FIRST Choice and vKOP Webinar (11/15@7PM EST)

FIRST General Forum
1

Tonight, Thursday, November 15th, starting at 7PM! I’m doing a webinar on FIRST Choice and the Virtual Kit of Parts. It’ll be great for new mentors/rookie teams/people who have no idea what this is and might have questions/etc. If you know someone then please share it out with them. I’ll do my best to navigate some of this and show you what is available and how it works.

I’m going to record it and throw it up online afterwards so you’ll always be able to view it later.

When: Thursday 11/15, starting at 7PM EST
What: FIRST Choice and the Virtual Kit of Parts - A deep dive into the world of FIRSTChoice and the virtual kit of parts - excellent resources made available for all FRC teams
Who: Marshall Massengill, Mentor for The Zebracorns

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/667065757

A big thanks to Marie Hopper of FIRST NC for setting this up initially and making the Webinar available.

This is the same thing I’ve been doing for a few years now, normally with Tyler from FUN, Jerry from AndyMark, and Kate from FIRST HQ but this year scheduling has been challenging for all of us so going the webinar route so I can get this resource out there and hopefully help a few folks (I suspect FIRST will do a twitch thing about all this too this year).

2

Will plan to tune in. I made an effort last season to try and use most of the vKoP software. Some I’m still not really sure what to do with. I’m looking at you Wolfram Alpha. Admittedly, some of that is just not spending the time or doing the math. It would be great if there was more examples of FRC specific things to do with these programs. Though I do appreciate the donations even of software that will benefit only a small number of teams. For example, thank you to Tableau and the teams that helped get them involved.

3

I agree with this. If anyone knows of links for resources then let me know and I’ll add them to the slides for this.

4

You might mention some of the non-listed freebies. Like Github.

Some seem to fill in late. Don’t know exactly why.

5

I will mention GitHub. Anyone have others?

6

I was just looking through the vKOP site and noticed the lack of a digikey voucher. Anyone know what’s going on with that?

7

Bimba voucher is missing too…

8

Starting this up now!

9

We still haven’t received the bimba cylinders we ordered in mid February 2018.

10

Marshall,
Unfortunately I was not able to see your webinar. Did you record it and if so are you planning on posting it somewhere online?

I would love to be able to share it with our teams in Mississippi and Louisiana.

11

I didn’t catch the video link, sure it will be posted.

The slide link was zebracorn.link/vkop2019

12

It’s up here now: https://youtu.be/V0_nyd0oUZM

I forgot to bring up GitHub but other than that, it went well. In fairness, I got distracted by my students walking by with a giant arm and a belt sander.

13

Something I see missing from here (and the vKOP) is Tableau, but it could just be withheld till kickoff, seeing as how theres another “release” on that day looking at the chart on the site.

14

We ordered ours in early January and never saw them.

15

So I would not assume anything. Hopefully Tableau returns but there is no telling what FIRST HQ has planned.

16

was the tableau key typically in the dashboard or was it something physical that was in the KOP?

17

Dashboard past years unless my memory is failing me miserably.

18

The Tableau key was in the Dashboard last year.

19

Once the virtual KoP was released, our main mentor asked for the new Solidworks licenses for our team. Understandable that we haven’t heard back with a shortened Thanksgiving week but some students (and mentors!) had been hoping to use the time off for installing and learning the software.

Has anyone gotten a response for the new Solidworks license keys?

Thank you!

20

Yes. Give them a week or so to respond. They are pretty good about it.