[EWCP] EWCPCast - Inside 1114

[Karthik]

This Podcast was a really fun experience. We're always looking for new ways to share our experience and stories with the FIRST community, and the guys from the EWCP provided us with a wonderful opportunity. If you have any questions about the Podcast or our team in general, post them here and we'll address them on the upcoming live question and answer session.

Thanks to everyone at the EWCP for putting this together. I'm looking forward to future episodes, where they hope to chronicle the stories from more FIRST teams.

[Tristan Lall]

Nice work everyone. That should be required listening for prospective team leaders. (As well, it's a trial by fire: if they can't take in the whole thing, maybe they're just not committed enough....)

One complaint: explain what EWCP stands for. (I figured it out by looking in the Facebook URL, but you don't mention it in this thread or in the recording.)

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Nice work everyone. That should be required listening for prospective team leaders. (As well, it's a trial by fire: if they can't take in the whole thing, maybe they're just not committed enough....)

One complaint: explain what EWCP stands for. (I figured it out by looking in the Facebook URL, but you don't mention it in this thread or in the recording.)

EWCP stands for East West Collaboration Project. It is a group of mentors from several teams (and a few of us teamless folks). We focus on working together to build more competitive teams on and off the field. These casts came out of the desire to increase the level of knowledge available to every FIRST team.

We do plan on snipping it into more manageable chunks in the future. We have just been busy/having a social life lately.

[lemiant]

Something Karthik said at the end of that webcast caught my attention:

"If you want to start a rookie team, look at everything 2056 did in 2007 and copy it."

Where can I find a reasonably in-depth description of what 2056 did in 2007?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Something Karthik said at the end of that webcast caught my attention:

Where can I find a reasonably in-depth description of what 2056 did in 2007?

Ask them? Find one of their mentors on here and PM them maybe? Perhaps search for a discussion about them on here...

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Something Karthik said at the end of that webcast caught my attention:

Where can I find a reasonably in-depth description of what 2056 did in 2007?

One of the reasons we did this cast is to show people that they should never be afraid to go straight to the source for information, regardless of how intimidated you may feel. PM Tyler Holtzman from 2056 to get some facts about a great team.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Something Karthik said at the end of that webcast caught my attention:

Where can I find a reasonably in-depth description of what 2056 did in 2007?

Someone on 2056 can provide all the details, but here's the jist of it.

- They built the simplest possible robot for that game, a single jointed arm with a pinch claw
- They realized their limited resources (experience, machine time) and built within them, ignoring game tasks deemed essential by others (couldn't score on the top row, didn't have a ramp)
- The simple design allowed them to finish early, allowing for plenty of practice and programming time
- The simple design made control of robot easy for inexperienced drivers
- They chose a driveteam composed entirely of Freshmen, who became the backbone of their team for four seasons
- They had a lead mentor who brought experience from his past team
- They entered an off-season event prior to their rookie season, using a robot borrowed from another team

End result? Two dominating regional performances with two regional wins, as well as an IRI championship. Overall result? 11 straight regional wins. Not too shabby.

2056's 2007 rookie season is the ultimate testament to the power of simplicity in FRC (1503 in 2011 is right up there as well). Despite how many times we this, most teams never seem to catch on.