Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex Cormier
another thing i have seen is in many of those top teams. They re-use ideas and bases form previous years. Look at HOT's 04, 05 arm, it was used before. 1126 has used the same base for 3 years now, 254 has used a similar base for a while now. Why reinvent the wheel entirely every year?
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You are absolutely right. Make sure you make use of prototyping. During the off season experiment with designs, etc that you feel might work. A few sketches never hurt. In addition, KISS. Keep everything as simple as you can. Many teams fail to remember that doing every decently is
not tantamount to doing one thing well. Pick something that you know you can do well and do it. Though I have full faith in the abilities of FIRST members, frankly some teams do not yet have the resources and know-how for building a robot that can do the more advanced things.
In regards to keeping a good team running, a robot is only as good as its drivers and tacticians. Make sure you have someone that knows the rules like the back of their hands so you never run into trouble. Make sure your drivers a practicing as much as you can get them to. Even during the off season our drivers (currently new) are trained as often as possible on older robots.
Have a good scouting team. If you know exactly what's going to come at you, it's only going to make your job that much easier. And if you cannot afford to have people scouting (in a #people to # jobs you have) sense, get scouting data from other teams. There are many scouting services available across FIRST that you can use--of course use them with a grain of salt.
As was said before--mentors, mentors, mentors. As Sean said good teams have mentors that return year after year. Adding mentors is always great, but try not to drop mentors that are experienced in FIRST style robotics. (yes I know that this is often unforeseeable). Sponsors are equally as important. Most schools simply do not have the equipment it takes--we have no mechanism for cutting metal accurately, for doing a lot of the more complex machinery, etc. Mentors and Sponsors (or even better mentors from your Sponsor) can make they difference when you have a 'rebuilding year'. Every team has those years when most of the experienced members leave and the newer ones must be trained. The mentors can help you train these members--but better yet, make sure these kids are trained before the older ones leave. We have a program called FTP (Freshman Training Program) which allows for the training of new members by older ones. Everyone is taught the basic concepts and then allowed to choose where they would like to further continue their studies.