could assemble/dissasemble it with ease, and it would be stored in a small area. You could also assemble it as large/small as you want to, and in any shape so that it would be adaptable to the type of presentation you are doing and how much space it requires or is allowed. The benefits of this type of field setup are numerous - the audience feels more comfortable with the robot, and they are safer.

My team has not built anything like this yet, but it seems like it would be a good idea. Maybe your team can give it a try, and see how it works out. Hope this helped.

-- Jaine
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Ocean Engineering, '12
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