Training for the upcoming underclassmen?

[Donut]

Here's a question for all you teams that have been doing some kind of underclassmen training, if you are doing a mock game or fun robots or repairing robots, how do you get the time to do this in the fall? Are you a class (so you actually have in school time to do this), or do you make after school time?

Our team has always attempted to do some kind of teaching thing in the fall with miserable failures every single year, mainly due to a lack of time since it is hard to get teachers to spend that much time in the fall when they know they'll be spending so much in the spring (we are a club, not a team or class), and because at least 1/2 the club is typically in marching band, killing alot of the available after school time.

[dk5sm5luigi]

WPI runs a game called Savage Soccer in the fall where all FIRST teams can participate. It is a game developed by WPI students in a format similar to FIRST. We give everyone four weeks to build their VEX robot and then you have to compete. This past year we had over 30 teams and hopefully we will have more this year. The best part is that it is free if you already have a VEX kit. For more information go to http://www.wpi.edu/~savage/

If you are too far away from MA to go we are looking into creating "regionals" where you use our game and all you have to do is get teams and build the field. There is also more information about that on the Savage Soccer website.

[Carol]

MOE has a fall program called MOE University at which our engineers teach the basics of wiring, programming, machining, etc. Some of the presentations are available on our website at http://moe365.org/moeu.php

Perhaps these might give you a start.

[Not2B]

Originally Posted by Donut

Here's a question for all you teams that have been doing some kind of underclassmen training, if you are doing a mock game or fun robots or repairing robots, how do you get the time to do this in the fall? Are you a class (so you actually have in school time to do this), or do you make after school time?

Our team has always attempted to do some kind of teaching thing in the fall with miserable failures every single year, mainly due to a lack of time since it is hard to get teachers to spend that much time in the fall when they know they'll be spending so much in the spring (we are a club, not a team or class), and because at least 1/2 the club is typically in marching band, killing alot of the available after school time.

We meet for 1.5 hours on weds, every week during the fall. It's a bit of time, maybe hard for your team to do. Now, sub-teams meet outside of those meetings as needed. (Animation learns the software on the weekends... mostly at midnight I think...)

Our ping pong ball game, straw tower, and mashmellow structure game takes 2 hours. 0:15 to explain, 1:15 to build and test, and 0:30 to run the game. Simple, and most importantly, CHEAP. No one has to buy anything. Most materials are donated by the office I work in, and I hit Office Max/Staples for everything else.

Robocode is totally free, and people work on it in their free time (use our website to work out issues.)

Don't try to do a full robot if you can't support it (time OR money). See what you CAN do, see what you WANT to teach, and find a way to fit them together. If you go to grand, and don't finish, you'll frustrate the new people. It's good to have several small successes early.

Example - I want to teach structures... but I can't take 20 hours, I can't get welding in the cafe we meet in, and I can't buy the materials. But I can get a box of straws and tape, and we can spend 2 hours building a tower to hold a 20 oz bottle of Mt. Dew (of which the winners get to sample.)

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Not2B

We meet for 1.5 hours on weds, every week during the fall. It's a bit of time, maybe hard for your team to do. Now, sub-teams meet outside of those meetings as needed. (Animation learns the software on the weekends... mostly at midnight I think...)

Actually, we usually meet every Wednesday after school for 1 to 2 hours during the fall. Officers have their own meeting to discuss a few things too. The big thing we are missing there is sub-team meetings (none), partially because we've never really "forced" people onto teams and many people don't choose teams until further in (we've had people switch the build team they're on part way through build season before).

Originally Posted by Not2B

Don't try to do a full robot if you can't support it (time OR money). See what you CAN do, see what you WANT to teach, and find a way to fit them together. If you go to grand, and don't finish, you'll frustrate the new people. It's good to have several small successes early.

This has probably been the real killer of that available time though. We've never tried a full scale robot, instead we've attempted sumo-bots and things like that 3 different years, but still had bad results because...
1. We have no permanent classroom or anything to leave stuff around in, so anytime we want to build stuff we must get it out of the closet, move it to the other room, then end early enough to get everything back in.
2. We had to meet right after school during the fall, and most (if not all) mentors are not able to come this early to help teach things. The teachers at the school cannot really help because we have no teachers that teach anything about robotics (no robotics class, no engineering class, no metal working class, no electricity or circuit classes, and potentially no programming classes within the next few years), and the teachers of somewhat related subjects (programming, physics, building trades) are unable to help due to commitments with other clubs.
3. Summers seem to be cursed when it comes to meetings, so the officers usually have not planned anything out ahead of time and are trying to decide what to do for the fall, during the fall.

We did manage to actually build and compete using sumo-bots one year, but they were still an ineffective teaching tool, for whatever reason.

I like your ideas for cheaper less time consuming options. Money is not really a problem, though if we need to buy anything that can't be bought from pocket money it will need to be done far in advance since the PO system takes so long.

I'll post some of the things I'm thinking of later on, when we actually start getting down to planning. We're thinking of things right now, but for now are making sure everything gets finished and set up for next year to actually have a club.

[GB330033]

I'm graduating this year, but I'm leaving my team with some ideas of how to train incoming freshman. One of my favorite is to have a Vex competition. We had a bunch of leftover money this year, so we took advantage of RadioShack's misfortune/sale of Vex and bought at least two of everything. I'm currently in the process of designing a few Vex-style games/challenges, and in the fall the team will split into two and design robots to compete. Should be great because it will teach some of the fundamentals of robotics, will build and emphasize teamwork, and will be fun. I just wish I could be part of it...

[orelinde]

Originally Posted by GB330033

I'm graduating this year, but I'm leaving my team with some ideas of how to train incoming freshman. One of my favorite is to have a Vex competition. We had a bunch of leftover money this year, so we took advantage of RadioShack's misfortune/sale of Vex and bought at least two of everything. I'm currently in the process of designing a few Vex-style games/challenges, and in the fall the team will split into two and design robots to compete. Should be great because it will teach some of the fundamentals of robotics, will build and emphasize teamwork, and will be fun. I just wish I could be part of it...

why can't you continue as a mentor? Many of our students have been thinking that when they graduate they would like to come back as possible mentors.

[GB330033]

I'm going to be attending the University of Texas at Austin, which is about 4 hours away from here. I'd love to stay and mentor, but I have more pressing matters such as college.

[Cody Carey]

We had a couple of our freshmen take apart and rebuild last years 'bot, whenever they needed help... they just asked us