Alumni Mentoring a rookie team... advice?

[nicholsjj]

If I were going to help a rookie team that had no prior mentor expirence I would first try and convince them to build the Kit bot in steroids. I would want the team to make that the priority first. The only rules I would focus on at first are any specific drive train rules (frame size, bumper rules, etc.). My next step would be to walk the team through the mounting of the electronics board. Make sure to program the robot as well. Hopefully these steps can be done by the end of week one. With that out of the way the students and mentors can have a closer idea of what an FRC robot looks like. I would then reevaluate the game and find the simplest solution for the game. The videos from the 3 days builds will be useful here. Decided on a simple strategy and design that can be done by the end of week three, yes THAT Simple. With that done your students should have plenty of time for the ever important driver practice. I would look for a team that has a field set up with carpet for this or try and get carpet(assuming no modified field surfaces ). Remember the two best rookie robot performances over the last two years came from two teams that could not shoot. They fit a strategy and built very simple machine es. Good Luck this year.