Help us Update "Team in a Box"

[OZ_341]

Does your team have something really important to say to the 2006 Rookie class of FIRST??

Team 341 is updating its highly successful "Team in a Box" DVD and we are seeking the best advice in FIRST.

Team 341 is seeking interviews, video segments and white paper permissions for our 2006 "Team in a Box" DVD set. If your team is really well known for a particular aspect of FIRST (drive trains, imagery, etc.), we want to include your perspective on this widely distributed Free DVD/CD set. Your team will be fully credited for any contributions to this disk, directly in the menu selection as well as the ending credits. We are also seeking permission to electronically publish White Papers on the secondary CD disk.

The concept behind "Team in a Box" is that we want the advice to be as diverse as FIRST. We want to get a variety of team perspectives, not just Team 341. The 2005 version included interviews with Dean Kamen, Dave Lavery, Mike Wade, Students, Judges, and well known Team Mentors. We want to broaden our perspective even further for Version 2.
If you are interested in contributing your advice or a short video segment, please post here, send a private message, or email me at aostrow1@comcast.net .

We want your advice to reach everyone in FIRST!

You can also view this link to order your free copy of the 2005 "Team in a Box" ( www.team341.com/tiab.html )

Best of luck in the coming Fall season!!!

Al Ostrow
Team 341

[Kims Robot]

Dont take this the wrong way, but when you say "highly successful" and "widely distributed", what exactly do you mean?

The reason I ask, is that I think this is a really great idea... but as a rookie team this year, and knowing 7 other rookie teams in our area, we never received this "Team in a Box".

Anyways, we do have some things that we can contribute... Im working on a white paper right now (I will post when it is complete). But also, we created a booklet that was distributed at the All Rookie Meet and Greet that was mentioned in our Championship RAS award. This has descriptions of every championship class of 2005 Rookie team, their accomplishments, and what made them stand out. I will try and dig this up and post it in the white papers today. It might help for rookie teams to know who these rookies are, and you guys could add contact info (websites, etc) to the handout to allow 2006 rookies to see what RAS rookie teams did in 2005.

[Beth Sweet]

As much as I hate to say it, we never recieved the "Team in a Box" that we requested either.

That being said, I would be willing to talk to you guys about whatever you're looking for (as long as it's nothing technical, I don't think you want to hear about what I think of the poking-thingies). As to rookie team formation, helpful hints, and what not to do's (I have a lot of those...), let me know if you need any help. bethsweet@gmail.com

[Kims Robot]

Here are the two whitepapers I just posted:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=529

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=530

Hope that helps!

[OZ_341]

Kim & Beth:

Thank you for your comments and offers of help. We are definitely seeking White Papers for our CD and videos for our DVD menu.

We distributed about 250 copies at the Championship and another 100 copies immediately after we returned. I am not sure how we missed you but just send me a mailing address to aostrow1@comcast.net and I will send out a copy ASAP!

As for our claims of success..... Well this is based solely on the anecdotal feedback we have received from Mentors, Students, Judges, and FIRST administrators that have used the DVD to recruit or assist pre-rookies and rookies.

But the big point is that Team in a Box is extremely IMPERFECT !!! It is truly a work in progress that will never be finished. It needs so much more work.
It needs better technical information, a wider variety of team perspectives, as well as higher quality video and sound editing. (among other things)

The good news is that our students started this project with the right attitude, that this was going to take forever to get it right. So when you do receive the DVD, please feel free to send back any comments that you think will improve the product. (Even if it hurts our feelings )

So just send that contact info and we will get you a copy ASAP.

Thanks again!

Al

[OZ_341]

Our team will be sending out about 20 copies of Team in a Box this Friday 8/12 via regular mail to people that recently requested a disk from our website www.team341.com .

Please let us know if you don't receive it within a week.

Also, please feel free to reply if you want to provide feedback or you wish to contribute to future editions of this disk.

[Beth Sweet]

Yay! I received our team's copy today! Very good document, I think that I will be showing our students the "Awards" section in the fall, let them know what kinds of things they have a chance at.

I was a little saddened that the "Calander" and "Technical" sections did not work and produced errors, sending me back to the item selection, I would have liked to have seen what you had to say there.

Overall, very good document, it would be very benefitial to rookie teams. Maybe you could get in contact with FIRST and see if they will send you the contact information for new team leaders for rookie teams as they sign up this fall and send them a copy?

[KathieK]

I also received my "Team in a Box" today - what a fantastic job you guys did! I'll be passing along some suggestions via e-mail. Thank you for taking the time to share this information.

[OZ_341]

Originally Posted by KathieK

I also received my "Team in a Box" today - what a fantastic job you guys did! I'll be passing along some suggestions via e-mail. Thank you for taking the time to share this information.

Kathie:

Thanks for taking the time to evaluate it. We are looking for input and also future contributors to the disks. As we mentioned we don't want this to be just one team's vision of FIRST, so any team that wants to participate can contact us.

Talk to you soon.

Al

[Beth Sweet]

Al,
I've only tried it on my Toshiba laptop, I'll check it out on my parents' DVD player tomorrow. I use the program on my DVD player that it came with.

[unapiedra]

I just want to use the opportunity to thank team 341 and Al Ostrow for sending me a copy of Team in a Box. -- Ok, they didn't just send it some place but to GERMANY! Thanks for the effort! This will really give me the chance to show the guys at my school what to do and some things about FIRST.

This would be way harder without Team in a Box.

[OZ_341]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Yay! I received our team's copy today! Very good document, I think that I will be showing our students the "Awards" section in the fall, let them know what kinds of things they have a chance at.

I was a little saddened that the "Calander" and "Technical" sections did not work and produced errors, sending me back to the item selection, I would have liked to have seen what you had to say there.

Overall, very good document, it would be very benefitial to rookie teams. Maybe you could get in contact with FIRST and see if they will send you the contact information for new team leaders for rookie teams as they sign up this fall and send them a copy?

Beth:

We will gladly send you another copy if something is not working. Just let us know.
Also we are trying to identify whether certain types of machines won't play the disks. So if you have a chance, could you try playing it on a different DVD player?

Either way, we will get you a copy that works completely.

Just let us know and we will send it out.

Thanks for the input!

Al

[Ashley Christine]

Someone told me that I shud enter something about the importance of chiefdelphi and reading threads. [I have made some insightful threads in the past few days.] I agree with the person that it would be good coming from a student [such as myself] saying what a good resource CD is and everything. Would you like me to do something like this? If so what?

-Ashley

[OZ_341]

Originally Posted by Ashley Christine

Someone told me that I shud enter something about the importance of chiefdelphi and reading threads. [I have made some insightful threads in the past few days.] I agree with the person that it would be good coming from a student [such as myself] saying what a good resource CD is and everything. Would you like me to do something like this? If so what?

-Ashley

Ashley:

Thanks for offering to contribute. We are hoping for more varied perspectives as we move forward with this project.

If you want to do something like that about CD, it would be great. If you think about this like you are a news reporter, you could interview key people and then add your comments. Our plan is to have individual people or teams make rough cut videos, so that we can edit them to fit our format. That way you don't have to worry about editing video, graphics or special effects.

It would be great to have several students and mentors speak about CD.
So if you wanted to talk about Chief Delphi you could collect your thoughts on tape and send it to us. It might even be a good idea to make a short outline and then have a few CD folks (maybe even Brandon?) review it for completeness before you make the actual rough cut.

Just some thoughts on how you might go about it.

Just let me know what you think. Thanks again!!

Al

[OZ_341]

To Everyone that has recently ordered "Team in a Box":

Our latest shipment of 25 sets will go out on 9/6/05 via First Class mail, first thing in the morning. If you ordered a DVD/CD set and do not receive it by next week, please contact me directly.

Thanks!

Alan Ostrow
Team 341