Bill's Blog -- Announcing the Beta Test Teams

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Not this one. We had our fun with Beta testing in the fall of 2008, and have passed on the opportunity ever since.

COULD you define/explain "fun"?

As a 2011 Rookie team selected for C/C++ testing, I have to ask is it more "Yikes!" than "Cool!" ?

THANKS for your input...

[Brandon Holley]

125 is excited to be a beta team for java!

-Brando

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

COULD you define/explain "fun"?

As a 2011 Rookie team selected for C/C++ testing, I have to ask is it more "Yikes!" than "Cool!" ?

THANKS for your input...

Definitely more "Cool" than "Yikes!". You have the opportunity to test new technologies on behalf of the teams in your local community, as well as teams across FIRST. If you go "all in" there's a great deal of work required, we felt that to a certain degree it was like a second build season. Now that being said, many teams have had less intensive experiences. I'm quite certain your team is going enjoy yourselves.

Overall, we'd sign up again, but our fall schedule is just too busy nowadays. I made the comment the other day that FIRST is now a 60 week per year commitment, unfortunately our calendar only has 52 weeks. (Until they add the month of "Smarch")

[DonRotolo]

Hard work, but definitely worth it. Plus, you get to teach other teams all about it at Kickoff! Warm up your PowerPoint slides!

[MagiChau]

Now we have an official list of teams we can blame if some code in the library doesn't work when we get it on kickoff day! Joke aside, I thank the teams putting in the effort for this.