Kickoff Procedure?

[Pavan Dave]

What is your team's Kickoff procedure? Does your team go to a webcast? Do you gather together and watch? Do you guys watch at home and meet in the afternoon? Do you guys camp out until kickoff? What do you do leading to, during, and after kickoff? How do you discuss your robot's design or strategy? What happens from the moment the clock strikes midnight on the day of kickoff until you start putting your hands on material?

[Leav]

Hi Pavan,

My old team used to do things this way:

before kickoff:

• Get everyone up to date on basic concepts (4wd, 2wd, omni, mecanum, 6wd etc...).
• Prepare the teams make sure everyone knows their job.
• Prepare tools and materials.

In Israel, because of the time difference:

• Watch kickoff webcast at someone's house at evening/night... (around 20:00)
• Start Brainstorming Ideas!

next day:

• go to the official Israeli kickoff!
• get parts!
• build kitbot for the programming team to practice on!

*long exhale* wow that got me excited just writing that down!!!
I hope I don't get a heart attack at the kickoff!

-Leav

[Tottanka]

OK, so basicly here's how it goes for my team, at least, that's how it went last year and hopefully this year it will go even better.

Meet about 2 hours before the Kick Off Webcast in NASA TV in our school at the auditorium.
Start brainstorming about the game clue till it begins, some team bonding.

Later on, view the kick off untill the end, all together.

When it's over about 5 people with good English/Internet abbilities goes to a computer and starts downloading the game video, and inserting the code for the PDF files.
This team fully translates the game animation that night, so by tommorow morning we have prepared a 30 minutes presentation in Hebrew about the game, in order to show it at the Israeli Kick Off. (we add both suntitles and an hebrew voice).

The other people meanwhile brainstorm on possible designs / stratagies etc...

The next morning about 4 voulenteers meet at about 6 am and go to the kick off's location to help there out with the kits/ registration etc.. 2 of them are the once that will be making the presentation.

The other once from the team go to the kick off just as all teams are.

Have the presentation in kick off, meet all the friends etc...

When back, start building the chassis with wheels for the programmers to have fun (this year probably also cmucam2 on it and the IR transmitter).

Start building the game field. Split to teams and from there on its all known.

Liron, out.

[Taylor]

IUPUI is nice enough to host a kickoff party for all the area Indiana teams. We munch on some nice breakfast, win IUPUI-themed prizes, and watch the video on a very big screen in their large lecture hall.
After that, we head back to school where we discuss the game and how it should be played. At that point, we don't look at particular designs; we just try to understand the game. We take Sunday off, then come in on Monday refreshed and full of ideas for our first brainstorming session.

[GaryVoshol]

The highlight of our kickoff procedure is usually getting there in the first place. It seems there's always an ice storm, snow storm, ...

[Pavan Dave]

We all gather at the kickoff location to watch the webcast. After the webcast the students have a brief meeting with some of the mentors and we talk about the game, past robots, and possible ways to complete the task.

Right after this period we usually split up into groups and discuss robot ideas over lunch. Right after lunch we usually gather and our whole team has to COMPLETELY AGREE on EVERY part of our robot, so if I want a crab drive along with 99% of my team, I will have to convince the remaining 1% to convert OR the other person would present their argument and would either sway us over or we would eventually sway them over.

Than after we have each system figured out we decide who is going to be on what part of the team: controls, programming (formerly a subgroup of controls), upper body, and base. After we break up into these groups and start our building.

[Billfred]

Historically, we've all gotten down to USC, watched the Kickoff, collected the kit, inventoried it, printed off the manual, and had everybody scamper and start reading and thinking.

This year, with the move to Clemson, the four members of the team going will all pile in the Billfredmobile at about 6:00 AM (if not earlier), drive two hours to the Kickoff, collect the kit, and go from there.

[roborat]

I will attend the kickoff in Columbus Ohio which is a four hour drive and then return to meet with team leaders to inventory and print manual. We meet as a team after school on Monday to start everything rolling.

[Bomberofdoom]

Pre kickoff week:

Make sure 100% that all simple and basic (yet important tasks) (to be expanded in a moment) are done:

- Team Mangment: The sub-teams and members, mentors and parents know everything that needs to be known (roles, missions, deadlines, application and tools to use etc.)
- Equipment: Make sure the lab is secured and has all the basic required equipment (computers, drills, saws etc.)
- Get ready for kickoff: Make sure place to watch kickoff is secured, be it at another team's school auditorim or at one of our members house. Make sure papers, pens, pencils, clipers, ink, printers, scanners etc. are preparid, as well as food (a couple of snacks and sodas about 60 small sand' and 7 1.5Lt drinks).

Kickoff day: If at another team's place, get there an hour or two before (with coordination pre-event).
If at our own member's house, the member must make sure a day before/ on the day of the kickoff that the NASA TV webcast works (with the screen that the team will be watching).
Members will come to either of the two places before the kick off (which usually begins at 17:00 Israel time (atleast that's what it was last year)) make sure that preperations for sitting places, the food, drinks and rest of the equipment are set.

- Once all members are present, a short rebriefing of what's going to happen, what to expect and what should every member do along the kick off viewing.

- Watch kick off till it's end. Notes to be taken.

- Once password is out, print all of the important documents first (The robot, The game, The arena, The tournament and others). First copies of the documents will be given to (a) specific sub-team(s) to go over them. After there are enough copies of all the important documents, give them to each sub-team, to start looking for important notes, rules and missions for each sub-team. Info will be shared in between. That's where the Brainstormin starts.

Strategy starts straight away with understanding the game fully, overviewing the kickoff videos (the animation and demonstration) and working on game strategies (whatever the sub-team can do. It's very probable that they'll continue their work the following day after the Israeli Kick off).

Some teams that their work won't be much of a nessecity for the following 12 hours will build a minature model of the field (arena, game peices and robots).

The other sub-teams take the notes from the important documents about their own sub-team. They will work on understanding the notes and discussing details related to their role, in relation to that note (meaning, if a role says this part is not allowed, they should disscuss what that means and what can they do).

Israeli Kickoff: This year, we're really (no kidding) close to the FIRST Israel office, so we'll be helping with the volunteering for the kick off, the registartions of the teams and their receiving of the kits.

We'll get our kits, walk (yep, it's that close) back to the lab, open the kits, check all the parts are there, intact, no sirious damages and are approved to work with.

The deal should take no more than 2 and a half hours and by then, the strategy sub-team and other mechanical teams will be working on planning the designs.

From there on, it'll be telling our whole build season schedule.

Nir.

P.S

Sorry if it's too long

[Nuttyman54]

190 typically sends a group to Manchester to attend/present workshops, go to the founders reception and watch the live kickoff. The rest of the team is back at WPI watching the webcast. Following that, those at WPI immediately begin straightening up the lab and preparing for the arrival of the KOP.

When the Kit arrives, a few people split off to build an approximately 1:12 scale field, while the rest inventory parts. Then we go play CRUD

The following day, we meet just before lunch, review the game release video, eat and then being brainstorming


971 sends 4 members to the local San Jose kickoff to watch the webcast and pick up the KOP. The rest of the team wakes up later and joins the returning 4 at school to view the kickoff video and begin KOP inventory and brainstorming.

Somewhere mid-Sunday I put a long-distance call in to 971 to discuss anything I've learned about the field and how it moves/reacts/works, and answer any questions they might have about it.

[EricH]

Watch kickoff at a remote location with other teams. (We usually host.) Sit down with anyone else who wants to and do a little "what stands out to you" session. Break for lunch. Spend the rest of the day playing the game with humans as robots (full scale, if possible) and strategizing, after a full reading of the rules. Repeat the next day, and try to narrow down how to win. Ideally, we figure out how to win in the first couple of days. Oh yeah, and inventory the kit somewhere along the line.

[Cory]

We usually send 4-5 people to the remote kickoff at San Jose State (Teacher, myself and other mentor, and 1-2 of the top students)

The rest of the team meets us back at the school where we inventory the kit, and then talk about student contracts, rules and guidelines for working in our lab, procedure to gain access to NASA, etc. Then we show a tape of the kickoff, explain the game details to anyone who has questions, and begin brainstorming of basic robot strategy. We stress that this point is not where you say "I think we should have a double jointed arm that picks up the tubes like this and puts them on like so" but rather figure out WHAT we want the robot to do. How comes later.

After that we bring a smaller group of students to our lab at NASA to begin building the field, and brainstorming specifically how to accomplish game challenges. In the past two years there hasn't been much debate as to what the best way to play the game was, so immediately after returning to the lab we got into the specifics of how to do things.

It sounds like a lot of teams don't work too much on Saturday. We go straight from 6 AM to pretty deep into the night. I think we all got tired and went home at 11:00 or midnight last year.

[lukevanoort]

A few members of our team go up to Richmond to attend the kickoff there and pick up our kit, and the rest of the team meets at one of the schools we're based out of and watches the kickoff on TV; after the kickoff is over we brainstorm and eat lunch (always pizza). In previous years, Sunday was not used and we started to refine ideas on Monday with the goal of completing the design by the end of that week. (didn't work out last year, somehow we overlooked the 72x72 rule and discovered on Thursday that our design wasn't legal. That forced us to start over, after a fashion. (the idea remained the same, just drastically different proportions)) This year, we will have a limited Sunday meeting (experienced build team members only) to refine the concepts from the Saturday brainstorming and do a more in-depth analysis of the game in order to go into the build season with a better idea of where we are headed.

[IndySam]

The team will go to the remote kick off at IUPUI while I and my son go to the kick off in Kokomo to collect the kits for us and a couple of other Indy teams.

The team breaks for lunch while one group scurries to print the manuals.

We will meet up again after lunch at school and strategize until 4:00 or 5:00. This year we are going to coble up whatever simulation we can of the field and try to play the game with human as robots.

We rest on Sunday (that’s the theory I can never not stop thinking about the game) and hit the ground running on Monday afternoon.

[Branden Ghena]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

The highlight of our kickoff procedure is usually getting there in the first place. It seems there's always an ice storm, snow storm, ...

No kidding, after the third year in a row of crazy snow storms out of nowhere just because weather forecasters dislike robotics, one of my team's mentors set up a home connection to the webcast.

Of course there was no snow or ice that year just for the sake of irony.