How does your team spend the Kickoff 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.

[JamesBrown]

does any one remmeber what time the actual game is usually announced (the animation is played) My managers called a mandatory staff meeting on saturday at 11 at work and I was wondering what the odds were Id be able to catch the animation before then. FIRST site says that the kickoff is from 10-12 with kits being handed out at 11 does any one know where in there the animation is, I know it is towards the end but I dont remember how close to the end.

[MChapman]

Team 176 as a collective team will be at Hamilton Sunstrand in Windsor Locks, CT watching the kick-off from the webcast. After that is over we go out to lunch then head to the shop. Saturday and Sunday are days of brainstorming ideas for a robot, and getting to know the game an rules a bit better. then as the week approaches we're there every night but fridays.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Team 461 has done this a few ways in the past.

The first option has been a Team Kickoff at the school, with a strategy and design brainstorming session immediately following. We have tried to discuss the following aspects before going into robot design specifics:

1) What do you really need to be effective in a match?
2) What things to offense, defense, etc need to focus on?
3) What should be the role of the human player?
4) What combinations of scoring give the highest output?

After we discuss these points and others regarding game objective, we sometimes break into parts. However, this year things will be done a bit differently.

Purdue FIRST is hosting a large kickoff party at the Class of 1950 lecture hall on Purdue campus. So a few teams will be there in the morning to watch. After that, teams will do seperate strategy. I will be hosting a Saturday evening dinner/brainstorming party at my house to watch the kickoff and brainstorm between members of the team. The next day we start real brainstorming stuff. That Monday there is no school for WLHS (Students from 461), so we will brainstorm then too.

[Pat McCarthy]

67 usually attends the local kickoff, at Novi HS (home to team 503). Afterward, individuals who wish to attend workshops do so. Generally, we take the weekend to digest the game and individually come up with what we think about the game. Then we reconvene on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the following subjects:

• Breakdown what other teams will be doing during a match.
• Decide, based on those results, what we want our robot to accomplish.
• Sketching on an overhead projector and taking suggestions from anyone on the team, come up with the basic mechanisms to allow our robot to do what we want it to.

[mikeday51]

Team 1350 sends up our 3 team captains while the rest of the team watches from home. Then we get back to home base (brown university) and take inventory. Finally we go home and let our brains ferment the new challenge....

[Revolverx7]

The day of kickoff my whole team meets at school for breakfast and then watches the video broadcast of the kickoff. After which we go and print out all the newly unlocked documents and start to build the necessary parts to a practice field. We also break up into small groups and come up with possible robot design solutions for the new game. What a wonderful time the first few days are.