FIRST Robotics: Behind the Design

[Joe Johnson]

Who's been in charge of monitoring Amazon for the FIRST book we've all been waiting for?

Well, whoever it was, they're fired ;-)

I just now found this book Amazon: FIRST Robotics: Behind the Design

There is not too much info about it. But there is some. It list $39.99 amazon sells if for $26.39. It is supposed to ship on May 1. AND... ...your friend and mine, Vince Wilczynski, is the first author listed.

The cover looks great too -- nice Mecanum wheel chassis.

I know what book is going to be on my coffee table soon after they start shipping.

For what it is worth...

Joe J.

[Justin M.]

Is that 357's mecanum chassis on the cover?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Justin M.

Is that 357's mecanum chassis on the cover?

It appears to be. So, here's the challenge for all you CSI types out there. From this low res image, how many teams can you identify? I think I see the Team 1114 elevator intake in the top row, 3rd box from the left. (Our designers have a weird tendency to make the globe motor yellow.) Any other guesses?

[s_forbes]

Mmmm... 30 robots! This book would make up for all of the lost time I spent fixing the robot last year that I couldn't spend oogling other robots in the pit area!

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Vince joined us on FIRSTcast to discuss the book just before kickoff. He gave told us that the book will be available at the Championship Event, walked through one of the chapters and gave teams pointers on increasing their chances for being in the second book.
It's definitely worth listening to.

Thanks Vince for being on FIRSTcast and for putting so much work into this great book!

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Anyone know what the publish date is going to be? I need to know whether I should have it shipped to college or my house in CT.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Anyone know what the publish date is going to be? I need to know whether I should have it shipped to college or my house in CT.

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

It is supposed to ship on May 1.

It also says so on the Amazon page itself.

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

The cover looks great too -- nice Mecanum wheel chassis.
I know what book is going to be on my coffee table soon after they start shipping.

For what it is worth...

Joe J.

Definitely a must have!

[StephLee]

Ooh, that's a definate must-have. Hopefully I can get the team to pre-order one...

[Vince]

Nice to hear of the initial reaction to the book! It has been a fun project to put together in the "off-season" which never seems to be "off".

The intent pushing the project is to have the book available for the Championship. I will try to get more details on the ship date for items offered via the web sites as to whether their ship is before, after or during the Championship.

I did the FIRSTcast mentioned by Jeff to help teams collect images for the "next book" based on the 2007 season. That piece was intended to give teams some insight on how to collect images that tell the story of their design to increase the team's competitiveness for inclusion in the 2007 book. I hope it was helpful. The images are VERY important, and as such I urge teams to collect high resolution, clear images of their designs.

As for the 2006 book, Stephanie Slezycki is the co-author. Stephanie is a FIRST-alum (Team 236) who is finishing up her B.S. in M.E. We’ve been promised that Stephanie’s bio will be up on the web site. It is important for people to know that in addition to many other accomplishments, FIRST grads are also authors.

In another project I found out that Stephanie had a knack for writing and with her FIRST experience she was a natural to jump into the project. It was fun to do the project together with her.

It was a blast seeing the submitted material and really hard picking the material to include in the book. We're looking forward to seeing all of the submissions for the 2007 book.

We hope you enjoy the work!

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Karthik

(Our designers have a weird tendency to make the globe motor yellow.) Any other guesses?

I really hope you are in there Karthik but alot of teams have yellow globe motors in their designs. It is what happens when you get the model from firstcadlibrary if you look at any of our designs we have the yellow motor as well. (although we didn't have a team last year so I know it isn't us )

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by jgannon

It also says so on the Amazon page itself.

Ha, look at that. My bad, sorry.

[MikeDubreuil]

I pre-ordered one. Excellent coffee table book!

[Brandon Holley]

Im pretty sure they're gonna be on sale at nationals, which is like 15 days before they'd ship out books from amazon.

[Alex Cormier]

So who's the teams in this book?

the answer will depend on if i purchase it or not.