Traditional Divisions for Off-Season Roles

[iggy_gim]

Hello everyone!

So this is our second year as an FRC team and we attracted quite a bit of new members, mostly freshman who no absolutely nothing about STEM. My coach and I were struggling to organize the team into effective "off-season" groups and things to do with the team until our robotics lab is cleared of asbestos (yes we had asbestos in our robotics lab). Does anyone have any words of wisdom from your own experiences?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

[Brandon Ha]

Our team has Summer Projects.
A group of students and mentors design and build something that can and will be used for the FRC/FLL/FTC Team in some way, shape or form. The hinge is getting the students to want to do something, to solve this make it very broad and assign your students a mentor who can truly support them and attend those meetings. Depending on the size of your budget and number of mentors/students, you can take on as many projects as you want.
Keys to Success:
Make it reasonable. One year, we had a group build a "Magic Carpet" which entails some machining and software. Also, we used mecanums, which we had to purchase. To top it off, we added a special controls system that utilized an Ipod to control it.
Benefits are extremely numerous. Awesome sponsor talking point, Money Maker (kids love it, let them ride it and at your booth/stand have a little donation box... champs here we go). Kids enjoy the fact that they did it and can talk about it FINALLY! and its reusable.

Make the kids do it. No one wants to do something someone else told them they have to do. Push them and prod them with other ideas and spend a couple of hours thinking and planning. Make it as close to build season without all the chaos.
Personally as a high school student not knowledgeable in the details of your asbestos case, take this time to plan. Building can come later. Albeit if the lab never opens until January 3, cross your fingers they like it enough to stay for the summer!

[EricH]

Same here. 1197 has been busy ravamping one of last year's offseason projects and working out the kinks in a practice drivebase. Last year we spent time prototyping intake mechanisms.

The offseason project in question is a holiday-themed box powered mainly by pneumatics, used during a fundraiser. This year, it's getting updated, improved, and complexitized from last year's box.

[snoman]

Keys to Success:
Make it reasonable. One year, we had a group build a "Magic Carpet" which entails some machining and software. Also, we used mecanums, which we had to purchase. To top it off, we added a special controls system that utilized an Ipod to control it.
Benefits are extremely numerous. Awesome sponsor talking point, Money Maker (kids love it, let them ride it and at your booth/stand have a little donation box... champs here we go). Kids enjoy the fact that they did it and can talk about it FINALLY!
Is there any way we can get a picture of the magic carpet. sounds pretty cool

[iggy_gim]

Thanks for the suggestions.

The hinge is getting the students to want to do something, to solve this make it very broad and assign your students a mentor who can truly support them and attend those meetings. Depending on the size of your budget and number of mentors/students, you can take on as many projects as you want.

That sounds like a cool idea, unfortunately we don't have any mentors, but we probably could assign an experienced member to a group of non-experienced members in a similar manner. When you mean something that your team can use, do you mean on your robot for competition or just in general?

Thanks.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by iggy_gim

When you mean something that your team can use, do you mean on your robot for competition or just in general?

Yes.







To clarify: It really doesn't matter all that much whether it's for the robot or not. What matters is the use of the project(s) to "set the hook" and keep the students active, train new students, and hopefully learn something. Gamepiece acquisition is generally an overlooked subject, for example--there are lots of teams with a lightning-fast offloading system for gamepieces that spend half the match trying to load them into their robot. I saw several teams this last year that could not actively bring the ball into their robot without first pinning it against the wall, and sometimes not even then. But if you've prototyped a few tricks in the offseason... well, now, maybe pulling one out is a good idea!

[iggy_gim]

OK, so its more about he project... I see...

Thanks a lot!