Dissemination of Information From FIRST

[Jon Stratis]

From what i've seen, Bill's Blog and the Q&A are helpful, but by no means essential. The same goes with a the other available sources of information - helpful, but not necessary.

You can build a robot based solely on the rulebook, official materials (such as the control system documentation) and official team updates, and be just fine. The other resources are available for the occasions where you need clarification of the rules, or need help working with something from the KoP.

That being said, the wide distribution of information is essentially what you see today in industry. If you're designing a machine to build a widget, odds are you'll have to find and obtain information about motors, sensors, gear boxes, and electronics from a wide number of sources. You'll also have a number of internal sources to contend with - marketing, sales, NPP, the engineers that designed the widget, facilities, etc. One of the most frustrating things about starting work at a new company is the severe lack of centralized information to allow you to get your job done. Learning to seek out information and people who can help is a very important skill. When it comes to our work with the robot, either programming or electrical, i generally know everything we need to know for each meeting. But when the students ask me questions, they rarely get a straight answer - It's better that they learn where to go to find their answers instead of relying on me to provide them every time.