What to do in the off-season

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

Wait a minute...There actually is an "off-season" ?

For some teams that never had the support to do anything all year 'round, yes.

We're just now finally getting to our first "off-season", and it's starting off with a bang. We've got a rib cook-off to demonstrate at for the next three days, starting this afternoon, we are planning a movie night at a local church and a bowling night at a local alley for fundraising, ordering HexBugs to sell at various events locally, scouting out a viable off-season event or two that we can attend, and training our new members (from our constant recruiting) in the ways of safety, tool usage, programming, and more.

Fundraising, training, maybe design a bunch of different chassis, or try out some new code. Work on a nice pit display for next year, maybe make a cool cart that can hold your tools, go volunteer in the community (Adopt-A-Highway, read at the library, visit your local VA hospital, etc), the possibilities are truly endless.

Basically, take what you can't do or haven't done during the FIRST season, and apply it to off-season. Then add in some things you do anyway during the FIRST season (ex., competitions, except these are on a smaller scale than a regional), and you've got yourself a year-round group, who will be prepared for the next "season" of FIRST.

[kinghashbrown]

building things in the off season is always a fun way to spend time. It also gives good opportunity to learn more about designing and build robot mechanisms.

This year my team has build a new kicker. Even though it hasn't actually been used in a competition yet I learned quite a lot designing and then building it.

Over the summer I want to push to return some of the old robots we have to working order. Since we have quite a few up on the top shelf not quite in working order.

During the fall my team is going to make a test bed to prototype on next build season. This also is something kids on my team shall learn from. We plan on getting all the members involved in the planning of it so that we can catch new members and teach them a bit about robots. Nothing teaches better then doing.

We do car washes and pasta dinners during the summer and fall to raise money to offset trip costs for students.

my team goes to a couple off season events during the spring and bash at the beach in the fall. We do demos for our main sponsors and for the towns our team is from. we even take the robot in parades!

We have a picnic to celebrate the end of the school year and to say goodbye to our senior friends.

[dancingfool]

Some team's are all year round, it depends on what you feel best suits your team.
We turned to a year round structure last summer and it helped us so much this year.It allowed us to get things that weren't robot related out of teh way so that when build did come, we didn't have as much on our plate as we had in the past.
We use our 'off-season' to recruit new sponsors, as well as give final updates to our current sponsors about how the season went, what we did, etc... We also use the summer to revise our team documents (such as our business plan and By-laws), and hold/participate in more community outreach events, and demo's for schools (this usually happens right after nationals). This year we are going to be doing some maintenance of our server and work on re-designing our website a little bit. We are hoping to also at least start working on our awards submissions for the following year.

As mentioned previously, the 'off-season' is a great time to teach. We use off-season events to show interested students what a competiton atmosphere is like, and the prep for those competitions as mini-build seasons/training sessions. It's also a great time to let returning members do a little mentoring.
Now, this past year was my senior year and I'm not a mechanically inclined person so i handled most of the business aspects of the team (talking to judges, awards submissions, etc...) but the off season allowed me to find students that were interested in the business stuff I worked on and train them so they know exactly what needs to get done next year and how to do it. I found it a lot easier to do after build then during, just because it wasn't as hectic; not that it's impossible during build, because some of the learning has to be done that way, but we all know tensions can get high. lol

[mplanchard]

Watch TV - really.

Take a look at www.LetsGoDesign.tv, a new interactive web series by SolidWorks. Follow my friend and fellow engineer Jeremy Lucini as he takes you through the design process of a new product. Its not a robot, but the concepts of engineering design are classic - whether you are in a competition or developing a capstone design project. You can vote on which way the project will go, do you choose Steel or Aluminum, do you choose option A or option B?

Episode 1: Importing hand sketches and getting things to take shape
Episode 2: Trying out some radical ideas
Episode 3 : Making partnership and simulating the design

Episode 4 will be released shortly marrying beauty with manufacturing techniques and driving a sustainable design

LetsGoDesign.tv uses engineers and designers from SolidWorks and our customers. Design ideas are driven from the SolidWorks community. Its pretty cool.

Marie

[Alex2614]

We (MARS 2614) are doing a FIRST-like summer challenge this year. Working with the hallways in the building we meet in, a few of us designed a summer challenge and divided up into a red team and a blue team (approx. 10-15 on each team). The challenge is more like FLL style, one robot at a time, and there is a portion that the drviers cannot see.
The robot starts at the end of the hallway. It goes forward, driving through a set of cones (we won't know the configuration of the cones until the day of competition). Once it is past the cones, it rounds a corner, and the driver can no longer see the robot. This requires teams to work with sensors or a camera. At the end of this hallway, the robots have to pick up 6 pvc cubes (1 cubic foot), 3 stacks of 2, and elevated 3ft off the floor. The robot then has to come back thru the cones, and deliver the cubes to a large box. THEN, it will push the box over the start line (box is 50 lbs). Teams get points for neatness, Autodesk design, and for the lightest robot. There are also scoring for the cubes and pennalties if you hit a cone. So, this requires teams to think about traction, light-weight, workign with sensors, and with arm mechanisms.
Keep in mind that we are supposed to use parts WE ALREADY HAVE so the team can save money.

I have attached the rule book for this challenge, if you want to take a look. Great job Luke, btw.

[Alex2614]

Oh yeah, it also is a great way to get kids involved as soon as they join in the "pre-season." It is a GREAT way to get the public and sponsors involved as well!

[Qbranch]

Well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuHFWsja1Lw

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vPlQIgsxQ

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGtbBz1sQo

or maybe even

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elb0LZCQ9oI

but if your really feeling adventurous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM

-q

(p.s. if your in the chicagoland area this weekend be sure to check out Brickworld 2010!)

[Cheerleader1073]

Hey 1922!

During the off-season, we go to multiple off-season competitions. We hope you had fun at Mayhem in Merrimack but also check out River Rage in Manchester (they switch off between the multiple Manchester, NH high schools). It's the oldest off-season held around early November and lots of teams go. Over the summer, specifically, we do a lot of volunteer work at community events but by no means do we completely fill our students' schedules... after all it is summer vacation! We have some team bonding activities (today we're all going to see Toy Story 3!) mostly over the summer. Then, when the school year starts back up again, we have 'Robot U' which is teaching the new members (and veterans who have been working on certain types of tasks who want to learn the other ones) about the basics in things like mechanical, electrical, software, business, and strategy. We found this year that what worked for us is not having the rookies come to all of our weekly meetings before kickoff, but rather have them come every other week and make sure those meetings contain something fun to keep them both involved and interested. When not during the 'peak FIRST season', for us it's really just a mixture of team bonding, community events, off-season competitions, learning with each other, and of course fundraising! If you can find the mixture/schedule of those things that works for your team then you're golden .

WE LOVE YOU OZ-RAM!

Thanks,
Gen

[kstl99]

Thanks for the kind words, Gen. We had a blast in Merrimack. We had our younger members driving and it was fun watching them get better and more confident as the day went on.

I have been hearing about River Rage since I joined the team this past year so we better be going. Our newest mentor and former member of team 229 has mentioned trying to get us into the Rochester Ruckus also. We have also run a few demos at sponsers and at school events and let people drive our robot (I am glad that bumpers are mandatory).

This has been a funny thread as it keeps coming back to life. It has been interesting to see how busy some teams are but I think many of our members devote so much time during the regular season that they need the rest or need to spend time doing real life stuff.

[Clem1640]

For the last three years, we have run a team summer project. In this project, we have focused on a technology area which we believed would be beneficial for the team to understand. We define the problem and scope. We build prototypes. We test these and develop the mathematics behind them based on these tests and first principles.

In the first summer project we explores "twitch" (biaxial tank) drive and 6wd tank. Hitherto, we had always built 4-wheel (either 2 or 4 wd) robots. As a result, we learned first-hand the benefit of 6wd over 4wd (and that 2wd with a 4-wheel robot was to generally avoided).

In our second summer project we developed a 4-wheel independent pivot drive-train. While this drive-train is motor-intensive, it allows a lot of very interesting fly-by-wire drive modes. Programming becomes first & foremost! We used this drive-train in our 2010 robot and have not been disappointed (It's our best robot ever).

This summer's program focued on our robot's shortcomings in preparation for competition at IRI. The main work was on the possessor which finally did). This was our first time at IRI. The team did well and we in no way embarrassed ourselves in front of this august group.

[Clem1640]

We also use this time to:

* Recruit students
* Recruit mentors
* Raise money
* Connect with the community

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by kstl99

We are a small team that did really well this year. Someone mentioned that some teams work at robotics year round.

I am curious what other teams do while waiting for next year's kick-off in 262 days.

Sounds like you are off to a great start! Follow up on the things that you mentioned and what others have said. Add one important element to the list. Have fun together! We do this a few different ways. We have a team picnic, go to 6 flags together and have a team banquet. Just being together and getting to know each other during the off season will help tremendously.

I would venture a guess that most of the really good teams take a little time off to regroup and reintroduce themselves to family. But for the most part it is a year round activity. Our students push us to continue to meet and grow and learn together. They came back from Atlanta and generated a 3 page list of things they want to do.

1. Last word of advise, look at those things that you can separate from build season and accomplish now. You already hit on a few:
2. Work on web page
3. Teach others about things like programming, CAD, animation
4. Get new sponsors
5. Send thank you letters to your sponsors
6. Attend an off season event
7. Attend an off season workshop
8. Enter a 4th of July Parade with Robot
9. Have a booth at a Fair
10. Ask yourself what happened during build season, and what knowldge was most lacking, teach yourselves that new skill.

[Isaac501]

We hope OzRam will be coming down to RiverRage this year! There's also Mayhem in Merrimack. Those are two great locals for NH teams. Off-season comps are important for many reasons.

Aside from robot building and teaching and of course boatloads of fundraising, we're going to be having a lot of social gatherings for teambuilding. One of our freshmen, who is an absolute rising star, has been gathering kids together on the weekends for bowling and movies and stuff like that. I'm hoping to actually have some free time to get out and see the team. Picnics, BBQs, etc are great, and NH has some stellar State Parks for big gatherings like that.

[BEEKMAN]

Ther are alot 0of fun things to build! last off season, we build a T-Shirt launcher, to teach teh new students teh basics of robotics, and to use at school pep rallies!

[kstl99]

Thanks, all, for the interesting replies. As just one part of the team (1st year electrical mentor) I do not know all the plans but it looks as if we do have alot of the suggestions covered.

jblay-Some of our seniors want to rebuild the robot from 2007, maybe because it was their first year? I don't know if it will happen but it could be fun.

steelerborn-This year we used Labview and Autocad Inventor, both things that can be leaned and practiced during the off-season. I am trying to get ACAD Electrical so they can learn to make schematics if any of them are interested.

We are also trying everything we can think of to spread the word about what we accomplished and how much fun we had and how rewarding it has been, and hope to attract more students, mentors and sponsors. Last year we started an FLL team which we should probably be promoting at the same time.

Thaine-Our workspace is also a classroom so we could not get too carried away. The biggest cause of chains coming off that I have seen is usually misalignment or improper tension but I am sure there are others. We experimented with our kicker alot before putting it in the robot. We ended up with a large cylindar pushing an aproximately 3/4" horizontal tube below the center of the ball and were easily able to kick over the bump.

Sunshine-Great list. I think that we have most of it covered. I failed to mention anything about your first suggestion - having fun together. I think that is why we have been successful this year. This team has enjoyed eachother's company all year and already have fun things lined up.

Isaac-We have talked about River Rage and Mayhem and from the sounds of it you will definately see Oz-Ram at at least one. I would like to be at both but it is not up to me. So much good can come out of being there from recruitment of people and sponsors to practice for our new drivers, and it sounds like alot of fun.

BEEKMAN-How do you build a tee shirt launcher?

Finally, thanks again to all for the suggestions. It is good to see that others want to continue and not just wait till next year and I hope this thread will help other teams also.