Team 4099 is proud to announce FalconCamps! FalconCamps teaches students FRC-specific engineering and basic programming concepts in an online environment.
Throughout our time in FRC, we’ve learned that two major things teams need to improve themselves are 1) having team members who are passionate about learning more and 2) having resources available to teach them. We’ve often found that while it’s not too difficult to find one student/mentor on a team who is super interested in improving things (if you’re reading this post, that may be you on your team), they can do a lot, but they can’t make big changes on their team unless more people buy in. We’ve also found that while a lot of students have other commitments/priorities and therefore won’t spend tons of unstructured free time watching robotics videos and reading up, a lot of these same students will regularly attend structured team hands-on workshops and be willing to learn from them. This, along with the relative lack of FRC-related resources for true beginners in both CAD and programming (many of whom need lots of direct guidance), is what motivated us to develop FalconCamps.
FalconCamps aims to provide a structured team workshop experience for students anywhere in the world. Each workshop consists of five two-hour online meetings in which campers will learn more about STEM topics that interest them in an interactive and friendly environment. Lessons will be taught by experienced members of our team. Each workshop is one week.
We’re hosting two different online workshops, Design and Programming. There are two levels for each workshop - beginner and intermediate.
Design
Beginner Design workshops will cover the basics of CAD and mechanical design thinking. We will go over the basics of Onshape such as sketches, extrusions, and assemblies. Students will be guided through a series of smaller projects and they will have the opportunity to be creative as well! By the end of the week, you will have the chance to CAD real robot parts!
Intermediate Design workshops will cover the optimal usage and mathematical analysis of FRC hardware. For example, this includes motors and gearing, and belts and chains. We take a look at Onshape CAD shortcuts and talk about tips and tricks specific to FRC. Throughout the camp, we will include many smaller projects such as designing a gearbox to practice what we have learned. The final project is to fully CAD a robot subsystem from scratch!
Programming
Beginner Programming workshops will cover the basics of Python including variables, lists, dictionaries, logical statements, loops, and functions. Each lesson will include guided exercises and coding challenges so students are able to practice what they learn. On the final day of the camp, students will get to code their very own game in Python.
Intermediate Programming workshops will cover more complex Python topics including objects and classes, inheritance, advanced object-oriented programming concepts, and 2D Lists. Each lesson will include guided exercises and coding challenges so students are able to practice what they learn. On the final day of the camp, students will get to code their very own game in Python.
If you have any specific questions about the curriculum, or if you’re wondering if something specific is covered, please feel free to ask via email or posting in this thread.
The registration fee is $100. If you were a previous camper or refer a friend who signs up, your price goes down to $90! We also offer a team discount for teams who are signing up a group of students. If your team is interested in this, please email us at falconcamps@team4099.com. If you’re interested in the camps but require financial support, please fill out out our scholarship application form and submit it to us via email.
All of the above details, sign-up information, and more, are available on our website at team4099.com/falconcamps.
We hope to see you at FalconCamps!