On photographs and FVC competitions...

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Just to clarify, Team 1114 has decided not to post pictures of their Vex robot until after the Championships in Atlanta. The team is definitely not trying to control the publishing of photos by others. This would both be foolish and out of line. Anyone who has a picture has every right to upload it as they wish.

Come on 1114 - Post at least one long-range, out-of-focus, blurry snapshot. - And then throw down the gauntlet.

Dare any copy cats to survive against the clever driving, the improved software, and the faster, more reliable, higher volume mechanisms you are going to build next.

Because of all this discussion, I am extremely curious about the general outlines of the design.

Because I have my own favorite subsystems that I am going to continue teaching my team about; I'm pretty sure that by choosing among those subsystems they will continue to assemble a machine that can either give you a run for your money on offense or shut you down on defense.

So, while I am honestly not interested in seeing my guys clone your or anyone's design, I am very interested in seeing your team take this golden opportunity to give the rest of us a challenge to beat.

Come on.... You know that you want to do it.... At least a decent prose description of it....

Blake

[JaneYoung]

At the risk of not having a fully formed thought, I'd like to offer as much of it as I can at the moment.
For many years, the Austin community loved and supported a Mr. Lance Armstrong in his athletic endeavors. It is my thinking that he felt comfortable here and had his space, enabling him to develop, train, grow.
We talk the talk of being an athletic sports event, trying to gain that respect and global understanding. In order to help do that, the athletes have to have the space to compete and to train. They are in the fish bowl enough without members of their community adding to it. This team wants their privacy until they choose to release the information as they choose. We should respect that and respect the competition and the newness of this sport.

We will all win in the end.
.02
Jane

[ManicMechanic]

While there may not be agreement on the posting of pictures during the season, one thing that I would highly encourage is the more posting and sharing of designs off-season. How I would have loved to see some of the photos that are appearing now (or last year's equivalent) over the summer! Our team is in this for the learning (we are not expecting to be competitive this year -- simply being picked by an alliance at all would make our day), because we are so far behind.

What would be extremely desirable for us is for close-ups and documentation to show us how certain elements (lifters, conveyer belts, shooters, etc.) are constructed by posting several photos at intermediate stages of construction, so we can reverse engineer on our own -- again not for a specific competition, but for learning.

I speak not only for ourselves, but for about a dozen Vex teams (no prior FLL, Vex, or FRC experience), that are drying on the vine. The kits are bought, the funding for registration raised, but when we volunteered to organize a league, no one was interested because they were so far from being ready. Having to re-invent the wheel (or at least the drive train) without guidance is so time consuming that it discourages all but the most persistent user.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

I speak not only for ourselves, but for about a dozen Vex teams (no prior FLL, Vex, or FRC experience), that are drying on the vine. The kits are bought, the funding for registration raised, but when we volunteered to organize a league, no one was interested because they were so far from being ready. Having to re-invent the wheel (or at least the drive train) without guidance is so time consuming that it discourages all but the most persistent user.

This is a little off topic, but I encourage you to spend one afternoon creating any sort of facsimile of a field and then getting those teams together just to spend a day building and practicing.

Deflate all the pressure from the situation.

If you can build a squarebot you can practice driving, offensive/defensive/collaborative strategies, platform getting-onto, low-goal scoring, and atlas ball-herding.

You are plenty ready to do your part deciding which alliance will win a match - You just don't realize it yet.

During the building part of the day work together brainstorming some challenges and then go your separate ways to implement the ideas each team likes best.

Avoid doing worse than a squarebot and I say you are a success.

Don't over-think it. Just pick a garage or church or school cafeteria and just do it! I have photos proving that it is easy. :-)

Blake

[fredliu168]

This is a little off topic, but what other FVC championships can we expect to see 1114 and/or 3075 in other than the championships in atlanta?

[ManicMechanic]

Originally Posted by 1885.Blake

This is a little off topic, but I encourage you to spend one afternoon creating any sort of facsimile of a field and then getting those teams together just to spend a day building and practicing.

Deflate all the pressure from the situation.

We tried! We started off with a formalized plan (sign up for 2 events in our league) and lacking interest, downgraded to "anyone just come and practice and build when you can", but not a single team contacted us. I'm not even sure if those teams even still exist (though I know the 20+ kits were bought).

For a team with no FRC or even FLL precedent, there needs to be a draw that keeps the students on the team. We've had several students come and build the squarebot, then stop coming. I think the problem is that without a technical mentor and/or explicit building instructions, they don't know how to get from Point A to Point B (how do you build a manipulator, let alone attach it to a squarebot). They have no concept of a competition and how exciting it can be, so even that aspect holds no appeal.

We have one advantage over the dozen teams that we're describing, which is that one student on the team and I have extensive FLL experience and know the potential of Vex. But we still have the skills of a "pre-FRC" team, which is why detailed photos with close-ups of gearing, axels, and manipulators would be of great value to us (though we certainly don't expect it during competition season). It took 4 weeks to complete our first functional dual reduction gearing on a manipulator, and we lost several students in the process. If we had had examples to use, it would have gone more quickly, and we might have held the interest of the students.

[fredliu168]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

We tried! We started off with a formalized plan (sign up for 2 events in our league) and lacking interest, downgraded to "anyone just come and practice and build when you can", but not a single team contacted us. I'm not even sure if those teams even still exist (though I know the 20+ kits were bought).

For a team with no FRC or even FLL precedent, there needs to be a draw that keeps the students on the team. We've had several students come and build the squarebot, then stop coming. I think the problem is that without a technical mentor and/or explicit building instructions, they don't know how to get from Point A to Point B (how do you build a manipulator, let alone attach it to a squarebot). They have no concept of a competition and how exciting it can be, so even that aspect holds no appeal.

We have one advantage over the dozen teams that we're describing, which is that one student on the team and I have extensive FLL experience and know the potential of Vex. But we still have the skills of a "pre-FRC" team, which is why detailed photos with close-ups of gearing, axels, and manipulators would be of great value to us (though we certainly don't expect it during competition season). It took 4 weeks to complete our first functional dual reduction gearing on a manipulator, and we lost several students in the process. If we had had examples to use, it would have gone more quickly, and we might have held the interest of the students.

Much of VEX is quite difficult to learn. However, if someone spent time reading all of the manuel, and surfing around forums, asking a lot of questions, it can be done. I know this because I came into leading a VEX team not having any engineering experience. I had to learn how to build from scratch. The owner's manuel was a huge help to me.
As for pictures of VEX robots from previous years, it can be found on the vexlabs site and several other sites.
Also, I don't know how you managed to raise money to buy 20+ kits, but good job on that. However, I don't think building 20 competition robots is very effective in terms of interest and inspiration. I found that there is usually only a handful of students in a school willing to dedicate their time and effort into building a robot. It's much better to have 1-5 robots, with the students involved working as a team, than 20 individual robots.

Cheers,
FIG

[ManicMechanic]

Originally Posted by fredliu168

Also, I don't know how you managed to raise money to buy 20+ kits, but good job on that. However, I don't think building 20 competition robots is very effective in terms of interest and inspiration. I found that there is usually only a handful of students in a school willing to dedicate their time and effort into building a robot. It's much better to have 1-5 robots, with the students involved working as a team, than 20 individual robots.

Cheers,
FIG

Actually, the 20+ kits are not mine. They were bought by a school district in a nearby city, and were intended for a dozen teams at the area high schools. Our team of 4-8 kids has 2 kits + peripherals.

[Synergy1848]

with a little over a week till atlanta isn't it time we saw a picturte of simbotics vex robot?

[Jared W]

Originally Posted by Synergy1848

with a little over a week till atlanta isn't it time we saw a picturte of simbotics vex robot?

Ya S.P.A.M. team 3228 made a post for robots going to Atlanta and only 2-3 robots have posted since then. You'd think with only a week left teams wouldn't care anymore. Plus, scouting for 69+ U.S. and Canada teams, 7+ Japanese teams, and more, you'd think teams would want to get their robot out. With teams at a maximum of 10 students, its gonna be a LITTLE hard to scout all those robots.

[fredliu168]

Originally Posted by Jared W

Ya S.P.A.M. team 3228 made a post for robots going to Atlanta and only 2-3 robots have posted since then. You'd think with only a week left teams wouldn't care anymore. Plus, scouting for 69+ U.S. and Canada teams, 7+ Japanese teams, and more, you'd think teams would want to get their robot out. With teams at a maximum of 10 students, its gonna be a LITTLE hard to scout all those robots.

NOT Japanese, Chinese

BIG difference there

[sovierr]

Originally Posted by Synergy1848

with a little over a week till atlanta isn't it time we saw a picturte of simbotics vex robot?

I think it is time that all teams post picutres. There is not enough time to replicate and perfect a robot at this time - come on guys!!!

[EricRobodox]

edited

[nonother]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

We tried! We started off with a formalized plan (sign up for 2 events in our league) and lacking interest, downgraded to "anyone just come and practice and build when you can", but not a single team contacted us. I'm not even sure if those teams even still exist (though I know the 20+ kits were bought).

For a team with no FRC or even FLL precedent, there needs to be a draw that keeps the students on the team. We've had several students come and build the squarebot, then stop coming. I think the problem is that without a technical mentor and/or explicit building instructions, they don't know how to get from Point A to Point B (how do you build a manipulator, let alone attach it to a squarebot). They have no concept of a competition and how exciting it can be, so even that aspect holds no appeal.

We have one advantage over the dozen teams that we're describing, which is that one student on the team and I have extensive FLL experience and know the potential of Vex. But we still have the skills of a "pre-FRC" team, which is why detailed photos with close-ups of gearing, axels, and manipulators would be of great value to us (though we certainly don't expect it during competition season). It took 4 weeks to complete our first functional dual reduction gearing on a manipulator, and we lost several students in the process. If we had had examples to use, it would have gone more quickly, and we might have held the interest of the students.

There are plenty of pictures about from last year's competition. Check out VexForum.com for stuff beyond what is here in CD-Media. That said I think just tinkering around is sufficient. I (a student) started a team this year with another student and it's taken us quite a while but we now have a team of 4 that is proficient at building with Vex parts. It just takes finding people that are genuinely interested to begin with.

My biggest piece of advice for building stuff with Vex (and I think a lot of people here on the forum will disagree with me) is to think in Vex parts. Don't think "well I could build this," now let's figure out how to build it with Vex parts. My experience has been this leads to complete disaster. What in theory works just often can't be built for numerous reasons. Then once you have an idea, build it, test it, improve it. If the team truly loves building robots they'll have no problem spending countless hours tinkering to make it perfect once they can see it will work!