New Idea- Freelance FIRST

Other FIRST-related Organizations
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THANKS FOR THE REPLIES! I’m thrilled about how many people want to help! The beauty of Freelance FIRST is that, no matter how small it is, you CAN help the FIRST community! Even if it’s just some pre-made buttons on Photoshop that teams could use on their website, it’s all good!

I’m talking with some people around me now about logistics and creating a business plan. My think it’s a great idea and they might let me buy some webspace.

I’m thinking about having this a lot like Chiefdephi, have it hosted by one team, but everyone can submit ideas.

Look for more info as the week progresses. I WANT to have this up before this comming XMas at the latest.

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I’d love to help…

Amanda from 1020 and i have been discussing starting something similar yet a little different for the state of indiana… Keep me updated and i’d love to help!

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*Originally posted by monsieurcoffee *
**One suggestion is that a web template should be made for teams who need them. This would entail a SIMPLE layout without all the glamour but a good layout for posting news, dates/events, team only info, pictures, and perhaps a forum. **

I think the ubergeeks have something like this … someone does.

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One suggestion is that a web template should be made for teams who need them. This would entail a SIMPLE layout without all the glamour but a good layout for posting news, dates/events, team only info, pictures, and perhaps a forum.

I was thinking php nuke but then again there has to be something better and easier to use.

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To keep up to date on all the new info, just keep reading this thread whenever a new post pops up. I might start a newsletter just to get this thing started, but that’s not high on the prioity list.

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Not to double post, but this is a little more important.

I have set up an e-mail address for Feelance FIRST, [email protected]. HOW ORIGIONAL! :wink: :rolleyes:

Send an e-mail to there if you are intrested. I’ll then add you to the budy list and I’ll send out our FIRST e-mai tonight!

[edit]Email addres was edited to add an “_” to it[/edit]

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*Originally posted by JosephM *
I’m thinking about having this a lot like Chiefdephi, have it hosted by one team, but everyone can submit ideas.

While there are obvious logistical advantages to giving control over this to one team, in that it may be easier to take care of administrative overhead (i.e., paying the bills), I’d rather that such an effort remain without an affiliation to any team.

Among my concerns is that the fate of the effort lie with the people the people that are giving their time to make it work. I wouldn’t want a member of a specific team who may be “hosting” this effort to feel they have any input solely because of their membership on that team. I’m not sure if this would be a problem or not.

However, beyond that, I think it’s important that the concept of ‘freelance’ but kept in mind as the effort develops. If it’s associated with a single team, or even a group, it is no longer ‘freelance.’

Now, that’s not to suggest that people who’re participating on teams can’t contribute. Quite the contrary, really. . . my goal would be to see this exist as a forum where anyone can come and contribute the ideas they and their team used – and more valuably, the ideas they didn’t use.

We’ve all seen the amazing robots and circuits and code that some of FIRST’s best teams have entered into these events, year after year. Imagine the stuff that didn’t get that far!

With all of that said, I think finding a web hosting service should be among the last priorities. What, so far, does anyone have that they can host, anyway?

There’s no use in investing anyone’s money into a hosting plan, domain name, etc., when there’s still lots and lots of work to be done building the infrastructure of such a system. I wouldn’t want to let that money go to waste on a “Coming Soon” page when it could be better spent later.

Instead, we should create an outline of this effort. What is being proposed will take enormous effort to catalog and organize while keeping everyone sane in the process. There is a lot to be decided - from website design philosophy and programming to content hierarchy to feedback methods and everything in between.

I have my own ideas about what could be done, but they’re a bit nebulous in some aspects. I’ll write them down and post them if anyone’s interested.

While the infrastructure is being developed, it’s also important that we begin to accumulate content to place within that infrastructure. Again, opening a site with no content is pretty useless and the easiest way to kill something right off the bat.

When Freelance FIRST debuts, it should, for all purposes, be a fully functional, self-sustaining website with a lot of pre-existing content.

This isn’t going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but the potential is enormous. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Everything starts as a sketch on paper first, this included.

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I’d be thrilled to help out. I can’t code the way I used to, but I am good at teaching the basics to people. I could assemble some powerpoints, spreadsheets, things like that… I could even finish up my gear calculator to spit out gear ratios and tooth ratios for FIRST robots.

Let me know what you need! I’ll email that address.

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What, so far, does anyone have that they can host, anyway?

I’d hate to tell you but I have a rough draft of something I want to submit and quite and few tutrorials that need to go from my mind to paper. After this week I may have a nice project on getting started in electronics done. All I would need to do is write about it.

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You just basicly descibed the whole phisosophy behind this M. I agree that no team should single handedly back-it, but this was something raised by the hand, my parents. I don’t want this to become a problem where the dog bites the hand.

As for that business play, I’ll post it and send it out tonight.

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I fully support the idea, though I wonder…isn’t this what CD pretty much is already? We have places to talk, places to put examples (white papers).

Anyway, I can help out. I’m proficient in graphic design and web design. Check the links in my sig for examples.

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*Originally posted by DCA Fan *
**I fully support the idea, though I wonder…isn’t this what CD pretty much is already? We have places to talk, places to put examples (white papers). **

Well, the White Papers section here features a number of tested solutions, how-to’s, and reference documents.

This is a great resource for that information. But, what if a team wanted to get a look at some new ideas, some new interpretations of old ideas, or, maybe, they just don’t have the time or resources to devote to creating prototype code, designs, or systems.

This effort will give those teams a stepping stone toward achieving something larger than the sum of its parts. While with a whitepaper, the transfer of knowledge is largerly in one direction, making unproven designs available gives both a parties a chance to take a chances; and both a chance to learn.

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I can help with certain things. I know photoshop, but I don’t have 700 dollars to spend buying it. I am also semi-proficiant with Autodesk, but mostly I do building. Let me know if there is anything I can do!

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This effort will give those teams a stepping stone toward achieving something larger than the sum of its parts. While with a whitepaper, the transfer of knowledge is largerly in one direction, making unproven designs available gives both a parties a chance to take a chances; and both a chance to learn.

Now I understand what you want to do. It was totally differnt from what I was thinking. And yet this still is not a problem. Ill will be building some unproven designs durning the summer that hopefully will work. Of course if they do work doesn’t that make them proven designs that do work. :confused:

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Their still ideas other teams can improve upon and/or use in existing ideas they are using.

And post them if they don’t work. Mabey someone will find a way for them to work!

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Their still ideas other teams can improve upon and/or use in existing ideas they are using. And post them if they don’t work. Mabey someone will find a way for them to work!

Lol I was just kidding. I will find some way for it to work. Then again I will have absolutely have no idea how to make it legal for a First competition. Ill leave that up to someone else on how to figure out how it to work:D.

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I’m starting a perliminary ‘Freelance FIRST’ newsletter with new info and other things. Sign up by sending an e-mail to [email protected] .

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I would be glad to render assistance however I may

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I’m 7 weeks out from having a CNC mill in my garage, so if someone wanna pay for materials and cutters (and I can get aircraft aluminum surplus fairly cheap), I’ll contribute shop time.

-=- Terence

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With all of that said, I think finding a web hosting service should be among the last priorities. What, so far, does anyone have that they can host, anyway?

I’m talking to the parents about web space and a possable web site

It might be a plan to just start out with a geocities web site. They don’t give you that much space but between 10 people linking up to each other you should have enough to post a reasonable amount of documents and “unproven” pictures. It’s quite easy to start up. I built my home page off microsoft frontpage and it turned out to look pretty good for something I did in high school. :slight_smile: I posted quite a few of my old teams pictures on there back in the day.