Documentation Repository

[mac7attack]

After coming back from the NASA/VCU regional this weekend, Team 2108 is looking forward to the next 5 years. One of the main objectives is to operate a documentation repository to keep manuals, pictures and other digitized files.

How are you storing files from year-to-year so that the whole team has access to them year-round?

Thanks,
Matt
Team 2108 Mentor

[Stuart]

this is something we have worked on for several years and have not found a good solution
1745 has used shared drives on the schools network ( the R drive), google docs, a Joomla module called docman with a lot of modification to sync with our google docs, and 2.5 in usb hard drives. the problem with each of these is allowing documents to be easily shared with all the members regardless of location became a huge hassle( with the joomla mod we had to add each member for each file and re add them each time someone made changes . . it got to be a major pain).
Now we use something called Dropbox.https://www.getdropbox.com/ . It syncs well with all operating systems, it works on personal computers as well as the school computers, it has very low overhead, and doesn't require for you to be connected to the Internet to make changes to files as it stores every thing locally. unfortunately it offers no user or version control by itself( we have a pearcerobotics account that every one syncs to so I as a lead Mentor have the same rights as a freshman student, and I cant tell who changes what).

so far Dropbox is the best we have come up with, but it is far from perfect. we are currently looking at modifying the previous docman/google doc system adding in GIT/SVN and linux user/group controls on top of the whole thing. . . but thats a summer type project.

[OScubed]

I like Dropbox too.

Other things to look at:

Google Docs/shared space
Microsoft Spaces
Microsoft live mesh

If you're paying for a website or have a website and they allow you to install modules, you can drop a document repository module on there (for instance DotNetNuke has one that is free)
If you upload your docs to your website you can use a wiki to refer to them (see www.penfieldrobotics.com to see our wiki in action)

[Anne Shade]

All FIRST teams also have access to PTC Windchill. That's what we've been using with great success over the last two years.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by Anne Shade

All FIRST teams also have access to PTC Windchill. That's what we've been using with great success over the last two years.

Except from what we were told they delete everything and start fresh each year... we almost used it for a lot of the great features, but when we found that they delete and do not restore acounts (and take the server down for two months over the summer), it just didnt seem like a good option for us. Im hoping they change that, keep it up all year and let us keep stuff there year after year... then it will be a really great resource.

In addition to what Lee mentioned, we use smugmug for storing our pictures and have found it a great resource: www.rollingthunder.smugmug.com. We have 7 categories with multiple subcategories and galleries, and over 20,000 pictures! Its about $50 a year, but thats a great deal for all the storage and organization we get from it.

[Joe J.]

862 uses a Document Repository on our website. We use it to archive final revisions of documents, not as a storage place for works in progress. Upload access is limited to Team Management but anyone can download files. Its not a very pretty system but its works for our needs.

For pictures we have our Image Gallery

For Videos we have a Youtube Channel

[mac7attack]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I had forgetton about using wikis. I am looking into MediaWiki at the moment.

Joe J, what software are you using to drive your files and gallery pages? Those pages both follow KISS and I think they might be a possiblity for 2108.

Matt

[Joe J.]

Matt,

I'll have to get back to you with some specifics.