Kickoff day

[feverittm]

Great Timing.

Our team is having our 'Week-in-a-Day' exercise -- A mock Kickoff and First Week activities -- this Saturday. We have done these in the past and they have been very useful especially for those who have never been involved with FRC before. I will pick a previous game and the team and mentors (I haven't told them which game either) will work though the process. I usually tweak the rules slightly in order to make them more relevant and to eliminate any issues seen before with this specific game.

On the actual Kickoff we normally meet very early (like 6:30AM -- our Kickoff starts at 7:00am with the broadcast at like 8:00) since we are on the West Coast (I always feel bad for those folks even further West of us). We meet with about 10 or so other teams in a auditorium at the local university to watch the broadcast.

After the broadcast the teams break apart to head back to their respective locations. A small group will then head off to pick up the KoP and bring it back with them. We do have a couple of teams that just send a couple of folks to the event just to pick up their KoP for their teams who are watching remotely.

After getting back to the school with the K0P we have a small group (3-4 folks) go to another small room to inventory the KoP and get the game piece(s) (if any) to the rest of the team for review. We also take over anything 'special' to review as well (like last year we took the control system stuff over).

In the meantime the remainder of the team is gathering together, eating breakfast, and then re-watching the game animation while the mentors are busy printing up the manuals. We usually print up like 5 copies of the manual so that all the small groups can have a copy.

The remainder of the day is usually spent in small groups going over the rules, dissecting the game, and making up some charts with high level game strategy details (like "how do you score and how many points", "what are the different sections of the game - autonomous, teleop, endgame" and how long are they?). These charts are left up around the room for the rest of the season for review at a glance. We also take the time to note any major changes in rules (like the 'travel perimeter' last year) for our veteran members.

As others have said, we focus first on the game itself - no robots! We look at the game play, strategy. We try to figure out what should happen when. Only when the we truly understand the parts of the game do we start to outline what things on a robot (systems) would be required to do them.

Our who process probably takes 3-4 days with strategic analysis usually taking the whole first day.

I hope this helps

[swaxman12345]

My team is hosting a kickoff stream at a local University. And then game analysis. And then design. And then it's already the next morning.

[TikiTech]

Since the kickoff location for the state of Hawaii is on Oahu. The teams from the outer islands must come up with a localized version.

Here on our island (the big island of “Hawaii”) we decided a few years ago to help our local teams by creating our own kickoff day.

We open our shop to all the local teams to come spend the day doing various workshops.

Actual kickoff video is shown at 5am here. Due to the very early nature many of us watch it from home prior to coming in to the workshop. Gives us mentors something to watch while having our cup of Kona coffee since we all know we gave up sleeping long ago.

Then we will spend the day working with everyone to help with game analysis and more.

We break down the day into various workshops with the attending schools.

Watch Kickoff – We show the video, which many student miss as sleep is still a thing.

Read Rules - Break out the participants into smaller groups and read the manuals. We like to mix up the groups as much as possible. A great time for students to meet and work with each other. During that time the mentors will meet up, read the rules, then create a game rules test.

Rules Review - The students and mentors will review the rules and discuss any concerns.

Rules Testing – Everyone tests on the recently read rules. Discussion to follow if needed.

Game Analysis Part 1 – Discussion on various scoring scenarios, choke points, etc.

Human Robot – Setup of mock fields for small groups to “play robots”. Participants will “be” a robot with one to two tool functions. Such as; hinged arm, pickup, shooter, object sorter… Once “designs” are picked the game will be played multiple times. Each time the players can and select or refine tool functions as the game play reveals.

Game Analysis Part 2 – More discussion on the game analysis after Human Robot. Surprising on the revelations after “playing robot”

Design Labs – We have been using Stanford Design Thinking for many years in our design process and have a trainer on staff. We will give a class on the SDT method and then break out to small groups again. We set up the groups into design stations. Each station will have a portion of design that will act as the point of design with lots of materials for crude prototyping if the design is better explained this way than the usual sticky note.
Some sample groups are: Drivetrain, object collection, object scoring, robot interaction, etc. These groups we (the mentors) will determine. Labs will run roughly 15 minutes before each group rotates to a different lab. Once everyone has gone through all the labs we will all return to vote on the 3 best solutions to each of the labs. This gives many of the smaller teams designs ideas to work directly from.

For more information on Stanford Design Thinking you can visit:
http://kealakeherobotics.org/student...sign-thinking/

or
http://dschool.stanford.edu/our-point-of-view/

Or if you would rather, you can contact me.

Aloha!

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by TikiTech

..
Design Labs[/b] – We have been using Stanford Design Thinking for many years in our design process ..
For more information on Stanford Design Thinking you can visit:
http://kealakeherobotics.org/student...sign-thinking/

The five steps of SDT are (from your web site):

1. The first step is empathy; we see how others feel towards a specific item. Interviews are used to gain insight to human nature.
2. The second step is to define. In this step, we use the information gathered from interviews to find the user’s real problem.
3. Ideate, the third step in design thinking, is where the group finds solutions to the problem.
4. The fourth step is to prototype. Once an idea is decided upon, groups work together using random materials to construct examples of their product and explain how their product works.
5. Testing is the final step. Groups rebuild their prototypes and create a working product. Once built, testing begins. Testing identifies problems with the item, so the product can be modified to better suit the user.

With the requirements already specified in the form of rule books, what to you do for step 1 on the first round? The other steps correspond roughly to our planned engineering process; not quite how we think about it, but it makes sense.
Edit: Our mnemonic of the engineering cycle is DRIPPER:

• Define the Problem
• Research known solutions
• Imagine possible solutions
• Plans (blueprints and schedule)
• Prototype/Build
• Evaluate/Test
• Repeat as necessary (meaning not always back to Define)

Looking this over makes me also wonder if and how you review known/previous solutions to similar problems in your process.

[BenGuy]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Just curious, how do you make an exercise like that effective? I would imagine that most highschool students would have a tendency to daydream and end up not paying attention to something as dry as the manual. We usually do independent readings to try to avoid that, but if your way works well I would love to hear how you do it.

This is something that I think all teams face. Unless you have a core group of a few people, there are bound to be those who get bored and are not as engaged and care about the subject as others. We make sure everyone has the 'opportunity to succeed' by letting them be in the discussion. However, it's like the saying goes, 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.' Those who are leaders and are engaged excel and stay focused, those who aren't focused are setting themselves up to be behind the rest of the year.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Originally Posted by BenGuy

This is something that I think all teams face. Unless you have a core group of a few people, there are bound to be those who get bored and are not as engaged and care about the subject as others. We make sure everyone has the 'opportunity to succeed' by letting them be in the discussion. However, it's like the saying goes, 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.' Those who are leaders and are engaged excel and stay focused, those who aren't focused are setting themselves up to be behind the rest of the year.

It's similar on our team. We try to have every member engaged in the beginning when going over the game, rules, ideas, etc, but only a few remain engaged in the discussions for the whole day. Usually halfway through when game/idea discussions start to become more detailed, large parts of the team break off either to get started on prototypes, KOP inventory, making critical parts of the field needed for prototyping and other stuff along that nature. Usually the drivetrain is decided very quickly(Typically a 6WD Kit) and many students will begin working on getting that up and running. Programming team also starts getting new software and firmware set up. Lots of stuff happen on the first day that's for sure.

While it would be cool for every student to be active in design or strategy discussions, not every student wants to do it. Typically it's the more experienced members or students that naturally have a strategy mindset that are the most involved. Though this is typically only 4-5 students, it's a pretty good number considering the core team consists of only about 18 students.

[Edxu]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

It's similar on our team. We try to have every member engaged in the beginning when going over the game, rules, ideas, etc, but only a few remain engaged in the discussions for the whole day. Usually halfway through when game/idea discussions start to become more detailed, large parts of the team break off either to get started on prototypes, KOP inventory, making critical parts of the field needed for prototyping and other stuff along that nature. Usually the drivetrain is decided very quickly(Typically a 6WD Kit) and many students will begin working on getting that up and running. Programming team also starts getting new software and firmware set up. Lots of stuff happen on the first day that's for sure.

While it would be cool for every student to be active in design or strategy discussions, not every student wants to do it. Typically it's the more experienced members or students that naturally have a strategy mindset that are the most involved. Though this is typically only 4-5 students, it's a pretty good number considering the core team consists of only about 18 students.

Traditionally, 610 has done a Saturday post-release + short afternoon casual talk in small groups, then we meet as an entire team after thinking our ideas over a night, then we have a large group discussion on Sunday. This year, we'll be making small groups of 4-5 (we have a team of 49 I think), which each includes at least 2 experienced or senior members who have a firm grasp on strategy, and it's their job to explain the concepts to new members, who sometimes come up with extremely innovative solutions.

Personally, I'm really against the idea of people not having input on the robot, even if they don't want to, because if they're dissatisfied with the end product, they may end up blaming themselves for not being more engaged at the beginning with the Strategic breakdown.

[BenGuy]

Originally Posted by swaxman12345

My team is hosting a kickoff stream at a local University. And then game analysis. And then design. And then it's already the next morning.

Personally we don't go near robot design for day, and before that, we prototype many ideas first. For example, 2014 year, there was an idea of a catapult and a 'pitching machine' design. We first prototypes these designs, a few days after kickoff, then we designed the robot off of the successful prototypes. And we NEVER design anything on the day of kickoff or even a few days after, only game evaluation for that time.

[DaveL]

Originally Posted by Knufire

I recently gave a talk on this at the Minnesota SPLASH event. I'm not sure if the presentation was recorded, but the slides can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx6...ew?usp=sharing.

To quickly summerize

Saturday, game release to around 1-2PM - Lunch + Going through the manual in small groups. Come back together as a team and highlight all critical rules. Answer any questions or clarifications. Brainstorm any Q&A questions, if any
Saturday, 2PM to close - Robot task list. Highlight every single function a robot can perform in the game. Careful attention to word these such that it doesn't shoehorn you into a single design (e.g. score ball instead of shoot ball).
Sunday, Monday, Part of Tuesday - Game simulation
Rest of Tuesday - Robot function priority list
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - Conceptual work, base level prototypes (just answering if concepts are possible, not finding specific details).
Saturday, Meeting together, debate various concepts, find final overall robot concept, split into subsystems and start more detailed prototyping and design

Great Presentation!

On Slide 9, you say:
"Six students, each student is a robot with 25 units of functionality

Use functionality units to purchase robot functions (value being the
previously assigned difficulty)"

Can you elaborate on your simulation process or provide an example?

Dave

[GeeTwo]

Here is our current draft of kickoff day events (we're in the U.S. central time zone). We're calling kickoff "Saturday 0". We're starting weeks on Sunday, so the next day is "Sunday 1".

Kickoff Day 2016 Schedule (9 Jan 2016, all times CST)
0830 - 0900: Continental Breakfast (Pastry/Donuts, Fruit, Coffee, Milk, Juice)
0900 - 0930: Gathering/Welcome/Organization

• Welcome, admin, & ground rules
• Review Agenda
• Collect e-mail addresses for “proceedings” mailing (esp. non-3946 members)
• If time remains, review game teaser, hints, standards, and such revealed so far.

0930 - 1030: Kickoff Video
1030 - 1130 Set up phase (Main bullets are simultaneous; sub bullets are sequential)

• Printing of Rules (~10 sets)
• Group of mentors begins getting parts and constructing field elements
• Main Group of students:
  • First Impressions
  • Initial list of Robot Tasks (pick up game piece, score game piece, climb, etc)
  • Brainstorm game strategies (one group or a few large groups)

1130 – 1200 Tweak list of rules sub-groups and assign members to these groups – initial list follows:

• Scoring: list/analyze all scoring, including penalties
• Field : e.g. obstructions, key dimensions, possible game flows
• Robot dimensions: e.g. Time varying? Relative to game pieces & field elements?
• Robot details: bumpers & “new” controls/construction rules
• Game Pieces & goals: how hard to pick up, throw, catch, score, whatever
• Non-game piece/auto/end game scoring activities
• Defense: defensive actions and limitations such as protective zones, time limits

1130 - 1230 CST: Lunch
1230 - 1400: Students break into groups, review assigned rules, prepare outbrief
1400 - 1500: Outbriefs from rule review groups (~5 minutes each group + questions)
1500 - 1600: Brainstorm additional strategies and top-level robot designs (one group or a few large groups)

We then plan to go home as a team. After a suitable break for dinner, key mentors and student leaders will meet to begin working on grand strategy (that is, tournament structure) and estimating the value of different functions based on scoring potential about 1800 or 1900 on Saturday 0.
On Monday 1, we shall accept additional robot concepts, then select a limited number of drive trains and robot concepts for further development. (Though anyone who really wants to promote a certain concept may volunteer at this point even if the team as a whole thinks it's not viable.) Tuesday 1's meeting shall be to do quick prototypes and for design groups to get together and develop their plans. At the Thursday 1 meeting, we will get down to one or two design concepts (by consensus, not vote). Preferably both of these concepts will have the same drive platform. Serious parts orders shall begin on Thursday 1 after the meeting. Saturday 1 shall be the first real "build" day, based on the two AM-14U2's and other parts we have on hand or can get from local hardware stores.

[221Sarahborg]

Our plans as a team has varied for the past four years I've been on my team with being on our own in our school's cafeteria and this year the media center. Last year a team on the other side of the KCMO border invited many others to have a breakfast and space to strategize in. This year we will be meeting in our media center like I said and following the broadcast we will be breaking into small groups to get an understanding of the rules but this year I have the honor of being able to pick up the KOP this year.