Off season projects

[clockstopped12]

My team has a bunch of new electronics people and a lack of things for said people to do. I was wondering if y'all had any ideas for off season projects for them that would be helpful to the team or just in teaching them the basics of electronics?

[Ari423]

It all depends on how much money your team has to throw around. If you've got money to spare, try designing and building a whole new robot with a full FRC control system either to play an old game or design your own game. If you don't have that much cash, you can try outfitting last year's robot with a HERO board from CTRE. If you have even less money to spare, you can take the electronics from last year's robot and put them on a new off-season robot. Or you could just wire a new board with a few motors if you don't want to build a whole new robot. At the least, you could have your electronics team take apart the electronics from last year's robot and then try to put them back. Really the only limits are your imagination, your pre-season meeting time, and the depth of your pockets.

[Msinger13480]

Hi, I'm the electrical lead on team 868, the TechHOUNDS. We have such a big team that we sometimes struggle to have enough projects for everyone to do. For the preseason, I'm having my new members stick with me to learn the basics, and having my veteran members work on a couple different projects. One of them is fixing the team's favorite robot from a few years ago using the new control system. The other group is soldering ecg simulators for an organization that will send them to a third-world country for cheap medical equipment. If you are interested in this project, you can order the kits at http://www.ewh.org/students/2013-12-.../advanced-kits . Both of the groups are learning a lot and they're having fun too! I hope this helps!

[GeeTwo]

While it was not intended this way, we trained two rookies this year using our air cannon. The arduino control system (or more precisely the xBee communications modules) were not working, so two veterans and two rookies built a control board to drive our air cannon using FRC competition electronics between successive football games this season. As long as you don't mind taking an old project apart, and not having the current project stick around more than a few weeks, this does not need to be expensive; mostly wire, terminals, tie-wraps, and possibly a fresh board.

Edit: as far as useful to the team, it depends on your needs. We have done a few lighting projects (including solar) over the years, and done minor repairs to non-competition electrical items (with a mentor to double-check the work).

[ImMoMo]

The Off Season is the perfect time to familiarize your team with the control system. Team 2559, Normality Zero, usually wires up a test-bench so that our programming team can learn how to utilize various sensors and test out new concepts.

We usually wire our test-bench with great care and professionally as possible, doing so allows students to understand proper wiring techniques, along with good and safe practices.

Another thing you might be able to do is, as suggested above, build an off season robot. It doesn't even have to be able to perform any task, a simple drive train provides a valuable learning experience for new members. With newer students who have little, or very basic familiarity with FRC motors, electronics, wheels, etc. a basic drive train - equipped with encoders and gyros can provide a very cool experience.