Team Kickoff Meeting

[Anthony4004]

After watching the game a few times, and bring up the manual for the basic rules, we go about spending a few hours coming up with strategy and ideas for what we want the robot to be able to do. Then we come up with a list of ideas to perform the functions of the robot. Then we take a break and chill over the information over lunch . After lunch we will try to narrow down the ideas to only two or three, then begin prototyping (mainly so that everyone can be able to express their ideas, and it allows new members to show their creativity and basic machining). By the end of the first day we would like to be able to know what the drive base will look like so we can build it either that day or for the next to begin programming (not waiting until the last three days like we usually do). Hope this helps, and good luck!!!

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by EricH

Might be a difference between your kids and the kids I was with, but having that simulated game session can show some "things to consider" that might not be all that obvious just by doing analysis. OTOH, the analysis can come up with some things that playing the game doesn't have.

If I might make a suggestion... Do the analysis for several strategies, then play a couple of rounds pitting one strategy against another, say 3 rounds with similar strategies. (Simulate, you know, Einstein or something like that. ) Might be a couple of unrealistic assumptions in one or the other strategy. Then go back into analysis for a bit-- "There's a hole here, which can ruin the strategy. Any ideas to fill it?" And, of course, leave the "how" out of it.

I remember doing human-simulation of the game with Ike from 33 for Logomotion. We used bagels as tubes (different flavors for different shapes.)

It was both educational (we got an idea of going across the field and how putting tubes/bagels at different angles was trickier than anticipated) AND fun (pretty sure that human-simulation ended up in a stick-fencing match between me and another mentor...).

If you can come up with a way to get students giggling while doing the simulation, and then end with serious analyzing of what was learned, then I think it can be a good team-bonding exercise and game-learning experience.

[Kevin Thorp]

Does anyone have an actual link showing the FIRST webcast times?

I've "heard" it's from 10:30-11:30, but I can't find anything confirming that on the FIRST web site.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Kevin Thorp

Does anyone have an actual link showing the FIRST webcast times?

I've "heard" it's from 10:30-11:30, but I can't find anything confirming that on the FIRST web site.

Based on this thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hlight=kickoff I would say you're correct.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Making sure that the more reserved people speak their minds is difficult, but will have far better results.

100% agreed. We actually give each person present a chance to speak by going in order around the room, perhaps 3-5 times over the course of a few hours. Some kids say "I have nothing to add that hasn't been said", OK, but speak now or forever hold your peace...

We do vote on the capabilities, and generally the most votes wins, but for ties and near ties we may shelve that choice for a day and revisit it.

Human Game: The kids have some rules, they need to think carefully about being a robot and understand the capabilities the "have". Need to keep it realistic. We use anything for game pieces, including imagination. Most kids are watching, six kids who 'get it' are playing as robots. Every game there is an organized debrief.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

100% agreed. We actually give each person present a chance to speak by going in order around the room, perhaps 3-5 times over the course of a few hours. Some kids say "I have nothing to add that hasn't been said", OK, but speak now or forever hold your peace...

We do vote on the capabilities, and generally the most votes wins, but for ties and near ties we may shelve that choice for a day and revisit it.

We used to do this, and found that our kids just really like to hear themselves talk, and they'll do it until the end of time if you ever let them start. They're really into overly-done never-ending debate. What we found over the years was that the team spent more time talking than building, and the robot quality and performance suffered as a result.

On voting for a design, I'd like to quote JVN here. In some post in a similar thread a while back, he said "Voting is not an engineering process. We will never vote on a design." After I read that, my entire philosophy of how to run a team changed, and it's clearly reflected in the improvements our team has made in the 2012 and later seasons.

Voting presumes everyone gets the same say in something and that everyone is equally qualified to have a say in something. This is simply not the case. We find voting to be a popularity contest, not a logical decision making process, and therefore we don't do it. The problem is, you get kids voting for things they are not capable of carrying out.

For our 2014 kickoff weekend, we have a big opportunity to get some work done, because we have Monday the 6th off school too. My goal is to finish machining all the bearing blocks, wheels, sprockets, and wheel axles by the end of Monday the 6th. I want to have jobs running in the CNC on kickoff day, and I'm taking a gamble on ordering material ahead of time to make this happen.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Voting presumes everyone gets the same say in something and that everyone is equally qualified to have a say in something. This is simply not the case. We find voting to be a popularity contest, not a logical decision making process, and therefore we don't do it. The problem is, you get kids voting for things they are not capable of carrying out.

I cannot agree strongly enough with this. Most of us students flat out don't have enough experience to tell what a feasible design is or isn't-- that being said, it's important to find those that do.

I read the same quote and it's part of why my team has almost completely scrapped voting from our design process. Our hope is that it will help us avoid the massive problems with split decision making we ran into last year.

[MrBydlon]

My team has had some radically different Kickoff experiences in my 4 years as head coach. (Team info: very rural community, about 12-18 students, 1 head coach, 1-2 engineering mentor.)

In 2011, I had no idea what I was doing so we didn't even meet right after Kickoff. I only brought 3 students to a small local Kickoff and then we spent 5 school days in my room talking about totally random, off topic ideas (circular robot that we could never build in a million years anyone?). It was kind of awful.

In 2012, we went to the University of Minnesota for a big Kickoff show and workshop. It was great and we learned a lot. We had the right idea but poor execution that year. That's nobody's fault! We just didn't have the ability to carry out our design to the fullest. Plus, we were a very young team.

In 2013, we tried to replicate that workshop Kickoff experience in Fargo, ND. It went pretty well but we were so exhausted from all of the workshop work, that we barely met on Kickoff day. We focused on reliability and simple game strategy (given our mildly low engineering experience at the time). Ended up working out great.

This year!! We are again attending just a smaller local Kickoff (no workshops). We are going to prioritize reading the rules and building the field when we return to our school on Kickoff Day. Getting an idea of scale and size (and the rules) helps with the probabilities that other posters have been talking about with game strategy. We will run some human simulations and try our best to devise our best game strategy by Monday.

One item that has been really powerful for our team https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4E...it?usp=sharing

It's a Needs/Wants List from that 2012 Kickoff at the U of M. Credit to GOFIRST, Danny Blau, and any others. We've done a little editing but you get the idea.

I truly believe, as a team in a smaller, rural community, identifying our resources and limitations is absolutely the most important aspect of game strategy. We had some super funky, kind of awesome, climbing ideas last year but we just could not build them. Focusing on things we could do (and do reliably) was the foremost idea in our minds.

My hope is that this year we can blend 2012 and 2013 together. We can shoot for the moon and still understand our resources and knowledge base.