QotW 07-20-03: School Daze

FIRST Rumor Mill
1

IRI is now over and the month of July is going to be drawing to a close in just about a week.

That means only one thing – school is back on the horizon, with another year of classes, studying, tests and homework and another season of robotics quickly approaching.

However, it seems like schools in different parts of the country start classes at vastly differing times. Starting regular classes early can be advantageous for old and new teams alike.

Question of the Week 07-20-03: When you do you start back at school or college? How soon does your team start meeting again after the start of classes? What advantages or disadvantages do you think this offers?

I wonder if there are any noticeable advantages for teams that get a jump-start on their season.

2

I believe our school starts back August 13th or something like that. When school starts back up we’ll meet periodically until kickoff, maybe once every 3 weeks or so - basically whenever they need to tell everyone something (such as a demo coming up or something along those lines) we’ll have a meeting. I suppose some advantages would be notifying people ahead of time of money that needs to come in, or we might learn/build/animate some things periodically which is good for practice. It seems like we get out and have to go back to school earlier every year…

3

Our school starts off 9/5/03. I think 9/6 for sophomores to seniors. First day is always freshmen orientation since we have a big, multibuilding school.

However, I’ve got summer school right now (taking English 11 in advance) so I probably won’t think much of real school starting (2.5 weeks after summer school ends).

Our team usually meets starting in October and we have weekly meetings to orient the new members and to TRY to teach some new stuff. It’ll hopefully be better this year. There is great advantage in doing this for veteran teams since you have old robots to demonstrate with and to practice driving with.

4

Our first day back is Sept. 2nd.

My team is already meeting (once every other week or so), as is our newly formed booser club (robotics parents). After all, we really want to get back into FIRST this year, and raising $5000 is no easy task since we have no sponsor. We also plan on doing another team challenge in the fall to train any newbies.

You know what they say, 3rd time’s the charm

5

I think I go back somewhere around Sept. 4. We will start meeting withing two weeks of that date. I’m not sure how often we will meet. I’m thinking 35 minutes one day per week until kickoff.

6

We go back Sept 3rd, and I hope to actually do stuff this year, unlike last year… :-\ (Driver’s Ed sucks, worst 17 weeks ever).

We have a “Robotics Driver’s Ed” (yeah, I know I’m coining it after a bad thing, but my dad came up with the name) to teach anyone who has any urge at all, to ever touch the controls on the robot. I hope to pick out younger potential drivers, not by skill, but by how they listen, as I find the ability to listen much more important than skill. After that’s done, anyone who “passes” (IE, has enough skill and listening abilities) will be noted, and then they’ll have to keep working through March to stay a consideration for a driver. Hopefully it’ll be better than the previous two years, in which I, as (more or less) head programmer, my other programmer, and another student who just kind of tried to drive became the drivers, only because we knew how the robot worked, and no one else did…

As for classes in school, I’m taking several AP classes, two other college tech classes that don’t get any weighted credits (Cisco Semesters 3 + 4 and High Tech 2). Those will kill me, but there’s no way around it. I’m also doing an Intel Project, which won’t help. Come January, I will quite literally be sleeping whenever I have a free two minutes.

Considering advantages to going back to school early, more time spent on AP/IB materials is always better. For FIRST, it helps, but not too much. Most teams should be firing up the team engines around that time anyways, and school starting is only important for getting new team members and establishing any new policies and whatnot.

So, long story short, school starting is bad, because it means no more summer, good because it means that the robotics season is only 4 monthes (and change) away :D.

7

*Originally posted by Ryan Dognaux *
**I believe our school starts back August 13th or something like that. **

are you in high school or in university/college because i am not sure, but i think that that makes a difference as to when school starts as well.

my school starts early september (i think the fourth, but im not exactly sure). however, robotics meetings will start when i form a team there as i am going to a new school that does not have a team yet.

8

The kids on our team start the last week of August and we have weekly meetings starting then. Our first FIRST meeting is the same day school starts. We have a new program for them this fall with teaching all the kids about mechanical, electrical and software engineering, with team-building events every 3 weeks. This will get the kids an idea of what they’re interested in roboticswise, since not many have taken any kinds of classes like that. Since our team did not make it to nats this year, we used some of the money to buy custom robotics kits and are planning a mini-competition that will closely represent FIRST to get them better prepared for the design/build phase starting in Jan.

9

I start school August 25th

Kokomo High School starts August 14th

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*Originally posted by shyra771 *
**are you in high school or in university/college because i am not sure, but i think that that makes a difference as to when school starts as well.

my school starts early september (i think the fourth, but im not exactly sure). however, robotics meetings will start when i form a team there as i am going to a new school that does not have a team yet. **

I’m in High School. :slight_smile:

11

I head back to Ball State on August 21st, and the Indiana Academy kids are there about two weeks before me.

I don’t know how early ‘team meetings’ will start… right now, Team #1020 is in jeopardy, and I don’t know how feasible a team will be.

12

Ive been taking summer school classes all summer but I start back up in the fall at IUPUI on August 20th.

Yay for Informatics and New Media :]

13

I started college at Kettering University last Monday, July 14. I had to miss a couple days of class my first week to come to IRI.

14

UCLA starts September 25th. I would love to see a school that starts after me.

When I was on the team in high school we started late August and since we were a class we met everyday starting from the first day of school. It didn’t matter that much really because we didn’t really start our fundraising and other planning things until October.

15

Georgia Tech starts Aug. 18th. I am looking forward to it. A small group of our team has been meeting throughout the summer, doing presentations and such. Meeting with everyone will probably start up as soon as the High school gets back in…hmm let me find that out.

16

Purdue W. Lafayette (sorry, I’m from Hammond, where you say Purdue and they think Purdue Calumet, so I have to specify) starts August 25th, and I’m headed down on the 22nd. Hammond kids start school on the 26th, but we’ve been meeting all summer, so it doesn’t really make a difference except then everyone has even less time.

17

Team 47 meets Tuesdays and Thursdays the entire First semester plus additional time as needed.

Team members participate in a robotics competition called OCCRA (Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association) in the fall. This is where the robots are 100% student built.

In addition Fund-raising, learning to do video, photo and most of all learning to run the machines to build the robot starting in Jan.

Of course students are driving as much as possible to be selected as drivers.

Add to this the Chief Delphi Invitational and our students find out quickly what it means to be busy.

18

I start back for first day of classes at PSU on Sept. 2nd.

My high school starts around the 20th of August… however, the team pulls froma LARGE area, with schools not starting back till the second week of Sept. or later, due to various reasons. Usually, an intro meeting will be held in October, and then a team building session will be held in November. A fundraiser or two, and another meeting at kick-off… then the season begins.

19

Keene High School starts school August 27. We usually meet every other Tuesday during the school year. This year will be different as we are hosting our first invitational (Fall Fury) October 11 so we will be meeting more than that. We have been busy meeting over the summer planning and fundraising.

20

North Brunswick Township High School goes back September 3rd, if memory serves. We start meeting every Wednesday, with special meetings whenever we see fit. Beggining early this year will be particularly important because we are training new drivers and have a variety of big events coming up for the team. It is not uncommon for us to meet more than once a week during the offseason, and more than 3 times a week during build season, and I feel this helps everyone to be prepared and informed all the time.