Rookie Realization

[KathieK]

Ah, project planning... something that many teams forget to do.

There are a number of resources for FIRST teams that can help with this, but one that comes to mind quickly is MOEmentum (http://www.moe365.org/moementum.php) - it breaks down those 6 weeks for you so you can keep to some kind of plan and finish on time. Check it out and remember it for next year!

[waiakea11]

Our team is still a rookie team but a couple of nights ago we finally realized how much work we put into our bot and how close we are to the competition date....it finally struck us that the past few weeks have gone by so fast...It seems like yesteray that we had just gone to the shop from the kickoff to brainstorm ideas for our bot...

[enpurx]

I'm a senior at the Illinois Math and Science Academy (a boarding school), and I got our team involved in FIRST this year. Unfortunately, there are only 9 of us here to make the whole robot, crate, controller, program, etc, and no one really knows what they're doing. We have no mentor, and our closest team is Wildstang, which is located an hour away. To make matters worse, we are not allowed cars on campus, so anything we need from places like Home Depot have to be acquired when we can find an adult to drive us there (which never seems to happen when we need it to). Plus, we don't have access to a lab except for 3 days/week for a couple of hours, so we have been using hand drills and a saws all for all of our parts.

We work every school day from 4:30-10pm and weekends and Wednesdays (we don't have school on Wednesdays) from 10am-10pm, but our progress hasn't been great. All we have is a chassis, electronics board, part of the ramps, and the arm (which is not yet mounted to the base).

When we got into this thing, we didn't think it'd take so much work, but I have no complaints because we've had so much fun and learned more than any class could have taught us. Making it to the Championship will just be icing on the cake because the way I see it, we've already won.

Good luck to you other rookies and veterans alike!

[KathieK]

Rachel, you are to be congratulated for even attempting this daunting task! As you rookies are discovering, and as any veteran team will tell you, IT'S NOT EASY! But the rewards are outstanding. Many teams are mentored long-distance. I have some suggestions for recruiting mentors for next year that I will send you.

[Danielle H]

Here at 393 we meet everyday, Monday-Friday from 5:30pm - 8:30pm. We've split up into sub-teams, and we're all working on a different aspect of the team and the competition. We had a goal of being done, I think, by the beginning of Week 5 so that we could test for 2 weeks before we shipped.

But, here we sit, at the end of Week 5... still not done. It's not really a rookie problem, but it's more a problem that our team took their sweet time (the first three weeks) coming up with a design, and then still had to order materials.

Advice to teams: Have as much of your materials donated as you can, as get as many materials donated to you during the off-season as you can. This way, you don't lose money if you don't use the material, and you also have a pluthera of materials to choose from when it's time to start building. And... you don't have to wait for materials...

[AndyB]

It really is amazing what one season and one regional can do to a new kid on a team. It really lets them know what it's all about and gives them a chance to see just how big the FIRST world really is.

We try to instill this feeling from day one by showing some videos of old competitions and by keeping "spirit" high. We encourage kids to contact other teams and try to bring them along if we ever have to stop by another team to ask for help or see if they need any.