Does your team read the ENTIRE FIRST manual?

[Arefin Bari]

Alright, I will be honest. We don't have that many members on team 1345 who reads the whole manual. We mentors assign a kid or two to read the whole manual so we can get answers very quickly when we need it. Personally, I read the whole manual ONCE, I particularly pay attention to the game, the robot and the arena sections of the manual. Other sections, I just skim through. There is a manual sitting in the classroom, so whenever we need it, we have it right infront of us.

[Tytus Gerrish]

I have never actually read the manual. but when a question arrises about something devious I'm trying to get away with I do a quick crl+f on the pdf and see if I can make my evil schemes matearlize

[JaneYoung]

My post isn't a response to any made - it is something I have been thinking about for awhile. It's a lot of money to lay out for a team to participate in an extraordinary competition called FIRST and to not read the manual or understand the significance of the manual is wasteful. The manual is what keeps the train on the tracks, on schedule, and running smoothly. Without the manual, there is no FIRST competition. So if we don't spend some time studying the rules and understanding them, we are not getting the full benefit of the competition and the money invested. We are doing a disservice to ourselves and to our sponsors by not putting everything we have into the competition.

Reading the manual, reading the updates, using the FIRST Q&A - are ways of investing wisely. If one person is the rules guru for the team, that's great but everyone on the team should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the process of reading the manual. It is a sound investment.

[coko19]

we assign people different parts of the manual to read so one person isnt burdond with it all

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

We give a rules test on The Game, The Robot, The Arena, and The Tournament to every team member (including animation, vex, financing, website, etc.)

Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

It is a sound investment.

Darn it Jane, there you go being the voice of reason again! THANK YOU!


I said it once, I'll say it again: How can you design something without knowing the specifications?

Don

[raymaniac]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.

If you fail the test, you get to take a different one. If you take it 5* times and still can't pass it, you don't get to go on any of the trips.

*I think. I'm not exactly sure about the number.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by raymaniac

If you fail the test, you get to take a different one. If you take it 5* times and still can't pass it, you don't get to go on any of the trips.

*I think. I'm not exactly sure about the number.

We've never had that much trouble getting everyone to pass before this year. Typically we only have to give it twice (maybe 3) times for everyone to pass it. After seeing so many people failing, we changed our penalty from not attending the trips to not counting their hours (team members must maintain a certain % of hours to go on the trips) until they passed. Also, the leadership will definitely keep in mind how long it took a student to pass the test when selecting our pit and drive crews.

[Triple D]

our team needed to read the whole manual and the monday after kickoff the teacher who mentors us gave everybody a quiz on it

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Are there any repercussions to "failing" the test? We'd been considering soemthing like that.

Don

Team 25 also gives a test out to the team on important parts of the manual, as well as a little bit of team history. Last year, the test was to see who would be allowed in the pits.

This year, it's more to just make sure everyone knows the rules and knows information about the team in case a judge happens to start asking them questions.