in light of recent threads, and posting, i thought id take a poll of which teams read the ENTIRE manual, and which teams do not, if you do not read the entire manual, please provide your reasoning in a post below.
hopefully this thread will be productive and show reasoning why teams should read the entire manual
edit: ps. when i mean “your team, i mean an individual on your team who can answer questions regarding rules, or everyone”
yes and no.
Personally, I did. 1923, not so much. I’m the one they go to for clarification, but they all know the basics.
I personally read the entire manual on the ride home from Kickoff, but the majority of the team does not read the entire manual. We do kind of make it mandatory that everyone read The Robot, The Game, and The Field, and subteams like CADD read Awards for their own purposes. It becomes pretty obvious when someone does not know the basic details of the Game, and for the people on 177 who do read the entire manual, they get asked a lot of questions during discussions of strategy and design.
we have people who read diferent sections, waht are you going to do if you do not read it.
Those who have read it have read the entire thing. But the amount that has NOT more than doubles those who have. I personally read it at least 2 but it’s not like I have it memorized. But I tend to know about where something should be.
We give a rules test on The Game, The Robot, The Arena, and The Tournament to every team member (including animation, vex, financing, website, etc.)
Some other team members read the other sections (namely mentors, team captains, and our “rules guru”).
I read the whole manual each year. Anyone who wants to be on our drive team will be quizzed on the manual. I’m pretty sure we’ll give our pit crew a quiz on at least the safety and robot rules sections.
Our team mandates you read the game and then you read your area like electrical reads electrial and drive train reads what goes to that.
No. I have read most of it every year I have been on the team. A few sections like the team organization section I skim instead of thoroughly reading them. However, most of the rest of the team doesn’t, which leads to some mixups. (Like last year when someone on the team ordered an illegal solenoid, and this year when an illegal pneumatic cylinder was purchased)
I read the whole thing. At least twice. Every year. I am the “go-to” person on rules for my team (though I’m not the Q&A person) because I know the manual well. I have to look for the exact rule number, but I know what it says and where to look. Most of the team knows the game and the robot and the arena decently enough.
It’s mainly the student leaders who read the entire thing and then individual team members read what they want to read or need to read. Like the members who want to be a driver or human element reads the game and etc.
For the most part, returning people can skim half the manual, only looking at parts that have changed from last year (aka, we still submit team info on TIMS as always).
Everyone needs to read the important stuff, the game, arena, etc (awards for websiters and animators and Chairmansers…) but past that, it should be used as a reference material previous to just asking.
It’s what I keep trying to convince my professors, in the real world, you don’t have to memorize anything, you can look things up. But if you need the answer, you need to try to look it up first.
That is more true in some professions than in others…and having a good grasp of many important facts, without the need to look them up, can really improve your ability to do your job in most professions.
Having said that, our team (and myself) do the same thing that you do, and we have to look up many rules to figure out what they really say 
I personally have read the entire manual, but I don’t think anyone else on the team except the mentors have even seen it. :ahh:
I have read the entire manual, as I’m the sort of rules guy on our team, but every one else on our team is supposed to read 6 7 and 8, as they pertain the most to everyone.
I’d like to say I read the entire manual, but thats a tedious task.
And time consuming.
However, information is shared well enough so that everyone knows what their build/construction parameters are, and we have copies for any reference the team needs.
Also, the drive team is well-versed in what does and does not cause fouls. That in itself is one of the most important principles stressed.
That does not mean, though, that our driver is a pacifist on the field…
I personally do not read the entire manual, just some of it (Game, Robot, Arena, Awards). So I just have a basic understanding of it, but I’m on animation, I don’t need to be an expert on all of it.
On 393, we print and give out copies of the manual to certain people who are in charge of at least skimming the entire thing and knowing its contents fairly well. There are some of us that are in the process of reading the whole thing and keeping up on the updates.
I know that I get the updates, print them out, and give them to our manufacturing head, the head engineer, a website person, the team captain, and I keep a copy. We’ll then read them and update our manual accordingly.
We have a copy of the manual that stays at the school called the “2007 FIRST Bible.” We keep it in case those of us that have a copy of the manual fail to bring them to a meeting.
Though not all of us read the entire thing… the entire team is pretty much required to be at least familiar with any and all sections that pertain to their specific sub-team… or else we could have some major problems come Week 6…
I personally have read the majority of the manual. our team has 2 people that read the whole thing.
I’m one of… I think, 4… that read, are reading, or have read 99.9% of the manual…