Fresh from the forum

[Ken Leung]

IV. General Information- useful info that came up in between threads…

Oh yeah, the goals really do weight around 180 lbs each… it was an error at the competition manual that said the goals weight 130 lbs. Check out Team Update one.
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1583
http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/doc_art3.htm
Speaking of which, team updates are really important. They include different rule changes/clarification, and important info like missing motor specs and speed controller info, or the 60 amps circuit breaker testing result and PBASIC program of the goal tracker they showed at kickoff…

As for Question and Answers, FIRST is doing Yahoo! Group this year, which should be a quicker Q&A process. If you have any questions about using it, look at the thread right below, and start posting if you have more questions.
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1606
Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FRCtech2002/

About ordering pneumatics…
“There is an order form on the last page of "The Pneumatic Manual for FIRST 2002 Competition".” And “The only available bores are 3/4", 1-1/2", and 2". Strokes range from 1/2" to 12"” –Ed Sparks
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1535

About “missing” items in the kit of parts…
“We've run into a problem, I think. We are missing a good amount of the parts that were supposed to be included in the kit.” –Michael Krass
“There was a mistake in the manual file listing the actual kit of parts checklist. The valid checklist is getting posted to the website this morning.” -FRCOps
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1483

About ISP extrusion…
“IPS Extruded Aluminum - great for robot skeleton!” –Anton Abaya
“Whether you use IPS, Bosch, 80/20, Palletti, Item MB Kit, ParFrame... it's good stuff.” and “Let me tell you that these extrusions and fasteners are really cool to use on a FIRST robot. They let you change things during debug... adjustments are easy.” –Andy Baker
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1663

About White papers…

There are a lot of great papers inside white papers section of chiefdelphi.com, about motors, drive train advices, control system, lifting mechanisms, you name what you need, and people will put them into the whitepapers. But recently, there are a lot of fine addition from the Novi kickoff that’s worthwhile to look at.

- About Novi workshops presentation PowerPoint… There are quite a few of them about Robot building practice, rookie camps, Innovation FIRST system, Team organization…
- http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1629
- Thanks Novi kickoff presenters~!

- About looking for CAD drawing of parts, even the 2002 goal…
- http://www.firstcadlibrary.com/
- THANKS Ed Sparks~!

- About 2002 Game simulator, from another Ed…
- http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1691
- THANKS Ed Debler~!

About Skyway wheels…
“As to the wheels, it is my understanding that ANY Skyway wheels are legal. There are some pretty nice wheels on there.” -Jeff Waegelin
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1728

About Nu-trons WEBCAM is back!
“Tune between 5:00pm and 10:0pm on week nights and all day on the weekends to watch the NU-TRONS saga unfold.” –Joe Canavan
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1498
A team’s who’s willing to show people what they really do during the 6 weeks… So people really do work hard to have a competitive robot built after 6 weeks. THANKS Nu-Trons!

About sub teams…
“do your teams break into subteams for each subsystem on your bot?” -mehtank
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1761
Take a look at how teams divide up their students…

About teams’ new websites… http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1597
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1524
A lot of them did a great job updating their site…

About fundraising…
Don’t forget, fundraising is still important even during the build period… Take a look at all these ideas to raise more money for your team.
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1461
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1734

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V. Threads that can use more attention-
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Some of these threads stop growing because the forum is moving too fast, and they simply didn’t caught enough people’s attention… But they are still interesting topics nevertheless, some even good questions that can use more responds. Take a look…

“What’s the most important thing for new Teams to remember?”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1497
It is always really easy for new teams to be overwhelmed by all the things going on in this competition… So let’s keep the advices going into this thread… There is always something more they can learn from the veteran teams.

What SHOULD be on the CD manual
“I believe that FIRST missed some useful tools that it easily could have added to the CD.
1 InnovationFIRST documentation
2 Parallax software
3 Default Code
4 Pneumatics Manual” –nwagers
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1471
If someone will be nice enough to reply to this, and tell everyone where they can download those 4 things, it will be great.

“Regional kickoffs…”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1479
Maybe this isn’t the best time to think back to the regional kickoffs, but it is important that we give some feed backs while our memories still fresh. Kickoff is one of the most important thing to start teams on the right track, so let’s make them better and better!

“What do you get out of FIRST?”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1530
It’s always good to think about why we are doing this project… Especially when we are most stressed and want to give up…

“Recognition needed”
”I was reading some of the posts on the Thread below about schools seeing F.I.R.S.T. as a sport. It saddens me to think that there are so many little minds out there and how so many cleaver , dedicated people can work so long and so hard to not be given the recognition of their efforts.” –Nick Reynolds
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1754
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1735

“Team names? How?”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1641
Come in and talk about how and when your team got the team name.

“Palm scoring calculator”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1760
Mike Soukup did a wonderful job at this palm scoring calculator, so let’s help him out and tell him what more you want in it…

“Students vs. adult”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1757
This thread is still growing on top of General, so I will leave it up to the people to keep it growing.

“FIRST on TV”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1733
If FIRST is going on TV, which channel should it be on?

“So how much have you all accomplished so far?”
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1791
If you are willing to share your progress, let us know how far you are ahead…

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VI. Unanswered questions…
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These questions still await the thoughtful answers they deserve…

Trouble with the Microsoft project template?
“Has anyone else had trouble with the Project template file?” –Jon Abad
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1489
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1726

Year book page guideline
“Hi all, Does anyone know where I can find the guideline / layout for the FIRST yearbook page?” –Anne Lam
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1732
Year book example
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1778

AutoDesk streamline?
“My team's advisor got the e-mail with his streamline account today and we logged in and were trying to figure out this... how do you create new members?” -rollncoast
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1793

Location of Forms?
“Where are some of the registration sites/forms? I couldn't find the disney release form…” -Nicoleaqueen
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1496

VII. Good for a laugh…

Take a 5 minute and take a look at these “interesting” threads…

Look at the “robot” my old Team 192 GRT managed to finish within a week
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1611
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&threadid=1603

Problems with goals…
“We ran into some problems while building the goal.... we accidently trapped someone inside.” –Li-Anne D.
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1711

Lost item in the kit?
“It says somewhere in the manual that there should be a item called sleep. It says check the grey bin.” –Anton Abaya
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1522

To all Newbie Teams…
http://64.119.166.94/forums/showthre...&threadid=1144
It is good to have a good laugh from time to time… Just make sure we let people know they shouldn’t take them too seriously…