Qotw [11-24-02]: What your team do beside building robot...

[Ken Leung]

Hi all. 6 more weeks till kickoff, before 6 weeks build period begin and everyone are busy again. After coming back from the WRRF workshops, I started wondering what teams do around the year not counting the 6 weeks, regionals and championship event. I started wondering about it because teams seem to have a much better experience if they do more that just those 3, whether its for fund raising, or team building, or community related. With that in mind, here is the question of the week…

Questions 11/24/02: What other activities/events do your team participate in beside the 6-weeks build period, regional competition, and Championship event?

Let’s see what teams around the country do for learning experience, community service, money, and fun . I just want to ask this before everyone is buried in the robot again.

Have fun!

-Ken L

[Stephanie]

well, a couple people from our team participate in the WRRF, and most of our team helps out with the FLL competition in our area. we also help at festivals, usually selling food, and showing off our robot we're also in the process of getting all our stuff organized before the build period (we just moved into a new room at school...) and teaching our new team members about electronics, drive train, tool safety, etc.

1. Rookie & Indiana Workshops (Last week, in fact)

2. The Electrical and Software teams are having a challenge where we are given these little bots with assemblies to wire up and program to do specific tasks to train the rookies on what they will have to do for the year.

3. The community Service project part 2. We made this "box" and donated it to the local childrens rehibiliation center, and there are several switches and joysticks outside, and these handicaped kids can use them to do things such as pick up a ball, and drop it in a basketball hoop, and other things like that to work on their hand/eye cordination.

4. Animation Team is training the rookies in CAD and Max so they have an idea what to do when the build comes along.

5. Prototyping future ideas

<edit>
6. Oh yeah, forgot about fundrasing...we do quite a bit of it year round. </edit>

7. Plotting to take over the world (Seeing if you were awake still)

[rbayer]

If we weren't out of money, we'd probably be doing some prototyping/projects, but instead we (meaning I) have been giving powerpoint presentations on some aspects such as programming, chasis/frame design, etc. We're going to be helping run one of the local FLL tournaments soon and several of us, including me, actually have our own Lego League teams. Other than that, we're trying to raise a little more money, but we haven't really gotten any yet.

[mtaman02]

since the FIRST season only covers about maybe 3 - 5 months each year and the off-season covers maybe about 8 months that leaves my team with maybe 3 months nothing planned - wrong we actually do fundraising, and other things to keep busy. we even go as far as designing and a new drive system for the new seasons robot. and if it turns out we don't need that system we save it for later use or we modify it to which we can legally use it in the game. theres not a day that goes by where i walk through my HS doors and catch the aroma of something being welded, cut, machined down or hearing the final result scurrying about the floor.

its like hearing a baby cry after being spanked by the doctor.

[Jeff Waegelin]

We basically do three things: fundraising, demos, and OCCRA. Fundraising is pretty self explanatory. We get money from anything we can. For demos, we visit area schools, our sponsors, and recruit members at our school. OCCRA is the Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association. 25 schools in Oakland County, Michigan participate in OCCRA. It's run like FIRST (a kickoff, 6 week build, "regionals", and a championship), but the robots are a little smaller, and they have to be entirely student-built. It's a great experience for the students, and wonderful training for new team members. OCCRA is run by a couple of people, including Mike McIntyre from team 1 and Mike Martus from team 47. I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you all about it if you're interested in starting something similar.

we do demos, and a lot of fundrasing. the tech team has machine shop training..that way everyone knows what is going on when we start to build. um..each of the sub teams do activities to get ready for the build season. we had a lego league regional here a couple of weeks ago..so that was a new thing plus we do all kinds of fun "team bonding" things..those are my favorite!!

[Aaron Lussier]

1. Pro-E classes for veteren Drafting students and Inventor classes for new students

2. Major Prototyping for the 2003 bot

3. Holiday Stroll<----- Big Nashua thing where every body in town walks down main St and sees alot of cool thing they did not know the town had. Like FIRST.

4. FIRST lego League<--------- Regoinal competition in December the whole team helps out with some part of that.

5.Cleaning of all the rooms in our respective works areas

6. Badging <------- Goverment contorlled building

7. Helping other teams out with finincal aid.

8. Helping organize the BAE regional <----------- AHHHHHH!!!!!

[Clark Gilbert]

In addition to DJ's post, we also do a lot of group building activities for fun. Some of the things include
1.) group trips to Purdue for tours
2.) paintball with our team or against the other Howard County team (#292)
3.) we go bowling
4.) have a Christmas party
5.) we used to go to a Cubs game w/ 111
6.) we have a "new years eve ball drop, kokomo style" that we perform each year for the city
7.) we have team workshops in the offseason that are held by engineers and teachers to keep everyone up to date on the different aspects of FIRST
8.) we used to host our own "mini competition"
9.) we are going to host our 2nd remote kickoff this year
.........and the list goes on and on and on

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
In addition to DJ's post, we also do a lot of group building activities for fun. Some of the things include
1.) group trips to Purdue for tours
2.) paintball with our team or against the other Howard County team (#292)
3.) we go bowling
4.) have a Christmas party
5.) we used to go to a Cubs game w/ 111
6.) we have a "new years eve ball drop, kokomo style" that we perform each year for the city
7.) we have team workshops in the offseason that are held by engineers and teachers to keep everyone up to date on the different aspects of FIRST
8.) we used to host our own "mini competition"
9.) we are going to host our 2nd remote kickoff this year
.........and the list goes on and on and on

Thanks Clark. Its great seeing teams do more than just doing trainings and fundraising.

For teams over here, last year after Silicon Valley regional, we would have a party at team 192 Gunn Robotics Team's classroom/workshop, and invited different teams like 100, 814, 840, and others to join the fun.

We also had some sort of social event after the Cal Games (the WRRF local post season competition) where the teams would get together to have dinner and do something fun afterward. Although it was toned down this year, we had Bill Gold, Jon Lawton and 668 people, Caroline and 192 people, Ken Krieger, along with Joe and Amy Ross, Sean Roberts and his dad, and Wendy from 22 from LA. Its always fun having the FIRST-a-holics getting together to do something fun.

Then of course WRRF people get together from time to time after WRRF meetings and get lunch or dinner.


I really hope to see teams from across the country would hang out with other teams more often. It's really good for building up team relationships, and good for showing your team members that it is really ok to hang out with people from other teams. In time, those relationships will build into something cool during build period, and then you will see teams start helping out each other and give each other advices, and during competitions in the pit area as well.


Are there teams out there who do something like this? Social events with other teams?