Announcing "FRSee" - Virtual Collaboration Network

[jspatz1]

Greetings FIRST FRC Teams:

An exciting opportunity is available for your team to greatly increase its contact and collaboration with other FRC teams. Need some urgent help with programming? Want to show off your latest prototype? How many teams are also working late tonight? Imagine being able to meet face-to-face with your pick of many other FRC teams at any time during the hectic build season to seek help, share ideas, or offer your expertise!

FRSee is a virtual collaboration network of FIRST FRC teams that stay in touch via Skype video conferencing. While video-calling between FIRST teams is nothing new, getting them organized into a single nationwide network is. By logging into the FRSee network during their build season working hours, teams can instantly seek or provide help at any time by browsing the list of online teams, and initiating a video call.

Information about FRSee has been sent to all FRC regional directors to be forwarded to team contacts. The more teams that participate, the larger the collaboration community will be. The number of teams available to contact could grow into the hundreds.

How can you participate?
It's easy. Read the attached Getting Started Guide to learn how to install Skype on your computer, register with FRSee, update your contact list, and you're in!

FRSee is administered by Team Titanium 1986 from Lee's Summit, Mo. Once you register with FRSee, we'll keep you continually updated with the latest contact list of FRSee teams and other updates.

Have questions or need help getting started?
Drop us an email at FRSee.mail@gmail.com
Visit the FRSee website at www.teamtitanium.org/FRSee
or contact our Skype account: FRSee_admin

Hope to see you online!

[IceStorm]

This is a great idea. I will try and get our team setup as soon as we return from winter break.

[Brandon_L]

I will bring this up at our next meeting, this is a great idea!

[DtD]

I belive we were the first team on it! I can't wait to see how this idea plays out during competition!

~David

[Joe Ross]

How does this fit in with FIRST's Virtual Technical Advisor program?

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

How does this fit in with FIRST's Virtual Technical Advisor program?

Our understanding of the VTA program is that it is targeted at connecting adult mentors/advisors with teams that might not otherwise have adequate technical help. Technical advisors can communicate with teams in any of a variety of ways of their choice. The VTA program was announced after we had begun efforts to organize FRSee, but given the current rapid development of electronic communication means, it is not surprising to see these two programs emerge.

FRSee is designed to promote team-with-team collaboration, and takes place entirely via Skype video calls. FRSee also welcomes mentors, alumni, and advisors to join and monitor the network if they would like to visit with teams at their build sites. Just give us a Skype name that we can share with the network.

[Cyberphil]

All signed up. I hope we can be of assistance to anyone during the season!

[rcmolloy]

This is great guys! I'm sure the team would love to use this for numerous help. I will talk to my mentors as well about this incorporation.

[jspatz1]

Just a reminder that when you join FRSee, please also send us your email address to FRSee.mail@gmail.com so that we have another means of sending you team contact list updates. It appears contacts sent to you through Skype can sometimes experience long delays in reaching you. Not sure if this is normal behavior. The team contact list can also always be found at www.teamtitanium.org/FRSee

[dag0620]

This is a great idea, and I can't wait to hopefully convince the rest of 1071 to get onboard with it.

[jspatz1]

For those who have tried to sign up or otherwise access Skype today, it seems they have had a very rare outage. Here's the story: http://content.usatoday.com/communit...kype-is-down/1

Evidently the first time since 2007. Must be all the traffic fom FRsee!

[jspatz1]

Skype appears to be back up now. We would be interested in knowing if anyone is still having trouble establishing an account, or if you have not received a message and contacts from FRSee since you sign-up.

[synth3tk]

This is an excellent idea! I've created a team account and added you to our contacts. I'm hoping this will be as useful as it can be, there's definitely a lot of potential here.

[jspatz1]

We would like to encourage everyone to spread the word about FRSee at your local Kick-Off Events next Saturday. If you have input to the agenda at your event, please consider making your teams aware of this opportunity. If you are a team mentor or member that is aware of FRSee, please help spread the word to other teams in your region.

The FRSee website: www.teamtitanium.org/FRSee

Post or hand out this flyer at your Kick-Off Event.

Read or print the FRSee Getting Started Guide

For questions or comments drop us an email at FRSee.mail@gmail.com

[DonRotolo]

Thanks for the flyer, I'll make a whole bunch and hand them out next Saturday.