Build Blog/ Wiki

[brrian27]

Hey everyone!

As build season is coming around, we'd like to set up a build season blog and a team Wiki.

For the blog, I am wondering how you set it up. Do you keep it private during the season? If you do, how do you do this but still give access to all the team members?

For the wiki, where do you host the wiki? Are there any ways to do this easily on a Wordpress based website?

Thanks

[Steven Smith]

For a build blog this year, our team will be using Google Blogger, which is pretty powerful, user friendly, and free. Your domain would be something like "mydomain.blogspot.com", but for ~$5-$10/yr, you can purchase another domain and have your blog linked to it.

Alternatively, if you already have a website and host, you can create a submain and have it direct to blogger (like blog.yourdomain.com)

Either way, Google would essentially be running the service for you, which takes a bit of headache out of it. I am fairly certain there are controls to limit access as well if you choose to go that route.

As far as privacy, we will opt to leave ours public and be pretty liberal about posting details on our progress. In a 6 week build season, I think it is unlikely that your success will hinge on a competitor's ability to copy your design... but instead on your ability to execute your own design. Additionally, we feel a good blog is a great place to direct school administrators, parents, sponsors, etc... to allow them to follow our team through the season. If you limit access, you'll either have to find a way to grant these folks access, or miss out on a good PR opportunity.

On the Wiki side, I have run MediaWiki before, and it isn't too difficult (though, more involved than setting up a blog). You will need to have access to a machine to act as a webserver, either by purchasing web hosting, or by setting up your own machine as a webserver. Again, I would point you to a COTS solution like using Google Documents, which is a great way to allow multiple people to share information, edit files together in real time, and control permissions levels if needed.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

-Steven

[Cecil]

If you already have access to a WordPress site, then that should work fine for a blog. When creating pages with it, you can set it to be password protected, and only give the password to the people you want.

As far as a wiki, MediaWiki is a nice way to go if you have your own hosted space. (I recommend hosting your WordPress site yourself anyway, it allows better control and a bunch of other plugins that aren't accessible to the WordPress hosted version.) MediaWiki is easy to set up, is well documented, and works exactly like Wikipedia.

If you are looking for good hosting companies, I would recommend HostMonster any day. You get unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, unlimited email accounts (if you need them), and unlimited databases (not to mention it's secure). If this isn't in your budget at the moment, however, remember that both MediaWiki and WordPress need SQL servers to run.

[runneals]

As far as a host goes, I suggest DreamHost. First off, they host non-profits for FREE FOR LIFE! The biggest pro is that they basically offer you unlimited bandwidth + storage. They even have a one-click installer that includes mediawiki and wordpress. In addition, they also offer a FREE domain name with the account as well! It's a win-win!

[Cecil]

Free sounds wonderful in my book! I'll have to suggest DreamHost to our team!

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Cecil

Free sounds wonderful in my book! I'll have to suggest DreamHost to our team!

I have been using DH for over 5 years, and haven't really had any major problems with them. Last year, I got my previous team on DH, and we also use CloudFlare to help provide security, reliability (caching), & speed.

And yes, I find it nice how they donate free hosting to non-profits

[Nirvash]

As for a host, I would be more then happy to give any team a cpanel account (or just setup an addon domain if you'd want) on my server, due to a few other projects/sites I run, it has plenty of room on it. PM me if interested.
Though if you are a 503c the DreamHost offer in the post above is really good, especially if it includes domain registration.

I haven't had a chance to try MediaWiki but WikkaWiki is another nice and simple wiki software that is super easy to set up.
Also, if you are looking at a host with an 'Unlimited' anything, read through the TOS, a lot of the time, there are limits.

[yash101]

Try WordPress! That will allow you to blog efficiently and easily. However, if hosting it on a Pi or a slow server, be sure to have static-HTML caching. That's how my site doesn't die when running on an RPi. A blog for every build season seems like a strong idea, and don't worry about sharing it with teams. GP protects you because most teams team will not want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by yash101

Try WordPress! That will allow you to blog efficiently and easily. However, if hosting it on a Pi or a slow server, be sure to have static-HTML caching. That's how my site doesn't die when running on an RPi. A blog for every build season seems like a strong idea, and don't worry about sharing it with teams. GP protects you because no team will want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

Rhode Warriors 2008 would like to talk to you

And the pinch claws of 2010

And the minibots of 2011 (curse you for making me remember these things)

And the bucket of 2013

I could probably go back further if you'd like.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by yash101

GP protects you because no team will want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

Hahaha.

Wait. You're not serious, aren't you? Tell me you're being sarcastic.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Hahaha.

Wait. You're not serious, aren't you? Tell me you're being sarcastic.

Kinda in the middle. A good team will show GP and not copy the idea. Just to say, I believe that that is most of the teams. Some other teams that believe in only competition, victory and crippling other teams' robots on purpose. Personally, most of the teams I have met in the past have shown a good GP (Yes, that is you, 4183, 2403, 987, 1717, 842, 1723, and many more teams.)

I should probably change the "all" to "most"

[EricH]

Originally Posted by yash101

Kinda in the middle. A good team will show GP and not copy the idea.

Oh?

"Steal from the best, and invent the rest!"--I want to say that was Dave Lavery, but I do know it was on CD a while back, and is in the spotlight list.

This is part of being a professional--if you're stumped, and someone displays an idea you didn't think about, you look at whether or not it's a viable option, and, MORE IMPORTANTLY in FIRST, what you can learn from it as you adapt it to your robot's design.


Oh, and this one's for Andrew: Don't forget about the 2009 shooter-dumper conversions. Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by EricH

Oh?

"Steal from the best, and invent the rest!"--I want to say that was Dave Lavery, but I do know it was on CD a while back, and is in the spotlight list.

This is part of being a professional--if you're stumped, and someone displays an idea you didn't think about, you look at whether or not it's a viable option, and, MORE IMPORTANTLY in FIRST, what you can learn from it as you adapt it to your robot's design.


Oh, and this one's for Andrew: Don't forget about the 2009 shooter-dumper conversions. Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

True. but in this case, I am talking about taking a good team's idea completely and saying it is yours. That is when it becomes bad!

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by EricH

Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

Perhaps the 100's roller claw on our 2007 bot Tubasaurus?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Perhaps the 100's roller claw on our 2007 bot Tubasaurus?

I was thinking more on the lines of 330's Championship Industrial Design Award winning slide-to-grip claw. Saw a few of those in 2011, at least being prototyped.