What to do in the off-season

[kjolana1124]

It's weird. If anything, I kind of think off season has more of an impact than the regular season. During the regular season, students and mentors alike are many times so focused on the game at hand and continuous improvements and all that, they sometimes get a game focused tunnel vision (not that there's anything really wrong with that). However, the off season allows students to step back, actually breathe for the first time in months, and really see a broad perspective of things.

That being said, I wish our team did more in the off season than it does. We do a few demos, at least one competition (normally Wolcott but that might change this year), new management elections, reflections on the past year, a team dinner, then we're done until September where we do things like demos, team introductions, and B@tB. We're also working on improving our FTC team, so hopefully that'll get some work in preseason. I'm pretty envious of the teams that don't stop meeting and working, even if sparingly, over the summer.

[Chris is me]

When I was a student on 1714, I calculated that we averaged one demonstration per week. I would not recommend this.

Some things that you can do in the offseason:

• Learn CAD. It can't hurt, at all, and with a whole summer to play with it, you'll learn a thing or two.
• Design or build a robot for the VRC. Even if you never have a physical robot, and even if you never compete, getting practice analyzing a game is always a good thing.

Some things a team can do in the offseason:

• Break into VRC teams. Having two or three of these is probably the best way to train new members in robotics, ever.
• Work on an offseason project. Saw an awesome swerve drive this year? Try and make your own, learn some lessons from it. Challenge yourself.
• Get some new sponsors. I'm personally really envious of 148 and 217's support from IFI, so I'll be hitting up every sheet metal manufacturing facility in the area to get some parts of my own.
• Demo and fundraise! Demonstrations help spread the message of FIRST, and fundraisers can do that while you simeltaneously make some money for yourself.
• Attend offseasons. By far the best value in FIRST. Shaker right now is planning on 5 off seasons.

[BEEKMAN]

Originally Posted by kstl99

BEEKMAN-How do you build a tee shirt launcher?

Erm, a lot of work and time? Haha, we used a lot of old parts from older robots. Ours used two wheels direct driven off of CIM's to shoot out a T-Shirt. Other teams use compressed air, but compressing air in PVC is risky buisness. There are a lot of way to do it, and its a great summer project and its fun to show it off to your school!

[whytheheckme]

I've always been a huge proponent of off-season events. Some north-east events are

• BattleCry@WPI (Worcester, MA) =May 7,8 *FULL*
• PARC (Tunkhannock, PA) =May 8th
• Beantown Blitz (Boston, MA) =May 22nd
• Mayhem in Merrimack (Merrimack, NH) =June 5th
• Where's Wolcott? (Wolcott, CT) =June 5th
• RiverRage (Manchester, NH) ~October
• Bash@TheBeach (Old Lyme, CT) ~October
• Duel On the Delaware ~October
• Ramp Riot (Ambler, PA) ~November
• RaChaCha Ruckus (Rochester, NY) ~November

This list is just compiled using Google etc. Please correct me if any of this info is incorrect.

I've found that off-season events are a great way to (inexpensively) get more play out of that extremely expensive robot that you and your team worked so long and so hard over! And, if you plan your trip well, you can plan in all sorts of team-building activities!

Jacob

[joeweber]

Off season? More like on season, our season is always on. We develop new ideas, teach students about building, electrical, pneumatics, and tools. Work on programming, web design, networking, business planning, fundraising, and community service. We help with local teams to promote FRC and FLL. Help put on fall FRC and FLL events. Cook meals for the homeless, fund raise for those in need. It never ends.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by whytheheckme

I've always been a huge proponent of off-season events. Some north-east events are

• BattleCry@WPI (Worcester, MA) =May 7,8 *FULL*
• PARC (Tunkhannock, PA) =May 8th
• Beantown Blitz (Boston, MA) =May 22nd
• Mayhem in Merrimack (Merrimack, NH) =June 5th
• Where's Wolcott? (Wolcott, CT) =June 5th
• RiverRage (Manchester, NH) ~October
• Bash@TheBeach (Old Lyme, CT) ~October
• Duel On the Delaware ~October
• Ramp Riot (Ambler, PA) ~November
• RaChaCha Ruckus (Rochester, NY) ~November

This list is just compiled using Google etc. Please correct me if any of this info is incorrect.

I've found that off-season events are a great way to (inexpensively) get more play out of that extremely expensive robot that you and your team worked so long and so hard over! And, if you plan your trip well, you can plan in all sorts of team-building activities!

Jacob

PARC XIII

Tunkhannock Area High school
120 West Tioga Street
Tunkhannock, PA 18657

Registration fee: $150

Doors Open at 7:00 AM and practice starts at 8:00 AM

Team registration page: http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/registration.aspx

Volunteer registration page:http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/Volunteer.aspx

Chicken BBQ tickets: http://asp.shinraikon.com/parcxiii/BBQ.aspx

[waialua359]

Honestly, about 75% of what we do as a team is during the off-season.
-Prototyping
-Service Projects (blood drives, community cleanups)
-Team Building Activities
-Administrative duties
-Funding activities and Partnerships
-Ordering of Materials
-Upgrade/revise/improve our facilities
-400+ person fundraiser luau
-End of Year Banquet
-VEX season-build, tournaments, and workshops
-Off-season events (varies)
-CAD projects
-Robot demonstrations at various events
-FRC sustainability and program management workshops
-Hawaii Regional Planning Committee

And of course, my day job.
-District Grant Coordinator
-Lead Robotics Coordinator and Mentor
-Learning Center Coordinator
-21st CCLC Grant Coordinator
-Technology Cadre Team
-Private foundations Grant Coordinator

And most importantly, full-time Dad!

[Tom Line]

We are doing:

-A game night
-3 major fundraisers
-About a dozen demonstrations
-3 two or three day off season events.
-Can Bus development
-Field dismantling and rebuilding back to a 'standard' field
-Update of our computer systems in the room, along with a rewire of our network
-Tear apart of our practice bot and set-up of a bench controls system so we can start programming on day 1 of the new season
-Rework of our business plan
-Rework of our chairman's award
-Cleanup of our network server (this has been ongoing after we moved from a single 500 gb harddrive to 3 TB of storage with raid backup in a NAS. Slow process with a bunch of 10+ gigabyte movie files.

Those are currently scheduled. We have 18 events currently with team member names against them but no dates applied yet - we're fitting them in as we can.

[HannahF]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Honestly, about 75% of what we do as a team is during the off-season.

Hahaha my team is the same way. The "off"-season is a great time to work on stuff you normally can't accomplish during build and competition seasons. One of the team's mottos is " A new season starts the moment an old season ends, so new ideas never go out of season."

Some of the things the firebirds will be doing this off-season:

-Host an end of Year Team Bonfire
-Learn CAD
-Make buttons (No matter how many we make during build season we always run out )
- Modify past robots to shoot candy
- take modified candy robots to a local 4th of July parade
- Attend Local off-season competitions. (We had a blast at PARC! thanks 222)
-Visit retirement homes with our robot
-Have strategic planning meetings.
-Clean our shop after four months of intense use
-Visit our sponsors and give presentations about our past season.
- Go to local girl scout summer camps and give robotics demonstrations
-work on our website
- Hold a recruitment picnic to meet girls who are interested in joining the team
- Hold seminars to teach incoming members about different aspects of the team
-Start FRC rookie teams
-Hold seminars to teach new FRC rookie teams about robot components and team building
-Pack and send parts to our team in Ghanna
-Start and continue to Mentor FLL teams
-Build an off-season community service robot
-Raise Money for the American Heart Association,(we drive the robots in the Philadelphia Heart Walk.)
-Visit lcoal schools to teach kids about Heart Health with our heart-bot "tinman"
-Hold two fundraisers

Hahaha not to mention the fact that all the rising seniors on the team ( including me ) have to write colleges essays and fill out applications this summer/fall. Needless to say I am going to be very busy this off-season.

[ttldomination]

Let's see...

Let plan to:
CAD
Build a robot
Demos at local science summer camps
Present to some local interested companies
Prepare for off-season event. (This is huge for us cause we get to attract new members with competition early).

- Sunny

[kenavt]

From what I hear so far (I haven't been able to attend a team meeting lately):

• TARDEC competition
• MARC competition
• IRI competition
• Kettering Kickoff competition
• Dawgbot (a small bot using the NI control system that is mostly a programming project to design autonomous stuff (tracking down soccer balls and bringing them back mostly)
• New battery cart
• Perhaps the Stairmaster (which cannot die, it's been around for two years) that can lift things up the stairs in our one of our sponsor's machine shop to our loft workspace)
• The 503 party June 18th
• Other LAN parties/get-togethers that haven't been arranged yet

[Zach O]

Originally Posted by kenavt

From what I hear so far (I haven't been able to attend a team meeting lately):

• Perhaps the Stairmaster (which cannot die, it's been around for two years) that can lift things up the stairs in our one of our sponsor's machine shop to our loft workspace)

The Stairmaster is actually used to move the robot up and down the stairs without having people carry it. None of the machines downstairs would be able to fit on it (with the previous designs that we have).

[3DElizabeth]

Hi Guys,
I'm a mentor on team 342. Don't forget that we are holding the Summer pyGames www.summerpygames.org this summer. SPAM, MORT, the Red Devils, and the Burning Magnetos are all participating from the FRC as well as a local FTC team. The Goal is to make a educational video game in 6 weeks with your team. This gives the programmers & graphic art students something fun to do!
I just found out we are going to be giving away 7 netbooks for the top prize! Feel free to message me if you have any questions.