Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

[GeeTwo]

There is no doubt that we could not field a competitive robot without the fantastic COTS robot-ready hardware and software out there. For a team whose most precise power tool is a drill press that was vandalized and been through four years of FIRSTers, all the COTS gearboxes and wheels and even the kit frame are like gold.

The really high-value stuff comes from an incredibly wide swath of people who either post on or who we found through CD. Ether, JVN, and Karthik top the list, but a variety of white papers and power points and spreadsheets on drive systems and other mechanisms have definitely broadened the horizons of what we can do mechanically.

The sharing of thoughts, expectations, and design clues on CD throughout build seasons have been invaluable in figuring out what adjustments we need to make - usually before stop build day, but continuing up to competition.

CD resources have also been invaluable in creating our training programs, in particular our "robocamp" this summer when we held a robot camp split over five Saturdays which culminated in the campers splitting into red and blue teams by a serpentine selection to build 18"x18" robots to play "capture the cubes". This a game was developed by two of our 2014 seniors, and leveraged the peculiar tile patterns in the classroom where we build. Team Try Hard beat Vive Le Resistance in two straight matches.