Pre-Season Update 2 - Finalizing Off-Season Robot Design, Advocacy Project, and Continuing Training for New Members
Over the past few weeks, we have gotten the new group of new members situated into their preferred subteams, and have started to focus fully on preparing for the Kendrick Castillo Memorial Tournament (KCMT), but also have focused on general training as well.
In addition, we decided on our preferred regionals for the 2024 season, those being the Green Country Regional in Tulsa, Oklahoma (Week 2), and the Colorado Regional in Denver (Week 4).
New Baseplates
We did send off our tech drawings and files for the new steel baseplate to our sponsor. Luckily, they are in the process of machining it, but they could not machine the steel tubes. That wasn’t a huge blow, and won’t drastically change anything with the robots.
One of our mentors was able to machine us a 1/4 inch steel baseplate as well. We are planning to put this baseplate on Arlo to reduce the center of gravity even more, and will be putting the 1/8in steel baseplate from our sponsor on Spot.
A Lesson in Thoroughness
When we had initially sent the baseplate design to our sponsor and mentor to machine, we made a major oversight to not include the battery holder bolt holes. Luckily we were able to let our sponsor know in time, and they had not started to machine the baseplate yet, but our mentor had already begun the machining of that baseplate, so it was too late.
After this incident, we have started to ensure that multiple people have checked over CADs and technical drawings, including a mentor, to slow down and be sure everything is correct before we begin to machine.
Offseason Robot - “Spot”
Spot CAD - INCOMPLETE
Spot has been moving along well. We have finalized the design and have started to machine and organize needed parts. Some smaller things still need to be decided upon, such as spacing for intake wheels the final electronic and compressor mounting locations, and another pair of bumpers.
We have started to machine the arm tubes, arm support tubes, and machined a wooden prototype for the intake. We are planning to machine the final intake later next week.
Intake/Place low position:
Shoot mid position:
Training
This preseason we’ve opted to try multiple new methods of not just training new members, but building good habits as a team as a whole. Generally, the team leadership has made a point to ensure that new members prioritize organization over all else. Most training, though, has been done on a subteam by subteam basis.
General Training
Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger Hunt
In order to teach new members where commonly used items are, but also to encourage good cleanup practices, leadership put together a scavenger hunt for a whole team training and teambuilding activity.
How it worked:
- Each member of leadership put together a list of the items, tools, and materials they used the most. Both Technical and Business leadership submitted items to ensure a well rounded list.
- The team was divided into equal groups (5-6 team members and 1-2 team leadership per group) and given the list of items.
- Team leadership was not allowed to help members find items, but were allowed to help members think through their thought process to find the item.
- After the scavenger hunt, the team came back together to discuss what went well and what didn’t, and how we can improve next time.
As a team, we found that we worked well together in order to brainstorm and figure out where items were, but we need to improve our speed and efficiency when searching for items, but that will all come with more familiarity of our shop.
Scouting and Strategy
Scouting and Strategy
In order to give new members a solid foundation in the principles of FRC gameplay and strategy, I have begun to put together a Scouting and Strategy class for new members. The purpose of the class is to explain to new members common FRC terminology, the structure of FRC competitions, and then get more in depth into scouting and strategy for people interested in that.
Currently, I have yet to finish the full course, but the first two classes that have been completed I will link below:
Mechanical Training
Brainstorming and Design
Brainstorming and Design
The Manipulator subteam conducted a quick brainstorming challenge in order to train new members to rapidly think of and present ideas. The point of it was to encourage members to list off as many ideas as they could think of in a limited timeframe, and then cohesively present their idea to a group.
The challenge went like this:
- The subteam was given a previous FRC game. They watched the reveal video and were given a quick overview of important design rules and how scoring works.
- Members got 15 minutes to work individually in order to come up with ideas for a possible robot, and then select the best one from their brainstorming.
- After the 15 minutes, the whole subteam came together for 30 minutes to share designs, discuss more ideas, and then decide on a list of prototypes.
Brainstorming and Design Challenge Powerpoint
Education on Past Games
Education on Past Games
On purpose or not, almost all of the mechanical subteams have been training members about what worked well in previous games. The purpose being so that new members have a strong foundation in FRC common practice once they enter build season.
The resources being used were posted in our previous Open Alliance post, but this has been such an important method of training we have used, so it was important to reiterate.
This method has worked well so far, hearing brand new members referring to a similar design they may have noticed in a previous game has helped to move along discussions on ideas far quicker, and will be very helpful once build season hits.
Programming Training
Reviving Old Robots
Reviving Old Robots
Two of our old robots, Grab n’ Go from the 2011 game Logomotion, and Sebestian from the 2013 game Ultimate Ascent are still fully wired and operable, and are used as either practice for programming or electronics. Sebestian, though, was forgotten about over the course of COVID, and left unmaintained until this year.
Both robots are very simple designs and easily programmable for new members, but most importantly they are both great examples of simple pick and place and shooting robots.
We’ve found great success in having new programmers program existing robots. It gives them a chance to dive fully into programming and gain instant experience.
The GitLab repos for both robots are below:
Advocacy Project
We officially announced our student advocacy project - ‘Colorado Cents for STEM!’ We posted a separate Chief Delphi post, and also made an announcement on the Colorado FRC Discord.
In short, the project aims to create a state level grant program that would provide grants to STEM extracurriculars, such as FIRST, in the State of Colorado.
The info sheet summarizes the origins and goals of the project, along with how to get involved. As of right now, this is a Colorado based project, but we hope that other teams can use our resources (link to folder containing all of our research and ideas) in order to start a similar program in their state.
