How does your team spend the Kickoff afternoon?

[David Hoff]

Cyber Blue makes it mandatory for all team members to attend the kickoff broadcast at IUPUI. Immediately after kickoff we meet there and go over the game rules, how to score, and anything else that pertains to the game. This helps ensure that everyone on the team is 100 percent clear on all aspects of the game and that we are all on the same page. We won't meet again until Sunday afternoon when the real fun begins. At this meeting we discuss strategy. Do we want to play defense, do we want to score this way or that way. Those sort of things. At this meeting this is no talk about how the robot will do it, just what the robot will do. We will try to have a strategey finalized within that day or the next and then start figuring out how a robot can do it.

[Koko Ed]

After the kickoff we'll spend an hour or two at RIT brainstorming. It's best to hit the ground running.

[skimoose]

Team 228 has traditionally held a pot luck supper on Saturday night, and we do some brainstorming and game analysis over the meal. After last year, (anyone who went to NH knows that it was another snowy Kickoff) we've decided to hold our dinner on Sunday this year. Last year, the 2.5 hour return trip turned into a 3.5 hour trip, and our Bengineer waited even longer to leave after Kickoff and had a tough time making it home in time for the supper. At least this way, everyone will have Saturday night to think about the game before our meeting.

Also, a BIG Thanks to KathieK and our friends at RAGE for hosting a Kickoff site so our team members that aren't going to NH can join in on the fun!

Can't wait to see what teams dream up for this year's game!
Good Luck to Everyone.

(Billfred, how long do you think it will take Art04 to have a vex version of an '06 FRC bot? I see an awful lot of vex parts on the workbench!)

[Denman]

Well, as i remember, we spend a few hours (its at 3pm here...) discussing stuff. Then us older people headed down to the pub for a drink and a relaxation whilst thinking and discussing stuff...


shame i'm going to be at work until 4pm on saturday....

[lukevanoort]

We send a few members off to Richmond to get the KOP, usually they are selected on the merits of their trunk. The rest of the team shows up at one of the teacher's room and watches the kickoff, followed by brainstorming, then pizza, lots of pizza.

[KathieK]

Being teamless, I'm helping host an unofficial kickoff in the morning for CT teams, then going home and relaxing for a while and then going to a non-FIRST-related party in the late afternoon!

[Smrtman5]

Im kind of suprized most teams dont start designing right away, but it sounds like everyone has a cool ritual.

As for our team, prior to kickoff, we tell everyone to re-read last years rules as a refresher. On the bus ride to kickoff we contemplate what the game may entail. Then, on the bus ride home from the kickoff, we brainstorm ideas and stratagies. Once we get back to school, we open the KOP and start building the field. When all that is complete we spend about a week brainstorming and drawing countless doodles on a whiteboard.

[lilszek24]

We all show up early saturday morning. watch the kick-off event together. and then once its over we break for lunch, after lunch we break in groups and talk strategy, then after a good afternoon of stratagizing, we break off. Either later, or the next day we come back and share all of our group ideas with everyone and have team brainstorming.

[Madison]

I expect that my team will wake me absurdly early Saturday morning and drag me to the remote kickoff -- then we'll head back to the lab afterward and carry on with typical meeting sorts of things, except that we'll throw some brainstorming into the mix for variety. We're in the middle of a project that is a priority, so we may actually work harder on that than we generally do on the new game for a day or two.

[Ian Curtis]

We don't do anything. Well, at least as a team. Each team member watches the webcast then we have our strategy meeting, complete with spinny chairs, on the following day from way to early in the morning for a weekend until after lunch.

[Rafi Ahmed]

Team 4's whole team is going to watch the kick-off and then spend most of saturday at our school brainstorming and we're doing the same thing on sunday.

[sciencenerd]

After watching the kickoff at our remote kickoff location, team 1318 goes back to our school and brainstorms on everything from design to robot construction ideas until 6:00. Generally, during this time we send random mentors on shopping trips to Home Depot/Lowes to buy different hardware for game objects or whatever.

[Rabbit222]

We're sent home after watching the live broadcast at our local theater. During this time, students are advised to start brainstorming and have their ideas fresh in their minds for Sunday, the day we really start working. Of course, it is recommended to get plenty of sleep, but during build, I never sleep!

[Sepsis900]

321 usually has any members that can show up for our remote kickoff do so. After that, we go to a few workshops and usually all leave together by 4:00. Somebody usually donates their house for the evening, where we all go and discuss the game, ways to score, our strategy, the possible strategies of other teams, and if we have time, some general characteristics of the robot. Unless the meeting is particularly inconclusive, we stick to the strategy we set down here. (arguing about design and strategy 4 weeks into the competition used to be a big problem in the past)

What we do is we of course watch the kickoff, the after we talk about it and kinda of brainstorm alot of ideas. We also brainstorm the next day too...a whole lot. So the first two days are brainstorming and brainstorming, and oh yeah, brainstorming. Then after the two days of brainstorming we usually start building away and stuff..and everyone on the team has to read the rule book and all that stuff.