[FRC Blog] Founder's Broadcast, Kickoff Broadcast, Encrypted Materials, and Hosting F

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 1/2/15: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...-files-hosting

Founder's Broadcast, Kickoff Broadcast, Encrypted Materials, and Hosting Files

Blog Date: Friday, January 2, 2015 - 09:51

Founder’s Reception Webcast Tonight Live from Dean’s Home!

We’ve talked about this before, but I’m so excited about it I wanted to talk about it again. Tonight, January 2, is the Founder’s Reception, hosted by Dean at his home. Traditionally, it’s been a chance to thank our fantastic mentors for all they do. However, while two mentors from every team are invited to attend, we recognize that you may have some plans the next day that could interfere with your ability to actually participate (note the casual understatement in this sentence). So, this year, for the first time, we’re doing a live webcast from the event. Get a little peak inside Dean’s home and hear some folks talk about important things. Also, I’ll have a special announcement about the 2015 season that honestly I can’t wait to get out there. So, even if you are not a mentor on a team, you may want to tune in! You can stream at this link. The party starts at 7PM Eastern! And, the main portion of the webcast is only scheduled to last about 30 minutes. I think it will be worth your time.

Kickoff Broadcast

If you aren’t attending a local Kickoff tomorrow (it’s tomorrow!), you can still watch the broadcast here starting at 10:15 Eastern. The main portion of the Kickoff runs from 10:15 to about 11:07 or so.

Key Downloads

To prepare for Kickoff, I would encourage you to download the encrypted files below. You’ll be able to open them with the password that will be shown at the end of the Kickoff video. Downloading them now means you will get instant access after the game is revealed.

Game Manual and Field Drawings

Kickoff Kit Checklists

Software Updates for LabVIEW and Eclipse

Classmate Images

Hosting Documents or Files

As we’ve said in prior years, it’s very important that only FIRST host FIRST content. That is to say, rather than taking the documents and files you can find through usfirst.org and hosting them on your own sites, we need teams to link to our information instead. This applies to videos on our YouTube channel as well. There are two main reasons:

1. Version control. Our documents and files may change over time. If a 3rd party links to the content instead of hosting it, any updates we make will carry through. If the content is hosted instead of linked, the content may become obsolete, which would be helpful to no one.
   
2. Intellectual property. We do have a responsibility to protect FIRST IP, as any organization would. It’s not all created by FIRST, but it’s created for FIRST. So, re-hosting content may or may not infringe on donation agreements, licensing agreements or other matters that may not be public knowledge.

All that being said, we thank you for understanding and respecting this request. If you have questions, please feel free to contact frcteams@usfirst.org or (800) 871-8326, ext. 0.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Frank

[Steven Donow]

I really hope Arena layout is a concise map of dimensions of the various field elements (ie. you can look at a picture of the field and know where/how big every 'zone'/element is, as opposed to having to read through the manual)

[Herbblood]

^
l
l
Agreed, it was bad last year trying to find all of the dimensions.

[Abhishek R]

Has there always been a separate "Team Manual" from the "Game Specific Manual" ? If not, does this mean anything significant? I can't think of what that could be besides maybe just reformatting for readability and comprehension...

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Has there always been a separate "Team Manual" from the "Game Specific Manual" ? If not, does this mean anything significant? I can't think of what that could be besides maybe just reformatting for readability and comprehension...

IF you are talking about the team version, it is the wood version that teams can build instead of the full metal real field version.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Has there always been a separate "Team Manual" from the "Game Specific Manual" ? If not, does this mean anything significant? I can't think of what that could be besides maybe just reformatting for readability and comprehension...

You mean Administrative manual vs Game manual? That was new in either 2012 or 2013, I believe (I wanna say 2012 because of the foul system change).

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

IF you are talking about the team version, it is the wood version that teams can build instead of the full metal real field version.

That's probably what I'm thinking of, thanks.

[Jarren Harkema]

2015_Arena_Layout_and_Markings.pdf is 7 pages (5 last year)
2015_Game_Specific.pdf is 66 pages (111 from all individual files last year)
2015_Team_Versions.pdf is 43 pages (30 last year)
Basic_Field_Drawings.pdf is 44 pages (34 last year)

There's where some of the missing pages from the game manual went

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by Jarren Harkema

2015_Arena_Layout_and_Markings.pdf is 7 pages (5 last year)
2015_Game_Specific.pdf is 66 pages (111 from all individual files last year)
2015_Team_Versions.pdf is 43 pages (30 last year)
Basic_Field_Drawings.pdf is 44 pages (34 last year)

There's where some of the missing pages from the game manual went

You must remember last year the field was much simpler than past years.

2014-Truss, High Goal, Low Goal
2013-Wall Goals, Pyramids(complex)
2012-Bumps, Bridges, Goals

[Pault]

Does the LABVIEW update include the driver station and other tools that all teams use, or is it exclusively for LabVIEW teams?

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by Frank

Also, I’ll have a special announcement about the 2015 season that honestly I can’t wait to get out there.

You had me at special, Frank.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by Pault

Does the LABVIEW update include the driver station and other tools that all teams use, or is it exclusively for LabVIEW teams?

The LabVIEW update suite from NI's webpage has the driver station/tools. You need to install this with any programming language. The LV specific stuff comes in the kit.

[Joe G.]

600 teams, 8 divisions confirmed, with a two field Einstien.

[DCA Fan]

EIGHT divisions?! With 600 teams?

[James1902]

Any word on names for the new divisions? (Can't watch the broadcast.)