Best Pre-Season Meeting Ideas

[Brandon Holley]

All ideas mentioned have been solid thus far. Some our team has used:

-Mini vex competitions
-Team building events (egg drop, spaghetti bridge, etc.)
-Off-season competitions
-Robot "re-dos" (rebuilding an older robot that has been out of commission)
-Sub-system development (new drive train ideas, end-effectors, software)

There is one thing I'd like to emphasize though, particularly when it comes to new members joining your team. Teaching these new students how to research FIRST and robotics on their own is an invaluable skill. Letting them know that chiefdelphi exists is a start, then start showing them how to search for pictures, threads, papers. This will allow new students who are really amped about the competition to go out on their own discover some cool things that even experienced team members haven't found.


-Brando

[Tassemet]

The first thing our team would do is obviously, meet ahead of the kickoff. There a few months in advance, we'd review pictures of teams (ourself and others) tactics, watch youtube videos, watch video on matches we did, and break down in detail the shortcomings and strengths of the bot we built the competetion before (which was usually still assembled). There, we'd also get into our design flaws, and look into why parts broke and how to avoid it in the future.

From there, we'd rebuild/fool around with design concepts and maths and if we had issues our bot from the year previous couldn't do, we'd modify/improve it as best we could, even if only for demonstrations. Also, we'd have a design prebuilt (like a square, saves time when engineering, and we'd work with the square or if that failed just start over) and when kickoff came, we'd breakdown/analyze the kickoff video and start looking into easy and effective solutions to complete the task.

For those who were into it (the code monkies) they'd do a game of "tactical forecasting" where they'd predict "why should we be chosen?", or, "if our bot does this, what are other potential designs other teams might come up with?", and "can we counter other designs somehow?" (graciously of course). The strategy of the game for some is just as exciting as the build.

[Phyrxes]

One of the things we have had success with is taking a past game that the mentors are familiar with but the students are not and complete a some aspect of the game, usually a mechanism.

This season we are also reworking our "standard" drive base to make it lighter/stiffer/generally better.

If your school district doesn't completely freak out some sort of PR project like a T-shirt cannon or parade bot can be a good idea.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

One of the things we have had success with is taking a past game that the mentors are familiar with but the students are not and complete a some aspect of the game, usually a mechanism.

Or... How about doing something that can really kick you up a notch with that? Develop a strategy for that game. Then develop a robot design (or mechanism). Look at the winning teams from that year, and their strategy. See how yours stacks up, and figure out what they saw that you didn't.

In essence, go through the first week or so of build season from the past over a meeting or two. There are really simple strategic games, and really nasty ones.

[Phyrxes]

We actually did that last year with Rack and Roll, which worked out well on accident.

[EagleEngineer]

One good pre-season meeting could be about service projects, scouting ideas, designing a new pit, crate, or uniform. Practice CAD and animation. Also a really good thing you can work on in meetings in the off-season is trying to help other schools in your area become teams (Spread FIRST ). Thats enough to have your teams hands full for the of season.

[holygrail]

Thank you all for providing such great ideas so far. I've already incorporated several of the ideas you have presented into the calendar. I hope that the CD community keeps them coming.