QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [10-21-01]

FIRST Rumor Mill
1

Hi all. I remember a while ago people were talking about how experienced teams should be helping out others… Well, seems like that idea is spreading between west coast teams, and WRRF held the first of a series of workshops for rookie teams or any others who want to brush up their materials. The workshops included robot physics, and choosing the proper tools… and the future ones include “choosing the right motors” and “3D Studio Max”… So, with that in mind, here is the question of the week…

QUESTION 10/21/01: What robotics-related workshops do you think are great for preping up teams out there for the competition (either ones you want to take them yourself or ones you see being valuable to less-than-experienced teams)?

This seems like pretty helpful to get a few more presentation into the white papers section of this web page… I am certainly thinking about adding my own “choosing the right motors for dummies” into that great collection… :wink: Or maybe just a little one about turning 3 ft 2" dia. solid steel down to a 5 in. 0.2511 inch dia. rod… :wink: :wink: :wink:

Have fun,
-Ken Leung

P.S. I am open to suggestions of any questions you want as the “QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!!”… So e-mail me at [email protected] and show me what you got… :wink:

2

I think the biggest problem that I see is teams that just don’t have a clue about how to build things with their kit. In OCCRA last year, it was interesting to see high school students, working on their own for the first time, who had no clue about the basic principles of building a robot, mainly because noone had ever shown them how.

Workshops on basic principles, like motors, wiring, and robot physics are far more important for rookies than anything else. You can get along without things like programming, pneumatics, and other advanced skills. Without the basics, however, you are going to be totally lost. Case in point: the “bulldozer bot.” Since nobody ever showed new OCCRA teams how to make things like arms and such, many teams tried using a giant shovel to scoop up balls. It was the only thing they knew how to make, so that’s what they did. With instruction, they could be shown how to effectively build a frame, build an arm, and do other vital skills.

3

I personally think that not only do the new teams have to learns the basic robot building skills, but they need to gain a leadership within the kids and they need to work together. Our team has a student captain for every sublevel in our team. We have leadership and the students get things done. The engineers are there helping and looking over shoudlers. This makes things mor fun as well as giving students leadership skills for the future. Not all students invloved are going to go on and build robots, they may not have an interest in things like that. On the other hand they think Animation is the way to go, should we make everyone on the building team learn to do animation? I really don’t think so!!

     Once Again My Added 4 cents
                   Michelle
4

Programming! Rookies & veterans alike need a real programming course in pBasic. In fact, I believe that it would be wise for a team with a real pBasic knowledge base to make a big ol’ interactive multimedia tutorial CD and distribute it at the kickoff or through the mail. A CD with a pBasic terms manual won’t cut it; we already get a pBasic manual. I’m seeing something along the lines of a CD with a Powerpoint, user-friendly deal in *.exe form, with graphic, text, voice, and interactive features. You know, one of those things somebody spends a month on. Also, the pBasic programmer should be there, with its own share of tutorial Powerpoint *.exe, and the 2002 standard and one-hand control programs. Kinda set up like a ‘For Dummies’ book. You have to think simple but thorough If a team is out there with the funds and time to do something like this, it would better everyone in the competition.

5

Yeah, robotic design workshops are good… but…

New teams also need to be mentored on what to expect at a competition, with regard to match readiness, scouting, and marketing.

There are many new teams who are suprised by the preparation needed in order to compete at a FIRST competition. Also, they are suprised by the pressure of the match situation. I’ve seen many teams who appear to be “deer in the headlights” out there.

I had the honor of conducting a workshop session with Brian Beatty for the Indiana teams last month, and it was a very well-received session.

Andy B.

6

I couldn’t have said it better Andy. Last year, when I got to regionals I was totally blown away. Once I saw the size and felt the electricty of everything I was beside myself. When I finally composed myself, many of the teams were already having their crates taken away. As soon as I saw the robots some of the other teams made, and the stuff they brought for pits I was again amazed. It still awes me that a team brought a ceiling fan to VCU and had it set up and running! As if that weren’t enough, the music playing was enough to distract you, so loud that you couldn’t help but sing. Then buttons… WOW! We used a little hand punch, we thought we were doing well, we had tons of buttons. NOT! those were gone in the first day. Some of the other stuff people handed out was really cool too, keychains, water bottles, and who can forget the cameras at nats. Yeah, nats… Getting there was an even bigger shock. Whatever you see at regionals is dwarfed by nationals. Everything is wicked at Epcot! (wicked is a good thing for those who are wondering) It is really amazing to see stuff your rookie year. And with that I realize that I have rambled on too long…
So I could have just simplified by saying, as I have before, you are a very wise man Andy B.

7

I don’t know if programming would be the best thing for a workshop. You can get by without it. OCCRA doesn’t allow programming, and teams build some great robots nonetheless.

8

:cool:

      Carolyn,     Your are right there are many rookie teams out there that have no idea how to scout, what to bring to a regional, gadgets are a must have, and it's all about what team has the best uniforms. I've never had the exprience of being on a rookie team because my rookie season my team was coming back as defending National Champions. We ahve mentored two other teams and we help them out as in a place to run their robot, they always come to our kick-off press conference, and our teams travel together. I think finding a mentor for rookie teams is the way to go. My number one tip though..........get a good scouting system.... i.e. - we have a scouting database designed by one of our students that holds all informtaions about every team and then at a click of a button it pulls everything you need to know picture and all.  Something like that would come in handy real quick!!!


         Shelley
9

Well, I admit that programming is not everyone’s cup of tea, but just like many other topics, it is one of the many useful skills that can be learned from Robotics for whoever is interested.

Control system is an important part of robotics. A lot of recent accomplishment in mechanical engineering are successful because we are able to make use of electronics to control how exactly the components work.

Take the FIRST robots for example. If the students/engineers didn’t learn a great deal about programming, the gyro chip wouldn’t have been used and there won’t be robot auto-balancing on the bridge or big giant arm raising floppies 8 ft up in the air and hold them there… and that’s just one of the many examples among the great designs out there.

Sure, robots can work with just the default program, but why not challenge yourself and make something better? Robotics isn’t just for people who want to work with power tools… students can participate with a laptop as well. I am sure this will be a great way to attract a lot of student programmers out there to join in the team!

10

Well, as you all mentioned, there are different parts of the competitions teams have to deal with, and anyone of those parts have their own challenges and problems to deal with. Concentrating on one part doesn’t mean we should ignore the others. After all, it’s the whole experience that counts.

So, with that said, let’s think about teams who will need these workshops. Well, obliviously rookie teams who have absolutely no experiences at all. They are usually overwhelmed by the full aspect of this competition, and got wore out the first year. Then, there is the group of teams who lost their veteran members because of graduation, so even though it’s not their first year anymore, they don’t have the skills necessary to help them act or compete like a veteran team. Then, finally, even experienced veteran teams with lots of returning member can take advantage of the workshops to train their new members…

In a way, these workshops aren¡¦t just introductions to get first year teams prepared for their journey… they can also be used to pass the knowledge of the teams to later “generations”. There should be different ones with different topics and level, which is why I ask the question in the first place, to hear from different level of students out there about what skills they want to learn or they think others can benefit from learning about…

Obliviously no one team can take care of all kind of workshops, not just for the amount of workload, but the lack of multiple view-points to different problems. That is why workshops over here are organized by at least 4~5 teams (will be more for more workshops)¡K which I recommend to any region out there to do the same, since it will be a great bonding experience between teams, and an educational one as well.

Well, anyway, back to topic. I saw some really good suggestions above. Helping teams develop a steady team structure will be great¡K And then prepping teams for actual competition will be useful as well. Just a little side note¡K It seems to me that developing workshops for those topics will be a little challenging, since other topics such as ¡§which motor to use¡¨ and ¡§which tools to use¡¨ involve a lot of lecturing. So, if I want to prepare teams for the actual matches, I can¡¦t really seat them down and lecture them about it¡K So, I suppose it will require a somewhat unconventional method to make those workshops happen¡K Although I do have an idea already :wink: (I post later about it)

Anyway¡K So far, I see two different levels of students, beginner and advance. Then, three types of topics: Building the robot, Running the team, and surviving the actual competition. Can anyone suggest some other topics that would be great for workshops?

11

We have developed several training sessions here at Tech to help start teams in the area. This is our first year holding these sessions but so far they seem to be going well. So far this is how we split it up:

Introduction to FIRST and basic design strategies
Motion
Manipulation
Motors and pneumatics
Electronics and Programming
SAFETY
Design challenge

We are holding them each week for about two hours or so. We have a lecture at the beginning to expose the students to basic physics principles and the likes. We then have fun activities so that they can use some of what they learned. So far we had them build a newspaper bridge (we had each team design a bridge with certain restrictions and then the teams switched designs and built a bridge designed by another team), mousetrap cars. This week we will bring them to the robot lab here at Tech so they can play with some assembly robots. That’s what we have been able to do so far. We are planning to hold these each year while adding several levels to the workshops as the teams in the area start gaining experience.

12

I think that programing is a great thing to learn, I personally am invloved on the control system sub team. I was taught about programing using oj, milk, and bread…long story, but it was a great thing!! I just think that the rookie teams need to actually focua on the other aspects because the robot isn’t the most important thing!!

         Shelley