Thanks!
BTW, with that last size correction, it cleared the way for our building session today. FYI: We’re all set on dimensions. The numbers all add up now.
We obtained the wood to build all of the subsets of the field we decided to duplicate for practice purposes, cut it, and even completed a preassembly check today. Other students were working on various subsystems. We rotated tasks so everyone had a shot at things.
> I hope everything works out for your rookie team.
> I’m glad you have chosen the CDI as your baptism into FIRST.
Thanks, and thank YOU for creating this contest, AND the Forum, and making it available to US. It is EXTREMELY helpful, and makes FIRST technology MUCH more reachable by beginners.
I’ve been a follower of FIRST for several years. After three years of “no Ann Arbor in the GLR”, I finally gave up on waiting for FIRST to “show up” in town, and took the bull by the horns. (Wow… It turned out I grabbed something more akin to an OCTOPUS! 
The biggest problem I found with starting a new team was that old “chicken/egg” thing of getting student AND sponsor interest up in something of the financial level that FIRST runs at.
IMHO, it is EXTREMELY difficult to convince sponsors to support something the students just aren’t quite sure about yet. The students have to WANT IT.
But, it is VERY difficult to get the STUDENTS up for it without them actually MAKING something. Students can’t easily make a FIRST machine without some big bucks from SOMEONE. (At least $5-10K…)
A closed circle.
So… How to start???
For me, the CDI was a godsend. It is playing a KEY role in SOLVING that classic Catch-22 / bootstrapping problem. It provides that missing place for a new team to get their feet wet with FIRST technology WITHOUT big corporate support, and helps with building the all important “enthusiasm and motivation” area to excite the students about the sport. I feel this excitement, coupled with the FIRST-hand knowledge they’ll get (pun intended… will give them better reason TO go out and help FIND the sponsors. It enables THEM to talk more coherently about FIRST. This makes them ALL “Product Champions”, a critical first step in convincing a sponsor to support you.
After researching many teams’ startup (and often horror) stories, finding the CDI was by far the BEST thing I’ve come across to help your typical underfinanced rookie team. FIRST technology can be daunting to a beginner. We NEED more “Farm Club Contests”! It gives that needed experience with the hardware to make the transition to a full FIRST contest much more attainable.
Also: I’ve found finding sponsors to donate $100 or so at a pop is a LOT easier then finding them to donate $1,000 or 10,000!!! <grin> We’ve found SEVERAL “Mom and Pop” businesses that can help us at this much lower financial level. A mini playfield carpet was donated by a carpet company. A small “open account tab donation” from a local hardware store gave us our shelf grill, glue, and some fasteners. We’ve gotten other small ($50 or $100) cash donations from others, etc. This gives our fundraisers the needed practice of talking with smaller companies, to prepare them for later talking to the BIG guys. <grin>
At the school, we’re using the CDI as a Team Building exercise, and “ground school” training. Today, I went through a design session on “calculating gear ratios” and “speed vs torque tradeoffs”. THEY are now going to determine what we’ll use.
We also made field elements today. In the school’s shop this afternoon, advisors demonstrated hand power tools like a circular saw, Dremel, band saw, and the like. Many students had never had a chance to try them before, and were pretty excited. We then let THEM make and shape the components, with THEIR hands on the controls. (Before long, they were coming to US to ask how to do things like tricky cuts on a band saw…
Once they could actually SEE a shelf segment, some railing taking shape, and our first parts for the robot in their hands, it all started to click that This… Is… Real! (Gee, what a revelation!
It also made quite a difference in their attitude. I think that before then, watching FIRST videos with a several foot high railing and THEN looking at the diagrams & online photos gave everyone a “back brain feeling” of a similarly HUGE scale. I think dwelling that thought was quite intimidating to many…
I’m SO glad we got our field construction underway first. Seeing a shelf in front of them helped to put the true SCALE of the field, and this year’s competition, into perspective. “Boy, that’s LOW [SMALL]!”, “I was SURE it was MUCH bigger [waist high, etc…]!” and the like were common comments. <grin>
The team is now making that all important transformation from “unsure passive information absorption” to “full involvement with design decisions and manufacturing responsibility”. Today was definitely a Watershed Day. Now that they have some design goals down, have started to see hardware actually shaping up, AND knowing THEY made it, they now KNOW in their bones that this IS doable by them, and are getting much more excited, interested in it, and are becoming more confident that they can pull it off.
> I love your enthusiasm and just wanted
> to let you know that we appreciate it.
> Often, that begins to wan with teams
> that have been around and its good to
> remind ourselves of Just what it felt
> like way back when we all started down
> this trail. FIRST and CDI strives to
> make the experience a fun, exciting,
> thoughtful one!
Thanks! (BTW “meaubry”… What is your full name?)
I do hope the CDI in the future continues to maintain a contest design attitude of “keep it small, simple, low budget, and made with local hardware store parts”. This does keep the contest reachable by other novice teams who, like us, do not yet have major corporate sponsors (or no local megacorp), and can continue to help foster the creation of more FIRST teams so we all can have even MORE fun!
Thanks again for starting up this great competition!
- Keith McClary, Huron High Team 830
16" + 6" = 22" which is less than 24".