Posted by Pamela.
Student on team #116, Team Merrimack, from MHS and Unitrode/ R S Machines.
Posted on 6/5/2000 4:09 PM MST
Hey - I was just wondering, what do you people do during the off season to educate up and coming members about FIRST and all the technical stuff involved with it?
Posted by S. Krussell.
Coach on team #349, Robahamas, from International Academy and Ford Motor Co…
Posted on 6/5/2000 5:41 PM MST
In Reply to: OffSeason posted by Pamela on 6/5/2000 4:09 PM MST:
FIRST has become a year-long series of events and preparations and meetings. We fund raise, team build, work on the robot, re-wire, enter as many invitationals as financially possible, train new kids, raise money, work on new T-shirts, new theme stuff, raise money, plan and host an invitational ourselves, raise money, draw up possible drive train designs, and so on.
Posted by Jon.
Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Mass Academy of Math and Science and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Posted on 6/5/2000 8:37 PM MST
In Reply to: There’s an off-season??!? posted by S. Krussell on 6/5/2000 5:41 PM MST:
yea… what she said…
FIRST has no OFFseason… only different things happening…
we’re getting into this whole event hosting thing… its fun to host and go to these things… kinda crazy…
i like rambling on CD and long walks on the beach during this off season when i’m not doing directly related to the team or my degree… i’ve pretty much decided to get a degree in FIRST for all intensive purposes… i’m going to do a FIRST IQP and MQP… at WPI IQPs and MQPs are like thesis and big projects that mean a lot… it all goes back to the WPI project based curriculum…
if someone really wants to know more, i can ramble about it… i should really be moving stuff, but look at me, i’m posting on CD.
Posted by Lora Knepper.
Student on team #69, HYPER (Helping Youth Pursue Engineering & Robotics), from Quincy Public Schools and The Gillette Company.
Posted on 6/6/2000 6:04 PM MST
In Reply to: really… off-season you say… huh… posted by Jon on 6/5/2000 8:37 PM MST:
: FIRST has no OFFseason…
If FIRST ever gets an offseason, I will have nothing to do!!! =) Seems like everyone here (besides all my FIRST pals out there) have disowned me after 3 years of all this, so why stop now??
Jon, I’m ready for BattleCry – and I can tell you that if I end up at WPI, I will make FIRST my IQP and MQP too =)
Lora
Posted by Meg Z…
Student on team #349, Robahamas, from International Academy and Ford Motor Co…
Posted on 6/6/2000 7:39 AM MST
In Reply to: There’s an off-season??!? posted by S. Krussell on 6/5/2000 5:41 PM MST:
You forgot about holding late-night Robo-Chats and posting 70 messages a day to the list. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just our team?
Posted by Erin. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Student on team #1, The Juggernauts, from Oakland Technical Center-Northeast Campus and 3-Dimensional Services.
Posted on 6/7/2000 8:04 AM MST
In Reply to: There’s an off-season??!? posted by S. Krussell on 6/5/2000 5:41 PM MST:
The kids on our team are currently working on places to hold summer meetings when school is closed. We will still have all of the seniors at meetings (because it has been mostly the seniors that have stressed the idea of keeping the meetings alive). Me and my friends think that it will really help team unity. What do you think?
-Erin
Posted by Pamela.
Student on team #116, Team Merrimack, from MHS and Unitrode/ R S Machines.
Posted on 6/7/2000 1:22 PM MST
In Reply to: There’s an off-season??!? posted by S. Krussell on 6/5/2000 5:41 PM MST:
Yeh Yeh Yeh- you guys can all kill me for saying offseason- I’m a soccernut as well as a firstaholic- these words just come to my head! I play soccer yearround and do random FIRST stuff all year- i’m just looking for ways to get kids hooked as much as I am! My teams major problem is that not enough people understand how to do - they can think of ideas but putting them together is a major problemo.(Me included) How could i help people reach a higher level of understanding and dediction? By the way- thank you for your posts- they’re helping me organize stuff for my team this summer!
Posted by Patrick Seeney.
Student on team #469, Las Guerrillas, from Oakland Robotics and Lawrence Technological University and Magna Seating Systems, Nachi and Kuka Robotics.
Posted on 6/5/2000 9:57 PM MST
In Reply to: OffSeason posted by Pamela on 6/5/2000 4:09 PM MST:
I don’t want to brag, but besides tuning up our robot and making it better, we attend some competitions of our own. THe following picture is from our most recent endeavour, for which we took 1st place.
Pat
Posted by Frank Toussaint. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #111, Wildstang, from Wheeling and Rolling Meadows and Motorola .
Posted on 6/6/2000 6:45 AM MST
In Reply to: What Cornelius does in the offseason posted by Patrick Seeney on 6/5/2000 9:57 PM MST:
I like it!
Posted by Anton Abaya.
Coach on team #419, Rambots, from UMass Boston / BC High and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks.
Posted on 6/6/2000 8:23 AM MST
In Reply to: OffSeason posted by Pamela on 6/5/2000 4:09 PM MST:
: Hey - I was just wondering, what do you people do during the off season to educate up and coming members about FIRST and all the technical stuff involved with it?
Let’s see, I rummage through all the stuff i got from florida. I wear all the pins on my tshirt, wear the medals, wear the FIRST tshirts, visit the chiefdelphi site everyday, dream about that funky square-circle-triangle logo, and day dream about what could make our robot work better.
no, i dont really do that, but sometimes, it seems like i do. hehe.
build a robot 
doesn’t have to be as complicated. Build a 1/8 scale version of the field (using ping pong balls), and build a 1/8 scale robot. We did this for design week, why dont you try building one for fun?
As for other things to do, try wearing all your florida pins and see what happens. If you get that funny poking feeling on your chest…that means you either miss first a lot or you pinned your chest.
-a
Posted by Nate Custer.
Student on team #470, Steve Gregory, from Ypsilanti and Visteon.
Posted on 6/8/2000 4:41 AM MST
In Reply to: OffSeason posted by Pamela on 6/5/2000 4:09 PM MST:
We are using some of the time to investigate new and strange ideas that came up in the design phase but were voted down because we were not sure we could build them in the time required. For example we had a trackball drivetrain design that was realy cool but way to risky for a rookie team to implament.
We are also working through the lessons learned process. An expeirance all its own.
Best regards,
Nate Custer