Things to Explore

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Anthony,
There is nothing worse than an idle mind or hands. Have you considered something more in line with you current situation like FTC or Vex? It will keep what team you have together, working in a smaller, student oriented event. You need to keep the team up front in your school's mind for travel, and room to work, advisors, etc. It will also give you a more formal meeting arena to keep discussing plans for next year.

Might I add, that I think you are ready to compete. You have had the experience of competing in the past which gives you a leg up on rookie teams just starting. You have built good robots in the past, don't lose the momentum. You are facing some challenging obstacles but the rewards are great.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Anthony,
There is nothing worse than an idle mind or hands. Have you considered something more in line with you current situation like FTC or Vex? It will keep what team you have together, working in a smaller, student oriented event. You need to keep the team up front in your school's mind for travel, and room to work, advisors, etc. It will also give you a more formal meeting arena to keep discussing plans for next year.

Might I add, that I think you are ready to compete. You have had the experience of competing in the past which gives you a leg up on rookie teams just starting. You have built good robots in the past, don't lose the momentum. You are facing some challenging obstacles but the rewards are great.

Al is wise. I know many in FRC that look down at these "little cheep" robots but having been involved in both FRC and VRC I have learned the experience students get in VRC is no less fulfilling.

If fact with VRC not limiting design and construction time I have found that young designers get more out of VRC than FRC.

[Clem1640]

First, given that FIRST competition is not life-or-death, Darwinian survival of the fittest competition, I would rather compete poorly than not at all (lord knows I've done enough of the former). Nuff said about that.

3 years ago, we initiated a summer program to explore technology arenas which we believed would benefit the team. Each summer, we select one or two areas to explore. We do half-scale designs and build using VEX parts. We test them. We develop software. We make observations. We do the math. In the end, we take the concept to a hypothetical FRC-scale design in Inventor®.

So, first summer we worked on drivetrains (6wd & "twitch"). Second summer, we worked on drivetrains (Pivot Drive). In both cases we were able to exploit the knowledge developed in the following year. Working on drivetrain is easy. There are a lot of options. Executing the more challenging options during build season alone is very difficult. You know that the robot will need to move and a particularly effective drivetrain can provide a significant competitive advantage.