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Unread 17-12-2008, 23:47
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Re: What Will a Rookie Team Will Need to Acomplish in the Build Season

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydean View Post
After you ship your robot. Organize your pit area. I believe last year the pit area was about 10x10'(this may change for what regional your going to attend), mark off that area with some tape or something and get all your stuff in it and see how things fit.

10x10' is alot smaller when you start putting your robot, tools, a table, things of that nature in it. Just knowing what you have to bring and where to put it before hand is a huge time saver. On that same note, assign people to pit duty, people that stay in the pit and answer scouting questions from other teams, keep tools organized; things of that nature. Having these people pre-assigned with time slots, also will save a lot of time on the day of competition.

Make a robot cart. Get a couple of team members together after shipment and have them design and build a robot cart. A couple of tips;
- make sure that the robot wheels can move freely, this way you can run it without having safety problems

- Have it so that you can have tools, batteries, and your control board underneath the cart, just having a stocked and organized tool box under there is a 100% useful.

- Use caster wheels for it, to maintain maximum movability.
To that end, go ahead and try to cram everything into an 8x8 space. That's the absolute minimum you'll see at an FRC event.

Also, I highly recommend that you incorporate pneumatic (air-filled) tires on your robot cart. I can't remember a single event I've been to where the drive team path didn't have at least two trips over a cable protector; big air-filled tires handle them much more smoothly than smaller wheels from, say, a furniture dolly. (1618 has used a furniture dolly for two seasons without ill effects, mind you; I just remember my days on 1293 with their smoother garden cart.) You can get a garden cart from your nearest Lowe's or Home Depot for under $100 (1293's was functionally the same as this); if you're itching to do it all yourself, Harbor Freight sells suitable casters for about $15 each. Obviously, no matter what you use, you'll want to make sure your robot doesn't just slide off if you take a bump or two. (Try the curb on your driveway for a reasonable approximation.)

Other suggestions:

-To play off Jonathan's suggestion, make that team lawyer interpret the rules conservatively. Looser interpretations tend to result in headache or heartbreak. Have them read the Q&A forum--yes, every question; most result in the GDC replying "Reread <R47>" or similar--and seek clarification from the GDC when you're not sure whether a rule or ruling will impact your strategy.

-Aim for a tools-down date around the first week of February. If you can't give yourself at least one good week of practice, debugging, and occasional blinging-out, you're going to have a lot of surprises. (Trust me, I know plenty about that.)

-Read MOEmentum. Don't let the first-year label fool you--this will be my sixth season of FRC (fifth as a mentor), and I still read MOEmentum for insights.

-Take any opportunity you can to learn from other teams. What they do might not work perfectly for your team for whatever reason (different resources, different philosophy, different people), but it might give you the spark to do something else equally amazing.
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William "Billfred" Leverette - Gamecock/Jessica Boucher victim/Marketing & Sales Specialist at AndyMark

2004-2006: FRC 1293 (D5 Robotics) - Student, Mentor, Coach
2007-2009: FRC 1618 (Capital Robotics) - Mentor, Coach
2009-2013: FRC 2815 (Los Pollos Locos) - Mentor, Coach - Palmetto '09, Peachtree '11, Palmetto '11, Palmetto '12
2010: FRC 1398 (Keenan Robo-Raiders) - Mentor - Palmetto '10
2014-2016: FRC 4901 (Garnet Squadron) - Co-Founder and Head Bot Coach - Orlando '14, SCRIW '16
2017-: FRC 5402 (Iron Kings) - Mentor

94 events (more than will fit in a ChiefDelphi signature), 14 seasons, over 61,000 miles, and still on a mission from Bob.

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