[FRC-Designs.com] Feedback Requested

[Starke]

FIRST Community,

I come to CD to look for honest feedback about a project that I started about a year ago titled, "FRC Designs." Below I included links to threads that were started about the launching of different subject matter for the site.

First, I would like to apologize for the poor execution that was brought about with the initial launching of the site. As with most FIRST members, I am extremely passionate about robotics and the specific areas that I am interested in. With this passion comes the tendency to try and promote your ideas at every possible chance. I never intended to come across "spamming" people on CD. I apologize for these actions.

There are three main questions below as well as a little bit of background about where they come from. I would appreciate and constructive feedback on these items.

Thank you in advance for your support and feedback. I am excited to see where the site will head and grow.

What do you think about the site?

The site was initially intended to be a database. This database consists of previous and current robot designs for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The database includes images, videos, and CAD of robot designs that are submitted by FRC teams.

Where do you see the site heading?

Watching the site over time, it seems that the idea of a database did not take off like I first thought. Where do you see the site going?

What are your thoughts regarding a Behind the Design Blog?

After watching the site grow over time, I have seen a growing interest for "Behind the Design" type articles. People appear to be interested in taking an in-depth look at how individual robots/subsystems are designs and created.

From these thoughts, I started an FRC Designs Blog that would allow different robots/subsystems to be placed on a showcase.



http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95300
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=98904
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=99102

[Clem1640]

This is a great concept and 1640 has contributed to it.

The problem I experienced was that the size of CAD files quickly grew to become un-emailable; even zipped. Now I've got another technical problem to solve; how to get my designs to FRC-Designs.com. If this is difficult, it will not succeed.

Any reasonable solutions? If it is reasonably easy, 1640 will continue to contribute.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I love the site. I would like to have a bit of behind the design for each robot that is uploaded. You could just have an option for teams to send you a PDF to go with their robot upload or something like that.

I like the blog as well I would try to get teams from this year to contribute while it's still fresh in their mind.

[|DELTA|]

Could The site have a torrent portal? I'm not sure what type of infrastructure is behind the site, but it is a possibility, especially if teams could just pay a nominal fee to get access to it. I KNOW that's not the best solution, though...

[ToddF]

We like the site, and referred to it during the summer. This year, during our design evolution, we saved snapshots of our CAD model as it evolved over time. I plan on submitting our final CAD model and an article describing the evolution of our design from summer concept bot to final design.