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Unread 28-08-2007, 22:45
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Kyle A Kyle A is offline
If it ain't broke don't fix it!
AKA: K Adams
FRC #0306 (CRT(Corry Robotics Team))
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Corry PA
Posts: 341
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Re: An Unusually Small Team...?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
First off, DON'T underestimate your skills. No one expects teams to have a professional student programmer or machinist. Corry has produced some excellent robots during the past few years, and though your team is currently smaller, you have watched and experienced all that has gone into making those great bots. You and your teammates have more experience than you seem willing to accept credit.

As a school based team, the obvious first choice to build the team-base is within your own school. However, if you are not able to get to your "critical mass" of students, see if the administration will allow students outside your system to participate (private schools or home-schooled students).

One year at VCU, we met a home-schooled team who each built a robot component independent of each other. It was only immediately before shipping that all parts were brought together for the first time and assembled for competition. An interesting communications concept to deal with the large distances that separated the students, and a significantly more difficult challenge than most of our teams face.

Second, spend as much time as possible during the fall to improve your own skills and train new students. If possible, attend off-season events, even if you are not competing, to familiarize your new students to the FIRST culture. Walk around the pits, and have them discuss with teams about how their robot is built/programmed. Get SPECIFIC! Why did they use a dual lift instead of a ramp? How did they build their combo Ramp-Lift? Etc. Off-season events aren't just for gameplay, they should also be a training session for new students and rookie teams.

Finally, if you find that you do need assistance with skills, reach out to the FRC community. One of your neighbors, whom you have traveled with over the past few years, Team 291 CIA, is listed as "Willing to Mentor" on the FIRST website. Mentoring Teams are not only looking to help rookies, but also to help any established teams that need assistance. There are many programming questions that will end up here on CD, and often there are a number of suggestions/ideas to solve the problem. Your team's resources extend far beyond your school, make effective use of them.

CRT has been one of the fun teams to watch at the Philadelphia Regional the past few years, and I expect they will be again in 2008!
First off i would like to say thank you. Though I graduated i still am going to help out and i know a few things. The team is bigger than 5 people, being that it was summer, people have trouble making it in. In the fall I know our mentor makes it possible for people to go to school in the mornings and work on machine shop stuff, and then in the afternoons on anything else. Also before we left last year we trained the members that were on the team, and taught them almost everything that we could. What some of the new members don't know is in 2004 we, the 12 seniors, were in there shoes. We didn't know anything and know one really taught us how to do anything. In 2005 when we were the oldest ones left we had to do everything ourselves, and we didn't have the greatest robot. We taught ourselves how to do everything. As bill said we have built some excellent robots, but it wasn't until we used all of our resources.
Finally there are still team members around that are willing to help out, all you will have to do is ask. Team 306 was not left with nothing, and if they use all there resources wisely they will succeed.
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