FRC every-team canvas

[GeeTwo]

This thread was created to build up a questionnaire for every FRC team, to be answered through pit scouting performed by a CD volunteer (or someone voluntold by a CD denizen). I'd like to keep this to at most twenty questions, answerable in about 10 minutes per team. Here's my initial cut; please recommend additional questions or options within the questions, or point out questions that you believe will produce unusable or meaningless results. I specifically did not ask about the team's total budget, because most team members (at least on my team) have no idea.

• What's your team number? (does not count as one of the twenty)
• How many Pre-college Members do you have?
  • Total number of members
  • Number of "all-in" members (90%+ of build sessions)
  • Number of "sporadic" members (50%- of build sessions)
• How many college or adult Mentors (includes Coaches) do you have?
  • Total number of mentors
  • Number of "all-in" mentors (90%+ of build sessions)
  • Number of "sporadic" mentors (50%- of build sessions)
• Which of the following shop tools does your team have direct access to?
  • Hand drills
  • Hand-held powered saw (circular, reciprocal, and/or jig)
  • Portable band saw
  • Drill Press
  • Chop Saw
  • Table Saw
  • Band Saw (fixed)
  • Water Jet cutter
  • Sheet Metal brake
  • Lathe
  • Mini-mill
  • Manual Mill
  • CNC mill
  • Plasma/laser
  • Other (specify)
• Which of the following sponsored manufacturing techniques do you have access to? If you know, about how many hours of each?
  • Sheet Metal Fabrication
  • Sheet Metal cutting (whether water, laser, or mill)
  • Full milling of solid stock (manual or CNC)
  • Other (specify)
• Do you contract any of your manufacturing beyond your sponsors? If so, which? If you know, how many hours (or dollars) of each?
  • Sheet Metal Fabrication
  • Sheet Metal cutting (whether water, laser, or mill)
  • Full milling of solid stock (manual or CNC)
  • Other (specify)
• What is your team's top-level organization?
  • one school
  • multiple schools or school board
  • community
  • charitable foundation
  • other (specify)
• Do you build a prototype robot? If so, about how many?
• Do you build a practice/twin/clone robot? If so, how many?
• How many (non-CMP, non-DCMP) events is your team competing in?
  • Total Events from week 0 to pre-DCMP?
  • How many of those events require your team to get hotels or other housing?
  • How many require your team to rent a bus or buy group ground transport?
  • How many require your team to travel by air?
• How many hours per week of combined build, practice, training, and programming does your team average (as a team or large group):
  • between kickoff and stop build
  • between stop build and first event
  • between first and last event
  • between your last event and the end of summer (Aug/Sep)
  • in the fall (Aug/Sep to kickoff)
• How many "major sponsors" does your team have? Approximately how many dollars of donation (include labor at what you believe to be a fair rate) does it take to be a "major" sponsor?

[snoman]

This looks like a very interesting poll. Depending on what you are trying to get. But how many district or regional events are competing in? How many "other" awards did you submit? What is your teams biggest challenge / difficulty?

[BBray_T1296]

Growth:
Is your student population increasing/decreasing/steady over the last 1 season? 3-5?
--Mentors?
--Sponsors?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by snoman

This looks like a very interesting poll. Depending on what you are trying to get. But how many district or regional events are competing in? How many "other" awards did you submit? What is your teams biggest challenge / difficulty?

The goal is to characterize the resource and involvement level of teams, as well as the peculiar challenges they face. Many teams have non-monetary resources, so the poll/questionnaire is directed towards what the team does and what descriptive resources it has, and what it does with those resources, which should help normalize the results. (E.g.: a team which receives $40k in sponsorship, but has no fabrication sponsors, is probably "poorer" for competition purposes than a team which receives $25k in cash sponsorship, but has a half dozen engineering and technician mentors and liberal shop time from a nearby manufacturing facility. A $20k team with a "day trip" regional or two "day trip" district events is far "richer" in terms of competing than a $40k team that has to fly to the nearest event.)
While I did not distinguish between regional and district events, the first question is the first part of Q9.
Awards: if I did this, I would simply make it a list "which awards did your team apply for, or nominate a member for?" Are applications necessary for anything other than Chairman's, WFFA, and Dean's List?

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296

Growth:
Is your student population increasing/decreasing/steady over the last 1 season? 3-5?
--Mentors?
--Sponsors?

Yes, I can see working this in, with answers of "rookie team" or "team less than four years old" when appropriate.

I would also like to add some questions regarding involvement, outreach and mentorship of other hands-on STEM programs, whether FRC, FTC, FLL, Vex, Sea Perch or otherwise. I can tell that this poll is already overextended, and will need to be trimmed back. Still, if anyone has questions you feel are more important or revealing than the ones already posed, please keep sending!

[EricH]

I would include a question as to WHAT offseason activities are done. Probably phrase it as "how many offseason competitions, what type of demos, and what major projects do you do?"

Sometimes, the type can be as important as the number.

[Ali Ahmed]

A data point that I think would be interesting is if pre-college members return as mentors and how involved they are when they do return.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Yes, I can see working this in, with answers of "rookie team" or "team less than four years old"

I think knowing the broader "is your team growing or stagnating or shrinking" to be a useful set of data. One data point does not a trend make, hence the longer-term question.
If the answer was something to the effect of "we have been losing people for 5 years but this year our program tripled," then that begs a "why?".

Another question:
Does your team do offseason (not as in the after champ's events)? Things like training sessions, new drivetrains, etc. If so, do you meet over the summer or just after school in the fall?

I would enjoy personally running this questionnaire at Dallas and possibly could designate a team member to do so at Palmetto which I cannot attend.

[snoman]

Awards: if I did this, I would simply make it a list "which awards did your team apply for, or nominate a member for?" Are applications necessary for anything other than Chairman's, WFFA, and Dean's

And safety anamation. I think it would provide information about resources. As far as involved team members and mentors. Some of these take a lot of time.

I also would be more than willing to distribute at north star in MSP where we compete and at superior where I volunteer

[GeeTwo]

Another item I'll consider for this poll is what programming language(s) teams use, though it's not really in the original scope, and we've got more questions than I want this to be. That said, keep the ideas coming; I'd rather have a better idea and cut a good idea than keep the good idea because the better one wasn't suggested. I plan to develop the poll to be available to collect either by "pit scouting" (with a grid to collect answers on a bunch of teams), or by "paper form", and probably by "electronic form" online.

My son (Gixxy) has agreed to develop and host the data collection online to support both regular web site and smart phone entry, leveraging TBA's event data to smooth bulk entry from pit scouting. I want to have the have the questionnaire to him by Dec 18 (beginning of LA Tech's Christmas break) to give him plenty of time to get the web site working. Please have questions posted by 4 Dec, so we will have two weeks to compile, and select the specific questions and adjust the wording as needed. I'd also like to collect some data on how long it takes someone to complete the (paper or verbal) questionnaire. I suspect that if it takes more than 15 minutes, we'll lose a lot of teams. I'll also try to arrange the questionnaire with the most important questions first.

Not sure yet what to do if/when we get multiple entries from the same team. I think it would be really best if we kept all of the data, and used this data to understand the uncertainty in the poll results.

[GeeTwo]

I've just posted version 1 of the canvas as a pdf file at this link.

There's a poll for how long it takes to complete at this thread.