NEW TEAM- NEED ADVICE

FIRST General Forum
1

Hey fellow FIRSTers,
so my school this year in New York is starting a brand new FIRST Robotics Team. We have everything we need as far as money and materials go, but we lack experience/skill/knowledge for and of robotics. So, I have prepared a few questions. I’d love ANY input at all :smiley:

  1. What about physics should we know the most for robotics? If you could link me to some guides/lessons explaining the physics for robots, that would be great.

  2. We want to start practicing before January 7th, kick off. What is the best way to prepare and get ready? Should we build a drivetrain?

  3. For programming, how can we prepare and get ready to program the remotes and sensors?

  4. Do you have a link that describes the major components of a robot? ex. drivetrain, shaft, axles, etc. Maybe you could describe them?

yes, i am a noob, but i am eager to LEARN

Thanks!

2

Building a moving drive train would be an excellent way to get practice. Half the battle will be getting electronics to talk to each other.

This presentation is awesome:
http://www.simbotics.org/media/videos/2011/presentations/kitbot-presentation-kitbot-steroids

I would get this kit and a few extra jaguarss, CIMs, and enough chain and sprockets to make it full 6WD with 4 cim motors (2 each side):

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0951.htm

I would also buy some different sprockets to change the top speed of that chassis to 7ft/s and 14ft/s in addition to its current gearing of 10.4ft/s. I would also buy some plaction wheels and 2-4 omni wheels to experiment with. All of this is available from Andymark.com

3

newteam,
Building a base or arm is a great way to learn but be aware that any work done on your 2012 robot cannot take place prior to kickoff.
I would recommend you download last year’s manuals and have everyone read through at least the game and robot sections. A clear understanding of those two sections will jump you ahead of what you will find at kickoff.

4

Where in NY are you located? There are two main congregations of Robotics teams in NY - Rochester and the NYC region. - But there are teams located all over the state. One way to gain some experience is to contact teams in the area and gain from their perspective. Having a contact list to ring up every so often during build season is a great way to get a critique on your progress.

5

If you’re going to build something for practice, make it a fairly simple drivetrain.

Protip: Don’t go complex in the drivetrain your rookie year. Go with the KOP drivetrain.

You can also look in CD-Media’s whitepaper section; there are a number of papers on arm or drivetrain design; take a look at JVN’s mechanical design calculator. (Or… any paper JVN has posted there…)

6

On steroids.

Whichever you do, get it rolling early. The drivetrain is definitely the most important part of your robot. (Incidentally, it’s also the second and third most important part.)

7

Here is a link that may help http://www.team1322.org/tech_tips.htm

8

Don’t forget to check out the new team resources that are available, such as Team in a Box (http://www.team341.com/tiab/) and MOEmentum (http://moe365.org/moementum/moementum.php)

9

Also an option is the brand new EWCP.org page which includes a single speed drivetrain calculator http://ewcp.org/calculators/gearbox/single/ for those of you who don’t have/don’t want to open Excel just to do some simple math.

Eventually I’ll add in the ability to share a link to your gearbox and some presets. Just wanted to let people know that the basic functionality is there.

10

The Albany area has around a dozen teams now. Let us know if you need help.

11

Here’s a few tips I have to lend (though I’m not quite as knowledgeable as some of the others around here)

If I might make some suggestions:
1 - Try to learn something from some nearby teams. Your location is too vague for me to make some recommendations, but there are a lot of great teams in New York you might be able to learn from. Many teams would be more than happy to share their experiences and knowledge with you!
Use THIS](http://www.usfirst.org/whatsgoingon) to find what teams are in New York. Sort through them and find one (or more) that is within reasonable/convenient distance of you.

2 - There is no substitute for experience. Going off what EricH and Siri said, build a basic Kitbot if you want practice. Then, if you’re feeling a little adventurous, upgrade it to a Kitbot on Steroids (I believe Siri posted the link above, but just to be safe, here it is). I’d recommend getting a regular Kitbot running first, before upgrading to Kitbot on Steroids, but its your call. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to learning, cover your basics before expanding.

3 - The WPI Thinktank is a GREAT (GREAT GREAT GREAT) resource. It’s filled with a lot of presentations from previous years about… well, pretty much everything. Here is a link to the Thinktank. I would strongly recommend taking a look around the Thinktank, looking over some of the presentation, doing whatever you want. They have categories for virtually everything. Some of the presentations may be a little outdated (a few years old), but there is still a lot to learn. I know there is a presentation on there that covers making a drive system in great detail, and more recently, 1114 (since you probably don’t know who 1114 is yet, they are one of the most expert FRC teams around, they are a great team to learn from) recently released THIS](http://www.simbotics.org/files/pdf/drivetrain-design.pdf) little diddy. A great presentation about FRC Drive systems.

I hope this helps! Best of luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
-Leeland

Edit: Also, the thought occurred to me. I don’t know if there are any more off season events going on (I’m pretty sure they pretty much wrapped up after Madtown Throwdown, but I could be mistaken), but if there are, look around and see if you can’t get A) attend one, to get the feel for competition, or B) get in contact with the event committee, see if they can’t arrange for a veteran team to build you a robot to actually compete with! We (1126) did the latter for a new Rochester rookie team, while another team (1551), has been mentoring them as a team. We’ve been told that that rookie team had a great time, and learned a lot from their participation. If you could get into a situation like that, or even just a team to walk you guys through the finer points of being an FRC team, you could benefit from it greatly.

12

Hello newteam2014,

Congratulations on starting on a new team !!!. One suggestion I have for new teams is to get a sense of the makeup of the team such as what kind of skills the team members want to learn and what kind of skills they hope to bring to the team. This info can be gathered with a simple survey :

Student Name, Date
Question 1 : What skills you hope to bring to the team ?
Questions 2 : What skills you hope to learn from participating on this team ?

Once the coach have this information, it will enable him/her to figure out where to concentrate efforts to find mentors…

Cheers,
Marcos.