Team 871's Site: A Team That Pwns

[Team871ROBOTECH]

HI there, fellow Frc members.

I am Salar, webmaster of the West Islip Robotechs site. I was given this task of the website when I first joined Robotics my freshman year. And year, was this year. I was excited to learn that I could purchase the best hosting service, get premium features, and the team would take up the cost. It was my first year this year, and I'm really happy with what I've accomplished. I made this year's team shirt, made the site, programmed the robot's armature, and took care of coordinating plans and things to purchase online aswell. I am really happy as of now. I have tried many solutions for the site, but it was when I came across this one idea that I thought I should stick with it and try. And eventually, it came through. So please take a look by click the link below.

Let us know what you think.
http://www.westisliprobotics.com (please read the paragraph above!)

[Jay1986]

its a very good website but it does need your sponsors on it. also in the gallery, you need a link to go back to the home screen. but anyways good website and good luck this year

[Tom Line]

That is a very nice website. The layout is clean, the background well chosen, and the navigation fairly obvious.

I would put words under the icons on the right though - making me mouse over to see them is annoying.

The phrases "just do it" and "this changes everything again" are trademarked. You're violating the trademarks by using them in that manner.

Also, while I'm unsure of the rules on this particular point, I have never liked click-through or other advertising on FIRST robotics websites.

Having your security question bethe name of the webmaster and telling us you are the webmaster also may not be the best idea.

Finally, you might want to be careful using the pronoun "I". Your front page says a team of 3 developed the website.

[RyanCesiel]

I remember when I was in your position less than four years ago as an 8th grader. I can relate to your situation and understand where you may be at this point. That said, a could suggestions:

1) Content! On a robotics team website, content is most important. Post more information about your team and FIRST. You need to consider a wide variety of visitors including veterans of FIRST, team members, robotics "newbies", and others. There should be something on your website for all of them.

2) The website should reflect your team colors. This was my first design in 2007. Can you tell what the colors of my team are from that? So before the FIRST season started, I made a new one that was more colorful and reflected the team identity.

I've always been a fan of simplistic designs. But, in my opinion, a robotics team website is not where you want to have a simple monochromatic website. Next time, try to make something that reflects the team identity.

I see right now you are using the default theme that comes with your CMS, concrete5. If you're not sure about how to design a website, let me know. I'd be happy to help.

3) Try to make everything uniform. Right now you have the linked icons on the right sidebar that go to different areas of the website that have different designs/looks than your homepage. I noticed that these are all separate installations of pre-made scripts you probably installed for different functions. It might be best for you to use something like Wordpress which would allow you to create one installation, and then install plugins that can do all these functions (image gallery, calendar, polls, ect.) for you.

4) I would not place Google Ads on your site, at least not during the FIRST season. Your primary goal with a robotics team website should be to inform the visitor, not to distract them and make money off of them.

5) For statistics (you have a hit counter in the far right corner), I suggest you install Google Analytics. It provides much more in depth data than just hits. For example, I knew when our website had been judged for the Alamo Regional because someone from San Antonio, Texas had spent approximately 31 minutes, visiting 26 pages on our website.

Many of the things Tom said above are also true. If you need any assistance or have any questions, PM me or something, and I should be able to help.

[Malice]

Heya, I'm the student webmaster from Team 781.

Your site looks great and was fun to navigate. It's pretty interesting though, Salar. I can submit any random name into your member database by knowing the name of the webmaster? Hmm... It's worth having a look at. (:

Something to look out for though, copyright infringement can disqualify you from a website award. Watch how you are using your images, FIRST Logos, and text.

[ernie.]

I don't post a lot on Chief Delphi, but this post angered me a bit because it sounded arrogant and a bit selfish.

When I first joined my robotics team I was given the position of webmaster, and just like you I was told I could choose whatever host I saw fit. Being immature, and a bit of a geek I decided to go with Mediatemple, which costed $240/yr. By the time the website was up I realized I completely missed the point of FIRST and stomached the cost of the hosting myself. Don't take advantage of your team.

Now I'm going to be honest you have a lot of work to do on your site. Simply setting up a CMS is far from enough, you need to have content. This site is your team's face to the world and you want to tell them what FIRST is about, what you are about. If you have the budget for the site forgo the ads, there are tons of inexpensive hosting solutions (ex. http://www.nearlyfreespeech.com) you can choose from.

In my opinion the most important code for a website is the navigation. The navigation defines the structure of your site. Having a horizontal navigation and then a separate vertical navigation, both as your root navigation is a terrible idea. If you have horizontal as your main navigation, and a vertical bar as a secondary it would make more sense, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Aesthetically it's simple - partly because there isn't much content - but there is a fine line between minimalistic and just plain dull. If you go to Apple's site (who I assume you're inspired by) you'll notice negative space is used simply as a device to space out content, and make readability better. Inject some life into your site!

I sound harsh, and I'm sorry for that. You said you're a freshman and I didn't want you to finish this year thinking this site will pass. You should go back to the drawing board, don't think of what CMS you'll be using yet, don't think of who your host will be. Just sit down and sketch a browser window and draw out your site. Plan out a navigation bar that mirrors your sites structure, draw out where you think images should go, and when you get to the details you'll find it all fits together. Good luck.

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by ernie.

I don't post a lot on Chief Delphi, but this post angered me a bit because it sounded arrogant and a bit selfish.

When I first joined my robotics team I was given the position of webmaster, and just like you I was told I could choose whatever host I saw fit. Being immature, and a bit of a geek I decided to go with Mediatemple, which costed $240/yr. By the time the website was up I realized I completely missed the point of FIRST and stomached the cost of the hosting myself. Don't take advantage of your team.

Now I'm going to be honest you have a lot of work to do on your site. Simply setting up a CMS is far from enough, you need to have content. This site is your team's face to the world and you want to tell them what FIRST is about, what you are about. If you have the budget for the site forgo the ads, there are tons of inexpensive hosting solutions (ex. http://www.nearlyfreespeech.com) you can choose from.

In terms of hosting, you get what you pay for. I agree that you probably shouldn't use something like Mediatemple for a robotics site unless you're hosting other sites on that account; it's overkill. I use a Grid Server account from Mediatemple for hosting my clients and I love it. And, after about 5 minutes of searching on Google, I was able to find a coupon that brought the price down to $160 / year.

For most robotics sites, you could get by with an account at hostmonster.com, bluehost.com, or hostgator.com. Just be careful and do your research when finding a host. It's a very saturated market and there are too many people starting hosting companies that don't have any idea what they're doing.

From what I can tell, it looks like "Team871ROBOTECH" already has hosting from someone. It's usually a good sign when it's a real domain--not something like roboticsteam.freewebs.com.

Originally Posted by ernie.

In my opinion the most important code for a website is the navigation. The navigation defines the structure of your site. Having a horizontal navigation and then a separate vertical navigation, both as your root navigation is a terrible idea. If you have horizontal as your main navigation, and a vertical bar as a secondary it would make more sense, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

I disagree. Simbotics had a somewhat similar setup in 2009 when they won the FIRST Championship Best Website. I would venture to say that any navigation is feasible if it is designed properly. I've seen some "wild" designs that are still very effective. I do agree that what he has right now is not designed the best way.

[ernie.]

There is a difference between Simbotic's website, as their vertical navigation just contains shortcuts to links already in their main navigation. Team 871's website has different links on both their navigations.

Also I realize a lot of teams create websites specifically for the Website Award, but I think the award was created in the first place to encourage teams to have an online public face. Creating a site purely to win the award - while isn't wrong - seems to sidestep the point of the award. I don't mind if my team wins the award or not, because in the end the site serves a greater purpose and the award is simply a bonus on the side.

[RyanCesiel]

Originally Posted by ernie.

Also I realize a lot of teams create websites specifically for the Website Award, but I think the award was created in the first place to encourage teams to have an online public face. Creating a site purely to win the award - while isn't wrong - seems to sidestep the point of the award. I don't mind if my team wins the award or not, because in the end the site serves a greater purpose and the award is simply a bonus on the side.

I agree with you 100% on this. We use our website year round as both a communication and publicity tool. I've been frustrated seeing some teams that only have a website up during the FIRST season, or don't update their website at all in the off-season.

[KC1AJT]

I am going to put this very simply; take a look at the scoring sheet for the website award. It can take years to develop around it. My team's site took 2 1/2 years to develop using custom php cms. It was over 3000 lines of code. Content is huge. Get your story out there! Impress sponsors, earn your money. My first reaction when I openned the site was "cookie cutter". Take a look around at award-winning sites and you will see what I mean when I say "get the story out there". Our team site can be viewed at http://team61.com we have also released the source code to all FIRST teams that need it and it is available on the resources page.

[Bryan Herbst]

You have a great start to the site and clearly are determined to present an excellent product.

Have you seen the Website Award checklist? That checklist is a great tool for analyzing your website. Pretend to be a judge seeing your site for the first time and see what score you get.

Just glancing through the checklist, I can see you would lose points for not having your team number prominently displayed and not telling users where your team is located. Another major component that judges look for is how you promote FIRST. I see links to FIRST's site, but not any information on what FIRST is or what you do as a team.

I would also highly recommend looking at some previous website award winners' websites. Though ChiefDelphi's team site may not be the most visually striking site and may not have many bells and whistles, it conveys all the information a team site should. Consequently, they have won numerous web site and web site excellence awards.

[treffk]

The site is a good starting point but is no where near finished.

To get ideas of award winning ideas to make your website great check out some of the website award winners from different regionals.

My teams (piperrobotics.com) just won it at GKC. The reasons: it was sweet, our operations page, our promo video and our good resources page.

Add a page with your robots. I always love going to team's sites and looking at the pictures and videos of their robots, and the things they do.

[msimon785]

Great font base. I really like the choice of monoweights in the body.
The colors work really well, and the content is all there. I agree with the suggestion of adding a comprehensive "robots" page.
My only complaint might be the following header. Those bug me a bit, but thats just me.
Great Work!

[Dustin Shadbolt]

Alright forgive if I repeat something already covered.

tip: z-index is your friend.

1) Overall awesome site. It's clean and simple on the eyes. The navigation is effective for getting us around the site.

2) I would try to find an alternative to your BannerSnack thing. It's typically a good thing to limit the amount of flash on the site. A banner like that could be easily done in jQuery. Just a personal thought.

3) I would suggest maybe moving the twitter widget up. When you can't access your website to blog about something (ie. @ regionals), twitter can easily act as your up-to-date source of info.

4) On the contact page, I'm not sure the social media bar is the best way to do what you're aiming to do. If I was working on this site. I might try to just integrate the social media icons into the page somehow or even on the navibar. (*Edit I just saw that there was a tiny FB and Twitter icon at the very bottom of the page. I would suggest picking one or the other)

5) Copyright info. You have no copyright info for using FIRST Logos, terms, and pictures. This would get disqualified before they even looked at the rest of the site.

6) Beef up the content. Don't worry about winning the website award. It shouldn't even be in your mind. Just focus on creating a professional website that is cost-effective and that delivers your team's mission and general information to fans, parents, and sponsors.