A FIRST web portal -- seeking suggestions

[ThomasTuttle]

I'm about to start work on a super-awesome web app for FIRST teams. It would be a portal that allows all students, mentors, engineers, parents, and lab rodents to exchange information easily and keep up with team happenings.

Currently, I'm going to give it the following features:

Members: Team members can sign up (probably with mentor acceptance required to prevent espionage and spam) and enter data about themselves, like Role (high school student, college mentor, engineer, parent, lab rodent), Groups (see below), and contact information (AIM, email, etc...).

(Note: the Role of "lab rodent" would be similar to "toading" a player on a MUD--it would allow them to log in but make their account useless. Mostly a security/prank feature...)

Groups: Groups are arbitrary categorizations of people for various purposes. The obvious (and intended) use is subteams, such as Strategy, Programming, Drivetrain, etc..., but it also doubles as a way to help organize teams with multiple schools. My team, for example, is composed of about 5 high schools, so having individual schools as groups would allow communication about school-specific issues (permission slips, robot demos, etc...) without bothering the whole team. It could also be similarly used for mentors from the same company to work together.

News: Mentors and possibly team members could post news items.

Events: A calendar that can hold team meetings, important dates (ship date will probably be pre-programmed, and it might just decide to find out when all the regionals are), and other stuff

Tasks: A very capable to-do list that can hold jobs to be done. A possible feature in later versions would be sub-tasks, so "Ship robot" could be composed of all the steps required to build the bot. This would be especially useful if I give it the ability to assign a person to a task. Then anyone with help or questions related to the task knows who to contact.

Messages: Private or public messaging to communicate about random stuff.

That's pretty much it, with a nice home page to show relevant snippets of each section and a sidebar to jump to different sections. Later versions might include plug-ins like a Parts section that allows people to request, authorize, and check out parts, and keep track of what goes on the robot. Most people would kill for this, but remember, a dead programmer writes no code.

I have a quick post about it on my blog:

http://home.earthlink.net/~thinkingi...st-portal.html

Please post comments there, or copy your replies there, so people who visit my blog can hear about it too.

See ya,

Tom

[Astronouth7303]

(I'd post in blog, but can't)

Sounds cool. Will it have the option of automagically opening ChiefDelphi and/or related sites in you favorite browser? And who hosts this?

[Greg Needel]

is what you are doing essentally the same thing as the openfirst project http://www.openfirst.org/

i am not a web developer but maybe you can integrate what you have with their existing web portal system

[Astronouth7303]

Is this server end or client end?

[dez250]

Hey thomas i think this is a good idea, but it may be close to some other projects people around here are doing, search around for it. Also last time i checked the NU-TRONS werent team 145, so fix your profile (lol)... Also good luck with this and thanks for the help at BTB with the scoring.

[Astronouth7303]

yep. You and you BRB. (I want a BRB!)

[ThomasTuttle]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

Will it have the option of automagically opening ChiefDelphi and/or related sites in you favorite browser?

Maybe... I could add a "Links" page... but it is web-based, so it would open in the same browser anyway.

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

And who hosts this?

I might offer hosting, but probably I would just make the script(s) available for download.

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

is what you are doing essentally the same thing as the openfirst project http://www.openfirst.org/

i am not a web developer but maybe you can integrate what you have with their existing web portal system

I think it is somewhat similar. But it's going to have the "I built it myself" feel... ;-)

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

Is this server end or client end?

Server end, although I might give it some way to export RSS feeds or stuff like that... but definitely server end, so you can get to it with any web browser.

Originally Posted by dez250

Hey thomas i think this is a good idea, but it may be close to some other projects people around here are doing, search around for it.

I'll take a look around...

Originally Posted by dez250

Also last time i checked the NU-TRONS werent team 145, so fix your profile (lol)...

I can't believe I made that mistake! I fixed it...

Originally Posted by dez250

Also good luck with this and thanks for the help at BTB with the scoring.

Thanks... BTB was AWESOME! By the way, I think it's my hat sitting on the table in your picture. ;-) Dude, you got to hit the BIG RED BUTTON!!!!! That was SO COOL!

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

yep. You and you BRB. (I want a BRB!)

You shoulda been there.

--Tom