Rookie Team Tips!

[Sunshine]

Two very important and simple guidelines........

1. Use the KISS method. Keep It Simple Students

2. Decide to do ONE thing and do that one thing the best you can. Remember that you will be in an alliance and if you can do one thing better than others you will stand out from the crowd.

[,4lex S.]

Do as much prototyping as you think you can fit in. If you can build something out of wood, drill guns and random stuff, and it works well, you have both a clear design (so everyone is on the same page), and a proven design (more so than a CAD model).

[Bethie42]

-Paperwork for robot shipping is very important...if it is a bag-and-tag event, there is a special procedure to be followed but supposedly bag-and-tag is very popular [our team is looking forward to our first b & t this year...heh]. If it is a traditional [ie FedEx] event, paperwork is also really key: if your mentor/coach doesn't have the right papers on hand, your robot may not be delivered to or from the event.

-Make sure consent forms are filled out. We've had unhappy times running around the day of a regional trying to get late consent forms in....your team won't be allowed into the event without them. Have students fill out the online consent forms!! in STIMS.

-Bumpers: our coach says that bumpers are the single most annoying thing about FRC. There are strict regulations as to how big bumpers can be, whether they can be in one piece or articulated, etc. At our regional last year a rookie team showed up and their bumpers weren't right..I think maybe they didn't HAVE bumpers. It was a big delay and nuisance to the team to get the bumpers fixed.

-Don't be afraid to ask for help at your regional. As you'll notice if you attend an event before yours, the pits are always filled with loudspeaker announcements for teams who need tools or parts. Most teams will take a huge amount of pride in helping another team, especially a rookie.

-Like someone above me said, don't neglect the social aspect of competitions. It is always good policy to get familiar with as many teams as you can at an event. Last year we spent an hour in our hotel lobby chatting with a team who was actually from our area, comparing scouting data and such, and we've been so happy to partner with them in several things since.

-Which leads to scouting, a subject near and dear to my heart, as I started out being our team's scout. If you have even one spare person whom you can assign to watch matches and take notes all day, do it. Scouting teams are usually >4 members but I've done it successfully alone for several years.
Even if you don't wind up 'needing' your scouting data [ie you don't get to pick alliance partners] it WILL come in handy. Before every match, I try to brief our drive team on what they can expect from their opponents and alliance partners. When possible, we also try to arrange a strategy beforehand, based on knowing the strongest teams on each alliance.

-Know your own strengths. If your robot is a lot better at scoring than defense, tell your alliance partners! If your autonomous mode does best in a certain starting position, tell them that too. We have usually found that other teams are very willing to work with us to arrange the best strategy for everyone.


Welcome to FRC! Hope you guys have an awesome first season

[Robert Cawthon]

Just slightly off target, I found that our rookie year was not as difficult as our second year. We actually did fairly well our rookie year and because of that, we set a high bar for the next year and, as the saying goes, bit off more than we could chew. As a result, I have determined that the most dificult part of design and build is to decide that your design isn't going to work and then to figure out whether to modify the design or to scrap it completely and start over. The first year, keep it simple. Watch out for the second year.

[Chris is me]

Pick your strategy before you do any robot design.

Find the one objective you can most easily do very well that contributes to an alliance and be the best robot you can be. The games have many tasks, but you are not alone on the field. By no means do you have to do all of them to succeed. You will be far more valuable as a master of the "wrong" game task than a terrible juggler of every game task.

Ask for help, early and often. Don't worry about "losing a competitive advantage" when doing so. We're all smart people, we've probably all thought the same things already and made the same mistakes, so learn from your peers.

[libinator]

Thanks everyone for your input! We just finished building are cart a few minutes ago actually everyone is getting pumped up for kickoff!

[Wayne TenBrink]

We are just up the road and would be glad to do what we can to help out. Send me a PM (private message) with information on how I can contact one of your mentors.

See you soon!

[dexo568]

As a member of a 2010 rookie team, I cannot stress one thing enough: Learn as much as you possibly can. Surf wikipedia. Talk to other teams. Read the forums. The more you know about robotics before you start building a robot, the less stressful it's going to be.

[Bill_B]

I have attempted to transfer the salient wisdom from this thread (so far) into a slide show that separates the main topics into about 40 slides. I hope this will be useful for offline presentation at a team meeting of rookies or otherwise interested parties. Bring your own refreshments.

When I figure out how to link the CD media page with it to here, I will do that, unless, of course, someone beats me to it. meanwhile, search "rookie" tag, or just look for recent stuff.

[RoboMom]

When NEMO was started I think the first resource paper was "18 Hints for Rookie Teams." Probably needs a little updating, but lots of good information in the NEMO resources section thanks to the collective wisdom of the teams. http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

Encourage one of the adults (technical or non-technical types welcome) on your team to join the private NEMO forum. See the website for more information.

[Jeff Pahl]

1) Buy a good scale

2) Use aforementioned scale frequently

3) Have someone calculate how many 1/4" holes you have to drill in a piece of 1/4" thick Al to reduce the weight by 1 pound, then ask them if they really think that is the best way to fix being overweight when they get to the event.

4) See #2 above

5) Make bumpers part of the design concept from day 1, not an afterthought.

6) Do not allow the metal shavings created during #3 above to fall into the cRIO.

I really wish more veteran teams would also do the above.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Jeff Pahl

3) Have someone calculate how many 1/4" holes you have to drill in a piece of 1/4" thick Al to reduce the weight by 1 pound, then ask them if they really think that is the best way to fix being overweight when they get to the event.

Protip: Buy or borrow a hole saw and a can of WD-40 (yes, I know it is not a "real" lubricant... but personal experience indicates it gets the job done).

Have the entire team read the manual, have someone who's really into it keep up to date on the Q&A. Ask questions when you get stuck. Have fun!

[1jbinder]

As stated before, keep it simple!
We are a veteran team that changed leadership last year. We developed an overcomplicated design that eventually became unsafe in addition to not working. In the end we changed our kicking system and drive train at competition. I would also advice to plan the season, for example: two weeks design, two weeks build, and two weeks programing and testing. If you don't have a good programming mentor or team member that knows his/her stuff, keep that really really simple (I would use labview). It is really easy to develop programming bugs, especially with a complicated drive system. This one is from experience. Most of all, have fun. It can be really stressful when something does not work. Take a break, come back the next day, and always remember you are in this to learn and have fun, winning is just a benifit if you get there.

Julian Binder
Team Captain 852