The first human vs robot off season event - Long Island

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Have you ever tried to do anything in a 7x7 pit? That's half the space teams are used to.

This was the first year my team said they ever had the pleasure of 10x10 pits at sbpli. At nyc some pits were 8x8.

At the off season event we attend (hhh) we had 6 by 6 pits. All real work can be done in our shop which is a short walk away so if a team really needs to work on their bot it should be ok.

[Sperkowsky]

Hi all!

Update #3


Final Logo! - Imgur made the gear purple for some reason dont worry its blue.

I personally got a lot of work done on the google doc. Here is the link to it
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

I allowed commenting but please dont abuse the power otherwise I will have to remove it.

We planned on a proposal on monday but we realize we need more information. We are going to make more accurate measurements of the facilites along with sketching up layouts.

We also have to figure out power as we dont know whether we will blow something running 30 pits in a single room.

We have to find qualified volunteers so if anyone is in the area please PM me!

We havent gotten responses to any of our emails to mar, or hhh. We are going to wait till we have all of our options weighed before we decide on where to get the field.

We also had the idea to take out noodles entirely. They are confusing and annoying.

Pros
Fun to throw noodles at humans
fun to throw noodles in general
can give human players something to do if they arent a feeder station bot
look cool flying through the air

cons
will be extra cost for us
make field reset harder
an get tangled in wheels
will make driving harder


I want to hear your votes on that!

Thats it for today more updates soon!

Thank you - Sam

[Mr V]

For transporting the field I suggest having a Mentor do it. Shipping is expensive and you can rent a 26' truck with a liftgate in our area for about $100 per day, plus the fuel.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Mr V

For transporting the field I suggest having a Mentor do it. Shipping is expensive and you can rent a 26' truck with a liftgate in our area for about $100 per day, plus the fuel.

I put that in the doc for the option from first hq. Do you need a truck license though.

[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I put that in the doc for the option from first hq. Do you need a truck license though.

No, just a regular driver's license.

http://www.uhaul.com/Trucks/26ft-Mov...uck-Rental/JH/

[KyleH]

Originally Posted by Louis_

I would LOVE to do this if it wasn't so far away

I agree 100%. This sound awesome!

[Mark McLeod]

Do you have an idea of when you'd hold this event?

There are two other Fall off-season's on Long Island, one in late September (533 Lindenhurst) and the other in mid-November (3624-Half Hollow Hills).

We have all the key volunteers on Long Island, we'll just need the date to see who is able to make it. Your team leader can email me to get those started and I can get him the key volunteer contact info.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Do you have an idea of when you'd hold this event?

There are two other Fall off-season's on Long Island, one in late September (533 Lindenhurst) and the other in mid-November (3624-Half Hollow Hills).

We have all the key volunteers on Long Island, we'll just need the date to see who is able to make it. Your team leader can email me to get those started and I can get him the key volunteer contact info.

Sometime in october. we wont have an exact date untill we meet with the school board but that should be very soon. Thanks

[Alex2614]

We ran the first ever FRC event in our state as an off-season, and we did a 26-hour endurance event, so we learned a thing or two about "non-traditional event" logistics.

First thing, as your first event, I would restrict it to 24 teams. This is the minimum you need for a competition, and it keeps your numbers low so you can work out the "bumps in the road" at first.

Second, I would go to some other off-seasons, have your students and mentors volunteer, and have them pay attention to the small details that make these events run smoothly. Ask them about how they handle registration, volunteer coordination, etc. The little things are what can make or break an event. Things like having printed schedules for every team (the FMS system can do that for you), having a centrally-located screen to display real-time ranking information (FMS video output), who is running the A/V (FTA can usually help with the FIRST side of the A/V system), floor markings for robot and human directional travel, signs for where things are, concessions, etc. Keep an eye out on all of those things and have your students and mentors write stuff down. This is a document provided by the guys that run IRI. There is a lot of helpful information there. There is also the list of volunteer positions for an official event and FIRST's web-page about hosting off-season events.

I'm not sure about the accuracy on all of those pages, though, because we got our field from AndyMark, which included things that FIRST says are not included. I'm guessing you can get a field from either FIRST or AndyMark? Because ours came with carpet, game pieces, etc. We also got an FTA staff from AndyMark.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Alex2614

We ran the first ever FRC event in our state as an off-season, and we did a 26-hour endurance event, so we learned a thing or two about "non-traditional event" logistics.

First thing, as your first event, I would restrict it to 24 teams. This is the minimum you need for a competition, and it keeps your numbers low so you can work out the "bumps in the road" at first.

Second, I would go to some other off-seasons, have your students and mentors volunteer, and have them pay attention to the small details that make these events run smoothly. Ask them about how they handle registration, volunteer coordination, etc. The little things are what can make or break an event. Things like having printed schedules for every team (the FMS system can do that for you), having a centrally-located screen to display real-time ranking information (FMS video output), who is running the A/V (FTA can usually help with the FIRST side of the A/V system), floor markings for robot and human directional travel, signs for where things are, concessions, etc. Keep an eye out on all of those things and have your students and mentors write stuff down. This is a document provided by the guys that run IRI. There is a lot of helpful information there. There is also the list of volunteer positions for an official event and FIRST's web-page about hosting off-season events.

I'm not sure about the accuracy on all of those pages, though, because we got our field from AndyMark, which included things that FIRST says are not included. I'm guessing you can get a field from either FIRST or AndyMark? Because ours came with carpet, game pieces, etc. We also got an FTA staff from AndyMark.

Thanks a lot. Yea I wish we could use andymark as we wouldnt have to buy game pieces, carpet, tape ect but its 661 miles away costing us 3k for transportation alone.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Thanks a lot. Yea I wish we could use andymark as we wouldnt have to buy game pieces, carpet, tape ect but its 661 miles away costing us 3k for transportation alone.

Contact the people running the NE and MAR districts. They should have a ton of game pieces if they are anything like us. FIRST shipped the PNW district ~800 totes, ~800 noodles and ~30 Recycling containers. We had one tote that was damaged and we have 400 noodles that are still shrink wrapped on the pallet they came on in addition to the ones that survived DCMP. While we gave away a lot of the carpet we always keep 2 sets just for off season events and then get rid of that just before the new season starts.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Contact the people running the NE and MAR districts. They should have a ton of game pieces if they are anything like us. FIRST shipped the PNW district ~800 totes, ~800 noodles and ~30 Recycling containers. We had one tote that was damaged and we have 400 noodles that are still shrink wrapped on the pallet they came on in addition to the ones that survived DCMP. While we gave away a lot of the carpet we always keep 2 sets just for off season events and then get rid of that just before the new season starts.

Neither have replied. We will keep trying. The good thing is if we do end up having to buy a set of 100 totes it won't go to waste as we will probably use quite a few as long term storage.