[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by IKE

Sounds like you are looking for a challenge. As I am from the area and know a little about your school/team, why don't you do a complete design study for a system that your team may someday want to use.

I.E. do a complete parametric crab drive design using FIRST components. If you are doing AP physics you should have the background to complete spec out a system from component design, speed, wheel torque, and robot pushing power.
Personally I prefer 6WD bots, but having a well thought out crabdrive in your back pocket would be a great Ace in the hole. The big thing on this would be keeping ego in check should your design be great, but your team does not want to build it.

In college I did a design for a CVT transmission as an independent study. This included doing the stress calculations and tractive power transmission. Doing independent study is tough. As you have already realized you can get as much or as little out of it as you want. What area of engineering do you want to go into? Hope this helps.

This actually sounds really interesting, although the idea seems overwhelming and I'm not sure it's within my ability, but I'm sure I could get some help. I'll definitely consider this. I plan on doing into mechanical engineering.

Originally Posted by mplanchard

Michael, See if your local community college has Calculus 2/3. Calculus 3 is sometimes called Vector Calculus or Multivariable Calculus. If you receive AP Physics credit, try an Engineering Statics class at a community college. You will be able to transfer the credit back to your high school if needed for graduation credit and use it for the college you will enter next year. However, always check with the college you plan to attend if they will accept transfer credit or AP credit. Your local community college or local technical/vocational school may run machine shop classes in their night time programs.

Another way is to take an AP English class, yes English, because if the college you are attending will accept AP English, then you can concentrate on you engineering courses freshman year. Sometimes an engineering college will accept AP humanities credit over AP science/math credit.
If you want to obtain a BS in an Engineering discipline, there are math courses you will have to take beyond Calculus. So the more math you can take the better - Statistics and Linear Algebra come to mind. Most engineers have to take computer science classes so be prepared.

Does your school offer an electronics class? Even mechanical engineers have to take an electrical engineering class. Electical engineering is quite calculus based, but labs are very practical and an electronics class would help. Also, some colleges offer online classes through their continuing education programs.

SolidWorks Robot Summer School is also a good option, especially you can investigate the analysis tools. Although this summer we will concentrate on 3D design and simple analysis with forces and displacement. I would run through the exercises on heat transfer, static and dynamic analysis, and design scenerios. This would show you how to simulate the physics behind the 3D model and to define the boundary conditions to a problem.
Marie

I am taking Calc 2 and 3 at Oakland community college or Oakland University (depending on when it's offered) next year, as for physics that is undecided because I may need to get in a graduation requirement and not have an open slot to take physics or any time outside of school. AP English classes, from what I've heard, are a lot more work than college language classes, that is the AP class is based more on literature, where a English class at an engineering college would be more business based, but for all I know this could be myth, that's just what counselors have told me. English is also not my strong point and with an AP English class my grades would drop. The extent of our electronics classes is probably A+ cert which is rarely offered because of lack of interest. As for summer school as stated, unfortunetly I am busy, my problem is what to take in the school year.

Originally Posted by CommanderRachek

I know this isn't exactly answering your question, but have you considered doing something non-robotics related? You might have fun taking a photography course or something. Just a thought.

If you want to do something productive, consider learning some linear algebra. Knowing how to do matrix row operations and compute eigenvalues will be very useful when you get to college. Knowing basic vector operations is a good skill set, as well. Be careful with self-study courses, however: I did a linear algebra self-study my senior year and had a terrible time getting myself to do work instead of just putter around the shop.

You can never have enough practice with any kind of CAD software. I had a lot of fun drawing my trombone in Inventor. You could pick something really intricate to draw that will take you a long time.

If you're all CADed out, you could also start learning how to use MatLab (I think you can get a one-year license for ~$30). It's an immensely powerful tool, and if you'll be majoring in engineering or any of the hard sciences I can guarantee you'll use it in college. It's also a good skill to put on a resume; an engineering intern who can use MatLab effectively is orders of magnitude more useful than one who can't. (If you'll be majoring in math, like me, you could also start learning how to use Mathematica and/or Maple.) If you don't already know some, knowing how to do at least a little C programming is also a good skill to have.

If your school has any advanced chemistry courses, you could take one of those. I took IBH Chemistry junior and senior year and had a blast. It was no small amount of work, but I learned a lot. I got a lot of interesting problem solving practice, and I learned a surprising amount of stuff that was directly applicable to FRC.

Photos and me never seem to work well together...something about dropping a camera...Linear Algebra would fry my brain if combined with calc 2/3 and I would never dream of independant studying it. Although I definitely can see what you mean by you get out what you put in, which is why I'm looking for the perfect topic so I will actually want to put effort in (effort school who knew?) I've learned the basics of Maple, up to what I know how to do with math, and I'm enrolled in an introductory Java course right now, it's quite different from what I'm used to but I'm not very far in yet so I'll see how it goes. I took basic chemistry 2 years ago and haven't yet recovered...it's not my favorite subject, but I do have the option of AP chemistry, so I'll consider it.

Originally Posted by dtengineering

It is a shame that your school does not have any shop courses. I am at a bit of a loss to understand why you would see such advice as sarcastic, and at even more of a loss to comprehend how a teacher could recommend against taking a hands-on course where you improve your abilities working with materials, tools and technology.

I will just have to assume that what constitutes a "shop class" in your area is quite different than in ours, where a shop course is most definitely not one that would be considered a "blow off course", nor one of the "easy A" type courses you are referring to. The majority of our robot build team is expected to be enrolled in a metal working, wood working, or electronics course in order to learn the skills required to build the robot.

Jason

It seems like I want to go to where you are to take shop, unfortunetly we don't have much to that extent here, not even anyone to teach the course. The counselor's advice was that colleges typically see that as less important than say a calc class, and they are encouraging me to excel in more academic classes, not to say shop wouldn't help me. They believe shop is more vocational. I apologize for thinking you were being sarcastic, I guess I just read it wrong, I meant no offense.