Canadian Pre-season Workshops

Greetings,

There will be a series of workshops for all interested teams taking place at the University of Waterloo in November and early December; room and exact times will be announced soon, expect the seminars to run from 7:00-8:30 pm. These seminars will be run by myself and Ian Mackenzie. After the seminars, the power point presentations and any additional resources will be available in the whitepapers. All those teams who are interested should RSVP with myself or Ian (Send us a PM or reply to this thread). Let us know your team number, and how people will be attending. Cross border visitors are more than welcome.

Directions to the university are available here.

Here’s a list of the seminars and brief synopsis.

Running A Team - Thursday November 4
– Guidelines for team organization, sponsorship, obtaining suppliers, logistics, and most importantly how to use maximize your 6 week build period.

Robot Design - Wednesday November 10
– An overview on how to design a FIRST robot. Strategic and Functional design will be examined. Designs both simple and complex will be explored.

Mobility - Thursday November 18
– How to make your robot move, and how to make it move well. Various drive systems will be discussed, with an in depth discussion on gearing.

Pneumatics - Wednesday November 24
– How create, maintain and manage pneumatics on a FIRST robot. Advantages and disadvantages to employing pneumatics on you robot.

Controls - Thursday December 2
– An explanation of the FIRST control system. Power distribution, wiring, sensors and coding will all be discussed in detail.

Competition - Wednesday December 8
– Making the most of your three day competition. This seminar will help you have the best possible FIRST experience, and teach you how to make your robot win. Alliances, scouting, strategy, and dealing with breakdowns. Also, a step by step guideline on how to succeed in alliance picking.

Will there be a pre-season workshops in Toronto like last year?

Thanks

St. Michaels College (Team 1049) will be running a series of workshops again this year. The dates have yet to be announced. Also, there will be additional workshops offered at kickoff at the Ontario Science Centre.