50 Days Until Kick-off 2012!

[akoscielski3]

Well, we're here! 50 more days until kick-off and FRC teams are mostly signed up for competitions/championships, submitting awards, fundraising, and building their Teams!

What kind of stuff is your team doing to get ready for the 2012 season?

Some of the stuff my team (772!) is doing:
- Building an off-season chassis as a prototype
- Creating a new business plan
- Fundraising by putting on dances for the grade 7/8's
- Programmers are currently learning how to program in C++, and doing the BETA testing
- Electrical is learning the uses of Pneumatic, how to set up pneumatic systems and how to correctly wire a Robot
- Mechanical is learning how to design in SolidWorks
- Animating the Safety Animation

This year we are signed up for Greater Toronto Regional West, Smoky Mountains Regional (Tennessee), Queen City Regional (Cincinnati), And FIRST Championships!! (total of 58 hours of driving! :$)

[rabridges]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

Well, we're here! 50 more days until kick-off and FRC teams are mostly signed up for competitions/championships, submitting awards, fundraising, and building their Teams!

What kind of stuff is your team doing to get ready for the 2012 season?

Some of the stuff my team (772!) is doing:
- Building an off-season chassis as a prototype
- Creating a new business plan
- Fundraising by putting on dances for the grade 7/8's
- Programmers are currently learning how to program in C++, and doing the BETA testing
- Electrical is learning the uses of Pneumatic, how to set up pneumatic systems and how to correctly wire a Robot
- Mechanical is learning how to design in SolidWorks
- Animating the Safety Animation

This year we are signed up for Greater Toronto Regional West, Smoky Mountains Regional (Tennessee), Queen City Regional (Cincinnati), And FIRST Championships!! (total of 58 hours of driving! :$)

That is pretty much what my team is doing.

1. Training every (new and old)
2. Learning CAD
3. Getting sponsors
4. Ordering parts
5. Getting the lab set up
6. Organizing the room, the computers, etc.
7. Deciding where to stuff the programmers
8. Stocking up on sleep for the 2012 season
9. Searching for new mentors! Anyone in the San Jose area interested?
10. Finishing this list of what to do in the final days.

[Tetraman]

174 is doing some really awesome things.

1 - Seminars for the greenhorns as well as a refreshers for all the team members.
2 - Restructuring the way we train our team drivers/human player/coach.
3 - Restructring the design process
4 - Gathering some information from former students on what they think about the team and how it works.
5 - Prototyping a new chassis type.
6 - Buying some extra parts that we wouldn't usually buy this early in the season.
7 - Getting sleep.

[Peyton Yeung]

Team 45 is
Building a prototype drivetrain
Beta testing in Labview
Building a new pit/layout
Training new members
Getting harrassed by the business lead about Chairmen's

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tubatroopa

Team 45 is...

* providing much of the support for the new City of FIRSTs FLL Qualifying Tournament
* building a robot crate for rookie FRC team #3940
* refurbishing the New Years light ball
* earning sponsorship credit by doing small jobs for AndyMark

[BJC]

Team 33 has/is:

-competed in 4 offseason events (MARC, IGVC, IRI, Kettering Kickoff)
-competed in OCCRA (Oakland Community Competitive Robotics Association) which just finished up today.
-competing in the 2011 game: Vex Gateway (three teams)
-Demoing the robot in lots of places/events.
-Will be in a parade with teams 245 and 201.
-training new members
-Beta testing Labview
-Building a prototype drivetrain
-Further developing code on the new drivetrain
-Aquiring new sponsors and maintaining old ones.
-cleaning
-working on our website
-starting up our Chairmen's Award Submission
-stocking up on materials for 2012

Keepin' busy, Bryan

[SenorZ]

I can already feel the fatigue and lack of sleep coming on.
It's going to be sweet.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

* providing much of the support for the new City of FIRSTs FLL Qualifying Tournament
* building a robot crate for rookie FRC team #3940
* refurbishing the New Years light ball
* earning sponsorship credit by doing small jobs for AndyMark

why building the crate? Is everything B&T this year? I have a slightly used crate I will sell you cheap ;>

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by rsisk

why building the crate? Is everything B&T this year?

1) Robots bound for the FIRST Championship must be shipped in a crate.
2) Crates are useful to put a robot in when being transported in the back of a truck during less than perfect weather.

49 days! Or if you're reading this tomorrow (or far enough east), then 48 days!

[Tommy F.]

This off-season we:

• Did multiple demonstrations for the school and Boeing, and the St. Louis Science Center
• Hosted our first Robotics Open House, where we showed the public about FIRST and demonstrated FRC matches with FRC teams around the area (FLL and FTC were also there)
• Competed in the 2011 Cow Town ThrowDown
• Repaired our 2011 FRC robot within 2 weeks after the Cow Town ThrowDown
• Trained our rookies with 2 FTC teams
• Mentored new FLL teams in our district at our middle schools
• Had a group of people work on a Safety Animation
• Restored our 2008 FRC Robot "Reality Check"
• Started work on an FTC Demonstration Bot
• Probably much more I have forgotten to mention

[tickspe15]

Team 1318:
1)Reorganizing Buisness side of team
2)Building electric cart for robot
3)Training Subteams( CAD, Programing, Electronics, Fabrication)
4)Stocking up on parts for build season
5) community outreach and service
6)preparing chairmens entry
7)recruiting
8) getting mentors and sponsors
9)mentoring rookie team

[IndySam]

1. Rebuilding t-shirt bot.
2. Working on VRC bots.
3. Hosting VRC competition.
4. Always cleaning.
5. Working with rookie team 4233.
6. Searching for more mentors.
7. Starting Chairmans award.
8. Resting up for kickoff!

[Alden94]

Team 781 (Kinetic Knights) have been / are working on the following:

-Creating a business plan
-Training our students interested in web design; they are learning HTML, PHP and CSS
-Training our design / interested students in SolidWorks so that we can effectively share designs and ideas.
-Running safety sessions with long time 781 mentor Lyle Semple (Videos available on our youtube channel, just search Kinetic Knights)
-Contacting previous sponsors
-Contacting new potential sponsors
-Looking for new mentors (and students of course, we have already gained more rookie students than number of senior students we lost at the end of last season)
-Building a full size field in a sponsor warehouse, holding our software beta testing open house at this location as well as other upcoming events.
-Buying parts
-Possibly taking part in our local Christmas parade.
-Updating our website for the 2012 season
-Just ran a successful "parents night" to introduce parents to FIRST, FRC and our team
-Rebuilt our 2011 Logomotion prototype chassis for use in testing programming next season, as well as for demonstrating code to those who are learning the programming process used in FRC
-Visiting a new sponsor located two hours from our school, they want to see our robot, and we want to see their expensive tools!
-Building a battery cart for next season
-Building a systematic inventory system so we always know what we have and what we need
-Planning on running a mock kickoff for our team, depending on our situation we could be inviting other teams in the area to practice their brainstorming skills (I would like to invite other teams since this is my own initiative)

That's all for now..
Good luck to everyone in the 2012 season as well as surviving through the holiday season without becoming anxious for the arrival of Jan 7th.