Becoming Competitive

[Ichlieberoboter]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Any way in your area to recruit more mentors in key aspects of a robot season? Then students can choose what area to focus on that they enjoy.

Yeah! We found a new teacher at our town's elementary school with prior experience as a FIRST mentor to help us out next year. We also have a parent that is an engineer that wants to help out, a college student that was previously a programmer from a different team, another ex-FIRST mentor from another team, and 5 alumni that said they will try to help out if they can next year. We've been looking for a lot of mentors because this is obviously really important. We're looking at getting enough members next year to split into sub-teams and having at least one mentor per sub-team.

Originally Posted by hutchMN

I would love to work with you one on one if you would like, just message me your contact details if you want that. There are a lot of workshops in MN design to take your team to the next level; one of those workshops is put on by 2502. 2502 went in depth on how they analyze a game on kickoff, how they pick a strategy for the season, and how dynamic that strategy is throughout the life cycle of the game. I know GO FIRST puts one on, and I also believe 1816 does as well.
Also, 1114 has some great resources on their YouTube channel. I would highly recommend watching them.

Thanks! We would for sure be interested in trying to attend one or more of these events. I'll PM you our team e-mail account that my friend and I take care of.

Originally Posted by gblake

And I have a couple of questions for you. They are similar to some of the questions other folks have asked.

• If you separate Robot performance from the other topics, are you
  • asking how to make a better robot; or
  • asking how to create a team that is an excellent FIRST team that, OBTW, has building a sweet robot as one of the rewarding and inspirational things the team does each year?
• If you are asking about building a better robot,
  • is it because you think it will be fun, rewarding and inspirational, regardless of how the tournament(s) unfold; or
  • is it because you think that the current robot-building part of your team's activities can be more efficient without drowning out all of the other good stuff you do; or
  • is it more because you just want a banner/trophy because winning every once in a while is a nice dose of positive feedback; or
  • is it because of some other reason?

I am definitely asking how to create a team that is an excellent FIRST team that, OBTW, has building a sweet robot as one of the rewarding and inspirational things the team does each year. We want to make a sustainable team that has more people involved that are passionate and really put a lot of time and effort into the program. We really want to change the atmosphere in our school to be more excited about and involved in FIRST and STEM. We also, however, are definitely trying to improve our robot so we can get opportunities like advancing to champs and competing in elimination rounds.
Thanks!

[*Rachelle*]

As for building a "better robot" I would suggest you read this: http://people.clarkson.edu/~jcarroll...R.20091204.pdf

(If you have already seen it, that's great) It breaks down the process of building a robot and the importance of not over-complicating a robot beyond your team's capabilities.

Boltman's post is super important along with many of the other posts, I'll try to post more later, but it looks like you have a great start with the suggestions so far.

Good luck!

[Jcarbon]

This advice isn't directly related to building competitive robots, but it was the most important thing we did during the reorganization of our team last year. Before we started making decisions about the team, first we met and agreed on a general list of priorities that extends to everything we do. Having agreed on that really clarified in my mind not just what the team does, but what the team is for.

Feel free to message me if you have questions about this stuff.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ichlieberoboter

Yeah! We found a new teacher at our town's elementary school with prior experience as a FIRST mentor to help us out next year. We also have a parent that is an engineer that wants to help out, a college student that was previously a programmer from a different team, another ex-FIRST mentor from another team, and 5 alumni that said they will try to help out if they can next year. We've been looking for a lot of mentors because this is obviously really important. We're looking at getting enough members next year to split into sub-teams and having at least one mentor per sub-team.

If you get a chance, trade the Engineer(s) for a good shade-tree mechanic and a machinist.

Best wishes for your team's future. Infect as many people as you can with your attitude, and remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Blake (An engineer)

[GreyingJay]

When we started our community team we knew it was going to be a challenge and an opportunity. We have had a fantastic first year so far - ranked 9th out of 41 in quals, 6th place alliance captain at our first regional. I attribute that success to having clear goals as a team. We started talking about these goals long before kickoff. We also took into account lots of advice from other FRC mentors and coaches, and Karthik's strategic design seminars.

The first goal was keeping it simple. This is a recommended strategy, and we were constrained anyway both by (lack of) resources and build space. We had no inventory of parts and not a huge budget. And our build spaces - a library and the city gym/pool/recreation complex - meant we could set up (and put away) simple shop tools like a drill press each meeting, but basically nothing else.

So we knew, even before kickoff, that whatever the game was, we were going to basically build an MCC. On kickoff weekend we decided on a few good things we would aim for, and designed a simple robot based on that. For Stronghold, that meant: be able to get over any ground defense and go under the low bar. We don't climb, our one mechanism was designed for shooting into the low goal only, we don't have extra mechanisms to open Category C defenses. We used the KOP, COTS, simple parts from stock extrusions. Easy, cheap, fast to build.

The second and third goals we decided on was to build a practice robot and to attend two regionals. We really feel that the ability to learn from your experiences at the first regional, then improve and try again, is a big part of the experience. Doing better at the second competition than you did at the first one is a measurable success that your team can take home, even if you still didn't make it to elims.

If your team struggles to have a working robot by competition, my recommendation is to fix that first. Build something solid, simple, reliable. Have it finished before Bag and Tag. This will do so much for your team in so many ways. Morale will be up. You'll be able to test it at home and fix "the stupid stuff" BEFORE competition. Your drive team can practice at home. Your mentors can have a break. You'll be able to use the practice matches when you get to competition. Your robot, because it's simple, won't break down or glitch out. You'll do what you set out to do (and nothing more), consistently, every time. You won't become a powerhouse team overnight, but you'll taste a lot of small successes that will excite and encourage your students. Build on that, and slowly but surely, you'll get there (at least that's our hope!)

Good luck to your team and to anyone else reading this who is in a similar position!

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Ichlieberoboter

Thanks! We would for sure be interested in trying to attend one or more of these events. I'll PM you our team e-mail account that my friend and I take care of.

Just to expand on what HutchMN said, there are 2 training events that I'm aware of that are relatively close to your team. 4607 runs FRC Jumpstart at St. Cloud State University, and GOFIRST runs SPLASH Training at the U of MN which was originally started by 1816, The Green Machine. Both training events are awesome and held in the offseason. PM "Chief Hedgehog" for more info about Jumpstart, and PM either "HutchMN" or "Cadandcookies" about SPLASH.

I will also be running robotics camps this summer in coordination with FRC teams throughout Minnesota. I'll be running one in Esko, MN which is about 80 minutes away from you. Kind of a long drive, but you're more than welcome to attend! The camps are focused on age groups from 3-5th grade, 6-8th grade, and there is a high school focused camp. If you have interest in going to Esko, or hosting your own camp at your school, let me know and I'd be happy to share the details.

[TheBaconWiz]

I understand what situation you're in. My team is home school based, and we were also founded in 2008. Because we aren't connected to any school or organization we rely heavily on our sponsors. We also do demos and SOS which is a day when we teach kids from kindergarten to 5th grade about science. It's one of the best ways to gain publicity too. We scout out potential sponsors and hold banquets and give presentations on why it would be good to sponsor a team like ours and how we help the community. I don't see any reason why you would need to keep a team small on purpose, however I don't know all of the details. I would recommend convincing as many people to join as possible, even if they don't find robots interesting. We have some people on our team who just want the experience of things like chairman's or helping in the community. I would really just look for people and convince them to join. A diverse team is usually a better way to get new ideas and connect with people. One of the only ways my team can gain sponsors is by meeting with them through connections people on the team have. FIRST is about learning before anything else. Just keep that in mind and try to do the best you can!

[GreyingJay]

One other thing I'll mention is that we allowed eighth-graders to join our team. It was an exception more than the rule when we allowed the first one, then his friend joined, then another three wanted to come. I was concerned that they might feel overshadowed by all the challenging work being done by older students, and/or be less consistent during build season, and/or be too immature.

I was wrong.

Most of our eighth-graders have been just as active, just as excited, and just as capable of taking on leadership roles in software, in fabrication (closely supervised for safety), and in outreach. We ran a Raspberry Pi programming workshop for the general public - largely put together by one of our 13-year-old students. And they're the ones that are more willing to let loose when you want them to - to cheer and shout at matches, to put on purple hats and purple face paint, to dance in the stands. They give our team a fun dose of energy and spirit.

So definitely recruit more students (of any age). New students see the FRC world with new, excited eyes.

[MikeBrock]

The best way to become better is to emulate engineering practices of the top teams. BUT, you also need to understand the how and why of what they do. Too many teams forget to explore the "why" and they end up with a sub-par machine.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

Just to expand on what HutchMN said, there are 2 training events that I'm aware of that are relatively close to your team. 4607 runs FRC Jumpstart at St. Cloud State University, and GOFIRST runs SPLASH Training at the U of MN which was originally started by 1816, The Green Machine. Both training events are awesome and held in the offseason. PM "Chief Hedgehog" for more info about Jumpstart, and PM either "HutchMN" or "Cadandcookies" about SPLASH.

I will also be running robotics camps this summer in coordination with FRC teams throughout Minnesota. I'll be running one in Esko, MN which is about 80 minutes away from you. Kind of a long drive, but you're more than welcome to attend! The camps are focused on age groups from 3-5th grade, 6-8th grade, and there is a high school focused camp. If you have interest in going to Esko, or hosting your own camp at your school, let me know and I'd be happy to share the details.

Also worth mentioning is our "Summer Robotics Summit" which focuses on a lot of advanced/special interest topics. You can check out previous schedules at our website, mngofirst.org, under the events tab.

If you're interested in either of our events (or our newly revamped mock kickoff event, coming this fall!), feel free to send a PM my way or email us at gofirst (at) umn.edu. Also, to clarify, neither 1816 nor 2502 are currently a part of the planning or running of Splash or SRS, although both have been gracious enough to present in the past. If you want "official" information on either event, well, you have my contact info and I'm part of planning and running those events.

I've been meaning to post something more in depth to this thread, but I'm currently writing from the middle of FTC North and it's been a bit hectic. Best of luck improving your team!