Who does the programming for your team?

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by Donut

This year looks to have 5 or 6 programmers and me leading again. I can say from last year's experience that having 9 programmers is a bad thing. We simply did not have enough tasks to hand out and supervise between them all since the skill level varied drastically and we really couldn't figure out what we wanted to do fast enough.

That has always been one of my major concerns with having a large group programming. There is only so much to do and, while you can delegate tasks, sometimes there just isn't enough to go around.

This year, we had around 5 or 6 kids sign up for programming. We have been teaching them some basic stuff and we're hoping that we'll have a few good kids to help us out this year. For now, the other programmer (Calhounian) and I are going to probably be the only ones dealing with the CMU Cam and delegating the other things, such as autonomous and encoders and such to the new guys (with our help and guidance, of course).

We're hoping it works out.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by AtalanteStar25

That has always been one of my major concerns with having a large group programming. There is only so much to do and, while you can delegate tasks, sometimes there just isn't enough to go around.

This year, we had around 5 or 6 kids sign up for programming. We have been teaching them some basic stuff and we're hoping that we'll have a few good kids to help us out this year. For now, the other programmer (Calhounian) and I are going to probably be the only ones dealing with the CMU Cam and delegating the other things, such as autonomous and encoders and such to the new guys (with our help and guidance, of course).

We're hoping it works out.

Why limit to the RC?

Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.

[Not2B]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Why limit to the RC?

Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.

Bingo!... why limit it to the robot? Make scouting software. Write a game simulator. Write software to control your own segway. To control the firing mechanism on your t-shirt cannon. Oh so much to do...

(A large team forces us to think outside the robot in order to inspire as many as possible - with year round non-robot projects.)

On a side note... "Think outside the robot." - I kinda like that. I'll have to use that in a meeting someday....

[Scott Shaw 237]

Originally Posted by Mike

237 had one self-taught programmer (me) in 2005 and 2006.

2007 we have me again and another self-taught freshman.

Actually to be 100% correct 237 has had a mentor since 2002 who has been helping with the code. While he let the kids do it themselves, he still over looked it and helped debug it and made sure it was done on time.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.

I would have loved for us to do some of these. It doesn't work as well when all of your programmers have learned how to code from school courses though; they aren't used to "figuring it out" for themselves, and since they were all new to the FIRST program (they had various coding experience, but I was the only returning robotics programmer) many wouldn't have a clue where to begin to look for information on this.

If done properly a large programming team could work (once you get beyond robot programming). I have my doubts from last year though, and I won't allow it to be that big again.

[Shinigami2057]

Team 1350 has had a few programmers over the years, my friend Marco the most prominent of them (he was the lead and only programmer for that year), and I helped him lead the team programming last year. Since we were the only ones who had significant experience in C (or any language, for that matter), we did all the code for that bot. He wrote the majority of the base, since I had never written for embedded applications before; although in the last two months I caught up and wrote the autonomous code we used in Atlanta and by the end, I was able to successfully manage the source in case Marco dropped off the face of the earth

We are both self-taught C programmers, and we took the same Java course at our school (which we gained very little from, since it was much more of a beginner's class than anything). This year I am mentoring the team and will be helping them learn C before January, since none of them have enough experience yet to code the bot on their own. It should be an interesting and fun year

[Royalpride1070]

well.. unfortunately.. only two people actually do the programming on our team. our two mentors Don and Mike.. we hav a programming team, but half the time they don't know what don's talking about. that's why i stick to building..

[Robo_Coyote]

I was fortunate enough to have a freshman last year sign on that had self taught himself C++ so we are all student programed baby!!!

[Qbranch]

Our robots are totally programmed by students.

For our team, last season we had just myself and one other student, then a couple mentors... but they werent there much.

I have lots of software and hardware programming experience from my job, my partner has taken programming classes, so it works out.

This year we have 4 new people on programming team... none of which know programming...

guess i've got my work cut out for me

-Q

[Imajie]

This year 195 is trying to delegate the task of programming. We have a group of 4 or 5 students and 1 mentor interested in programming and I'm trying to teach them how to program now so we can delegate tasks during the season.

[Joohoo]

Last year we had about two productive student programmers(don't ask about the third) and three mentors that helped out a bit. the entire programming team was trying to figure things out last year and this year it looks like it's me on 340 and two that i'm mentoring on 424.

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by Donut

I would have loved for us to do some of these. It doesn't work as well when all of your programmers have learned how to code from school courses though; they aren't used to "figuring it out" for themselves, and since they were all new to the FIRST program (they had various coding experience, but I was the only returning robotics programmer) many wouldn't have a clue where to begin to look for information on this.

If done properly a large programming team could work (once you get beyond robot programming). I have my doubts from last year though, and I won't allow it to be that big again.

Our team is similar--We don't really have much time to teach them to do anything but robot programming. Our two current programmers (Calhounian and me) came onto the the team last year knowing 0 programming. Currently, we have about only 3-4 people who can do any programming in anything other than C and other than for the robot.

Many of those projects sound really cool, but for us right now, it's not much of an option.

Last year, though, we did have a few students who designed and wrote a scouting program for us in Java.

[chris31]

Its sort of shocking to see that 3 teams have the programming done all by the mentor and 7 have it done mostly by the mentor. I guess that this is the same topic as how much work some mentors do on building the robot, but it think that the programming should be done by students.

[Astronouth7303]

For the past 3 years, it has been a massive programming team of 3: me, myself, and I. I learned PIC C on the EDU pre-2004. (Previous programming experience in other languages.)

Last year, we started getting some younger people, so hopefully they can take over when I leave after 2007.

[LordTalps]

Team 1885 has three to five student programmers, depending on how you ask the question. There on we have 3 to 5 mentors who will help/teach/lead. Trouble is, the three of us who REALLY program (out of the students) including myself, thegathering, and another guy, is we're all seniors. Need to get some fresh blood in the mix.