Forum

FIRST General Forum
1

Posted by Michael Martus.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Coach on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central H.S. and Delphi Automotives Systems.

Posted on 8/19/2000 12:59 PM MST

So what happened at the Forum?

Can anyone give a review for all of us that were not able to attend?

Thoughts, ideas, direction of discussions and general impressions.

2

Posted by Andy Baker.

Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 8/20/2000 10:27 PM MST

In Reply to: Forum posted by Michael Martus on 8/19/2000 12:59 PM MST:

For those of you who couldn’t make it out to the Forum, here are my minutes. I’ll post two messages…

Before I get to the meat of the Forum, I’ll just say that Ericka and KC’s coordination of the last-minute softball game at Dean’s house was very nice. Although the FIRSTers didn’t show very well against the DEKA crew, we still had a great time. Thanks to all (Dean, KC, Ericka and DEKA) for this fun game!

OK, here are my minutes. Keep in mind that most of these points were simply suggestions from team representatives, not FIRST… so NOTHING here is official (unless otherwise noted).

KIT (suggestions):

  1. Many applauded the freedoms given last year. Many suggestions were given for more freedoms in bearings, simple electronics, and connections.
  2. Many suggestions were made about shipping the kit early, or letting rookies have the kit or material list early (but not for the ‘new’ stuff in the kit). This would fix some kit shipping problems also.
  3. Innovation FIRST eluded that they are working on new fusing and circuit breaker options… but no details divulged.

GAME (suggestions):

  1. More obstacles wanted
  2. Good one-side setup of field
  3. A substitute system was discussed for a no-show team.
  4. Contact (physical play) was discussed: the most intriguing suggestion (I thought) was the addition of a ‘no-contact’ zone (like a crease), but away from the goal. Some teams wanted less contact, some wanted more.
  5. Game diversity… again, both sides were discussed, with positives posed for each side. Is predictability good?.. we dunno.

TOURNAMENT (suggestions):

  1. More time needed between end of Q matches and alliance picking.
  2. More matches and less practice time… issues discussed.
  3. Allowance of pre-pit setup (4 person crew) at Nationals (Wed).
  4. Groups were discussed for Nationals. People seemed to be in a majority on this one… seems like a no-brainer. The only suggestion we didn’t get in was the Wed. night lottery picking that M.Ciavaglia suggested (I didn’t see the suggestion until after the Forum was over). *** Bob Hammond (FIRST Comp. Director) even said that the judges are asking for groups to make their job easier. I’ll bet a $1 that we’ll have this in 2001.

RULE BOOK:

  1. Suggestion about getting it on CD-ROM, to allieviate web downloads.
  2. A suggestion was made to add a change list (from previous year) or highlight the changes.

Like I said, these were mostly suggestions and speculations… DO NOT take my writing as offical.

Andy B.

3

Posted by Brian .

Student on team #56, Robbe Xtreme, from Bound Brook High School and Ethicon Inc…

Posted on 8/20/2000 10:47 PM MST

In Reply to: My Forum Minutes (speculations) posted by Andy Baker on 8/20/2000 10:27 PM MST:

Anyone else take anything down i am interested on seeing if you did
either email me or post it my [email protected]

Brian team 56

4

Posted by Andy Baker.

Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 8/20/2000 10:52 PM MST

In Reply to: Forum posted by Michael Martus on 8/19/2000 12:59 PM MST:

Here are my notes from the ‘ADMINISTRATIVE-AWARDS-SHIPPING’ meeting. There is some speculation in here also, but I’ll start out with the facts that Lori, Ericka, and Lynn gave to us:

SHIPPING:

  1. There will be these restrictions this year:
    size: 4ft. x 4ft. x 6ft. tall
    weight: 400 lbs.
    crate limit: 2
    teams pay: school to drayage
    FIRST pays: Drayage to event
    teams pay: event to home
    FIRST only pays for 1st crate (as long as it’s under 400 lbs.)

REGISTRATION:

  1. Start date: 9/11/00 End date: 12/8/00
  2. Online registration and team info editing: by means of password (team leader only)
  3. Rookie status is up to team. For example, if a team decides to change schools (or sponsors), but they feel that they are not rookies, they CAN keep their old team #, and not become rookies. Contact your team coordintator for more info on this.
  4. Team info is edited by the team… so if your team name is wrong, you team leader changes it.
  5. You cannot ‘unregister’ or change comps. w/o calling your team rep.

MENTORING PROGRAM:
Ericka Smith, who replaced Theresa Clement at FIRST is coordinating an extensive MENTORING program. It has two sides:

  1. She gave each team a mentoring guide book that gives good outlines for inter-team mentoring. The goal is to mentor the students so that they will themselves be mentors. This will be on-line (see below).
  2. There will be an extensive mentoring portion to the FIRST site. If a team wants to be a mentor or a mentee, then they can sign up on this site-to-be. If a team wants to be ‘adopted’ by a mentor team, then they go to this site to get set up… and they don’t even have to be a rookie team to do this. Look for more on MENTORING and this new site.

AWARDS:

  1. The FIRST staff asked us if we would like to submit a summary sheet for the Chairman’s award. The general concensus was no, bit reaction was mixed.
  2. They said that many teams want an award for participating… even just an official certificate.
  3. They discussed the option of having more awards, but did not elude to much… they said that things were in the works.

REGIONALS & NATIONALS:

  1. Much talk was made about how to improve each regional, from the pits to hotels to food and parties.
  2. Not much time was spent talking about Nationals… BUT, FIRST asked that teams DO NOT make any premature reservations, and to use the FIRST package at Disney, once the date is announced in EARLY OCTOBER.
    …others might have more on these issues.

Please take my writing as ‘unofficial’, and if you have any questions on these topics, call or email your FIRST team representative.

Take care,
Andy B.

5

Posted by Michael Martus.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Coach on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central H.S. and Delphi Automotives Systems.

Posted on 8/21/2000 5:36 AM MST

In Reply to: More Forum Minutes (more factual) posted by Andy Baker on 8/20/2000 10:52 PM MST:

Thanks Andy.

I hope FIRST was really listening to the teams.

6

Posted by Lora Knepper.

Other on team #419, Rambots, from UMass Boston / BC High and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks, Analog Devices.

Posted on 8/21/2000 4:07 PM MST

In Reply to: More Forum Minutes (more factual) posted by Andy Baker on 8/20/2000 10:52 PM MST:

Thanks Andy, there’s some really good info there to keep in mind as things begin to get rolling again.

Lora

7

Posted by Matt Leese.

Student on team #7 from Parkville High School and NASA, Black & Decker, AAI, Raytheon.

Posted on 8/22/2000 9:51 PM MST

In Reply to: More Forum Minutes (more factual) posted by Andy Baker on 8/20/2000 10:52 PM MST:

: 1. There will be these restrictions this year:
: size: 4ft. x 4ft. x 6ft. tall

This is the one thing that I either find highly improbable or just a bad idea. If I’ve got my history right, the first year of FIRST, the basie dimension was 3’x3’. At that point they found out that the average width of a door is somewhere between 32’ and 36’. Oops. I believe that’s why we have a dimension of 30’x36’ now. I think a lot of teams will have trouble getting the robot through doors if it’s 4’x4’. I hope somebody at FIRST sees this if that’s what they’re planning.

Matt

8

Posted by Joe Ross.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot 2000, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL & J&F Machine.

Posted on 8/22/2000 11:17 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: More Forum Minutes (more factual) posted by Matt Leese on 8/22/2000 9:51 PM MST:

Matt,

When I read the Andy’s message, it sounded to me like he meant that the shipping container will have the max dimmensions of 4x4x6. It was under the heading shipping.

Maybe Andy or someone else at the forum could clarify.

Joe Ross
Team 330

: : 1. There will be these restrictions this year:
: : size: 4ft. x 4ft. x 6ft. tall

: This is the one thing that I either find highly improbable or just a bad idea. If I’ve got my history right, the first year of FIRST, the basie dimension was 3’x3’. At that point they found out that the average width of a door is somewhere between 32’ and 36’. Oops. I believe that’s why we have a dimension of 30’x36’ now. I think a lot of teams will have trouble getting the robot through doors if it’s 4’x4’. I hope somebody at FIRST sees this if that’s what they’re planning.

: Matt

9

Posted by Andy Baker.

Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 8/23/2000 12:00 AM MST

In Reply to: Re: More Forum Minutes (more factual) posted by Joe Ross on 8/22/2000 11:17 PM MST:

Ummm… I meant the CRATE SIZE. And the max weight is 400 lbs. I was meaning to say that FIRST will be strict on this restriction this year… and don’t forget that you can only ship two crates.

Wow… now that I think of it, if we had robots that were 4x4x6 and weighed that much, we could make some cool stuff. I’m thinking of the stuff you see in ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’, or even in the old Alien movie.

Sorry for the confusion.

Andy B.

10

Posted by Matt Leese.

Student on team #7 from Parkville High School and NASA, Black & Decker, AAI, Raytheon.

Posted on 8/23/2000 7:09 AM MST

In Reply to: Crate size restrictions… sorry posted by Andy Baker on 8/23/2000 12:00 AM MST:

Well now don’t I seem silly. I guess I should’ve figured that one out but it will still be hard to get the crate through door ways but that’s not nearly as bad as the robot that big. Maybe this was just wishful thinking on my part (the weight limit would be nice…no more robot diets).

Matt

11

Posted by Joe Ross.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot 2000, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL & J&F Machine.

Posted on 8/23/2000 9:11 AM MST

In Reply to: Re: Crate size restrictions… sorry posted by Matt Leese on 8/23/2000 7:09 AM MST:

:(the weight limit would be nice…no more robot diets).

I think that we will always have robot diets, no matter how much the weight limit is. We will always want to add just one more device.

ARGH! How am I going to remove 15 lbs. so that we can pass inspection at less than 400!

Joe Ross
Team 330

12

Posted by Lora Knepper.

Other on team #419, Rambots, from UMass Boston / BC High and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks, Analog Devices.

Posted on 8/23/2000 5:24 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Crate size restrictions… sorry posted by Joe Ross on 8/23/2000 9:11 AM MST:

:I think that we will always have robot diets, no matter how much the weight limit is. We will always want to add just one more device.

Joe,

I agree with you completely! I think it’s some odd gene in all of us techies that will cause us to be over the limit no matter what FIRST tells us is the max! So no matter what, I would expect to see many many more speed holes in the future…

Lora

13

Posted by Eric Rasmussen.

Engineer from FIRST.

Posted on 8/26/2000 8:28 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: Crate size restrictions… sorry posted by Lora Knepper on 8/23/2000 5:24 PM MST:

: I agree with you completely! I think it’s some odd gene in all of us techies that will cause us to be over the limit no matter what FIRST tells us is the max! So no matter what, I would expect to see many many more speed holes in the future…

‘Speed holes’… interesting term. I’ve always used the phrase ‘swiss cheese effect’. I wonder what other great nicknames are out there for this phenomena.

-Eric

14

Posted by Nate Smith.

Other on team #66, GM Powertrain/Willow Run HS, from Eastern Michigan University and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 8/30/2000 8:16 AM MST

In Reply to: Speed holes posted by Eric Rasmussen on 8/26/2000 8:28 PM MST:

: ‘Speed holes’… interesting term. I’ve always used the phrase ‘swiss cheese effect’. I wonder what other great nicknames are out there for this phenomena.

I personally don’t know of any other names for it, but I do remember hearing ‘speed holes’ in a Simpsons episode a couple years back…

Nate

PS - To everybody that’s been wondering where the heck I have been, I’ve just been having a few problems with Ameritech getting my phone working(don’t get me started.) HOPEFULLY, everything will be up and running again sometime tomorrow(Thursday) afternoon…