Teaching n00bs

[Joshua May]

Have them work through many of the different tutorials that come with 3DSMax. I self-taught myself during the build period our rookie year, and produced a not-to-shabby animation after just having completed the tutorials and fooling around with the software for a while. Once their done with some of the tutorials, I'd start giving them parts and have them model them. Start off with the simple things, then as they are more successful move on the the more intricate and difficult parts. Then have them move one to animating them.

[kcy88]

hehehe, i didn't mean to offend any1 by refering new memebrs as n00bs.


yea, the tutorials shipped with 3ds max are really useful. But I don't like most of the tutorials on the web. Many of the tutorials require some knowledge of 3ds max, or the steps aren't clear enough.

aren't we all n00bs still??
hehe

[Bcahn836]

we just call them rookies,

[M. Hicken]

a cattle prod and a taser are usually the easiest way to teach/ controll freshman. Some of the fresh in my engineering class will not be touching the robot unless they mature a little before the kickoff
i fear my teams legacy (or lack there of) will die when the seniors leave this year

[Bcahn836]

We just had our second meeting, we were getting ready to do a demonstration with the robot, and a set screw was loose and the motor was spinning but the wheel wasn't. So we turned off the power and unplugged the battery and showed the rookies how to diagnose the problem and fix it. After we fixed it while we were about to close the the top on the Electronics board we turned back on the power, at that same instance a rookie hit the controls sitting on the table, which we left on. No one was hurt but it gave us all a scare.Curiosity of the freshmen almost killed the veteran. I hope it doesn't take someone getting hurt the teach a rookie to DO NOT TOUCH.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Bcahn836

I hope it doesn't take someone getting hurt the teach a rookie to DO NOT TOUCH.

Rookies? I can't even stop our veterans from not touching.

[Bcahn836]

I would hope that a veteran would know better than touch the controls while someone is working on the robot!!

[Andy Baker]

Veterans should also know to turn off the power to the robot and OI when it is being worked on. Don't tell the rookies to "not touch the robot", show them how to work safely.

Andy B.

[Bcahn836]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Veterans should also know to turn off the power to the robot and OI when it is being worked on. Don't tell the rookies to "not touch the robot", show them how to work safely.

Andy B.

We did. when we finished working the turned on the power and thats when the rookie hit the controls. However we should have disconnected the power of the controls

[Smrtman5]

Not touching controls, or anything for that matter, that you are unfamiliar with should be common sense. It should not have to be taught especially for the field of robotics. Unfortunatly, most freshmen, and even a scary number of older team members dont seem to realize this. It appears that common sense is not to common anymore.

[M. Hicken]

Originally Posted by Bcahn836

I would hope that a veteran would know better than touch the controls while someone is working on the robot!!

i wish, last year we had a pneu poker to knock off the 10pt ball, it was hooked up to a few limit switches, our programmer was going to check something when he thought the power was off, walked into the limit switch, 12" throw, 50psi shot to the jewels, he wasnt in for the rest week. yeah, that tought our idiot vetrans to pay attention

[vic burg]

i am a freshman myself but personally, i think that a few of our freshman are really talented. we have this one kid who created an animation by himself. sadly we didn't end up using it but, it was still pretty awesome. as for me, im not that talented but, since next year, we
re losing our best veterans, the this year freshman and sophomores will basically be running the team. its not really about not letting only veterans work/ yell at the newbies, i think its more or so, who has the talent to work that should.

[Ian Curtis]

Was this thread revived for a reason?
Anyways I think thast the easiest way to do it is get your hands dirty (ie use the program) personally while the tutorials that are included are good you really need two monitors to use them unless you print them out. And becuase my dual monitor card is yet to arrive I bought this handy dandy book The 3ds max Bible I've taught most of it to myself using the basic tutorials in the book then venturing farther on my own.