Build Blog/ Wiki

[runneals]

As far as a host goes, I suggest DreamHost. First off, they host non-profits for FREE FOR LIFE! The biggest pro is that they basically offer you unlimited bandwidth + storage. They even have a one-click installer that includes mediawiki and wordpress. In addition, they also offer a FREE domain name with the account as well! It's a win-win!

[Cecil]

Free sounds wonderful in my book! I'll have to suggest DreamHost to our team!

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Cecil

Free sounds wonderful in my book! I'll have to suggest DreamHost to our team!

I have been using DH for over 5 years, and haven't really had any major problems with them. Last year, I got my previous team on DH, and we also use CloudFlare to help provide security, reliability (caching), & speed.

And yes, I find it nice how they donate free hosting to non-profits

[Nirvash]

As for a host, I would be more then happy to give any team a cpanel account (or just setup an addon domain if you'd want) on my server, due to a few other projects/sites I run, it has plenty of room on it. PM me if interested.
Though if you are a 503c the DreamHost offer in the post above is really good, especially if it includes domain registration.

I haven't had a chance to try MediaWiki but WikkaWiki is another nice and simple wiki software that is super easy to set up.
Also, if you are looking at a host with an 'Unlimited' anything, read through the TOS, a lot of the time, there are limits.

[yash101]

Try WordPress! That will allow you to blog efficiently and easily. However, if hosting it on a Pi or a slow server, be sure to have static-HTML caching. That's how my site doesn't die when running on an RPi. A blog for every build season seems like a strong idea, and don't worry about sharing it with teams. GP protects you because most teams team will not want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by yash101

Try WordPress! That will allow you to blog efficiently and easily. However, if hosting it on a Pi or a slow server, be sure to have static-HTML caching. That's how my site doesn't die when running on an RPi. A blog for every build season seems like a strong idea, and don't worry about sharing it with teams. GP protects you because no team will want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

Rhode Warriors 2008 would like to talk to you

And the pinch claws of 2010

And the minibots of 2011 (curse you for making me remember these things)

And the bucket of 2013

I could probably go back further if you'd like.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by yash101

GP protects you because no team will want to copy an idea! It just doesn't happen, most of the times!

Hahaha.

Wait. You're not serious, aren't you? Tell me you're being sarcastic.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Hahaha.

Wait. You're not serious, aren't you? Tell me you're being sarcastic.

Kinda in the middle. A good team will show GP and not copy the idea. Just to say, I believe that that is most of the teams. Some other teams that believe in only competition, victory and crippling other teams' robots on purpose. Personally, most of the teams I have met in the past have shown a good GP (Yes, that is you, 4183, 2403, 987, 1717, 842, 1723, and many more teams.)

I should probably change the "all" to "most"

[EricH]

Originally Posted by yash101

Kinda in the middle. A good team will show GP and not copy the idea.

Oh?

"Steal from the best, and invent the rest!"--I want to say that was Dave Lavery, but I do know it was on CD a while back, and is in the spotlight list.

This is part of being a professional--if you're stumped, and someone displays an idea you didn't think about, you look at whether or not it's a viable option, and, MORE IMPORTANTLY in FIRST, what you can learn from it as you adapt it to your robot's design.


Oh, and this one's for Andrew: Don't forget about the 2009 shooter-dumper conversions. Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by EricH

Oh?

"Steal from the best, and invent the rest!"--I want to say that was Dave Lavery, but I do know it was on CD a while back, and is in the spotlight list.

This is part of being a professional--if you're stumped, and someone displays an idea you didn't think about, you look at whether or not it's a viable option, and, MORE IMPORTANTLY in FIRST, what you can learn from it as you adapt it to your robot's design.


Oh, and this one's for Andrew: Don't forget about the 2009 shooter-dumper conversions. Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

True. but in this case, I am talking about taking a good team's idea completely and saying it is yours. That is when it becomes bad!

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by EricH

Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

Perhaps the 100's roller claw on our 2007 bot Tubasaurus?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Perhaps the 100's roller claw on our 2007 bot Tubasaurus?

I was thinking more on the lines of 330's Championship Industrial Design Award winning slide-to-grip claw. Saw a few of those in 2011, at least being prototyped.

[yash101]

If someone wants some decent WP hosting, I could offer you. The only problem is that I don't know how to give a domain name. My server has a 100% uptime (so far)

[Foster]

The 1640 - Sab-BOT-agewiki is a Mediawiki site hosted at GoDaddy.

They have a mini-blog off of each year's build, 2013 game and then links from that page to all the subsystems. The wiki was started in 2009 and has all of the details of each robot.

They do a great job of putting their designs up as they happen. The last few years have been pivot drive based, for example this is the info from the 2013 pivot drive.

From a tech standpoint, I like MediaWiki. There are a ton of plugins to make it easy to manage and maintain different content types and info. The PHP code needed to set it up is pretty minor. Most of the bigger hosting sites have auto installs of Mediawiki.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricH

Oh, and this one's for Andrew: Don't forget about the 2009 shooter-dumper conversions. Or a number of claws in 2011 on the West Coast that looked suspiciously like a particular highly successful 2007 claw.

Or what about 33 getting really HOT in 2009 at CMP?

Oh wait, apparently somewhere in the middle means somewhere in the "We all steal from each other but that's ok"