In recent months, The Zebracorns have been gathering accounts of our involvement in assisting other FIRST teams around the world. If you or your team has benefited from The Zebracorns’ assistance in the past few years, we need your help! From our white papers, to our time-logging system, to our code, we love working with other teams to bring new technology to the FIRST community and help see it implemented. We’d love to hear how The Zebracorns have impacted your team or any positive experiences you have had with us. Thank you, and have a great season!
Battery White Paper 10/10.
Zebra Vision Papers were a godsend. Always love reading them and cant wait to see whats in store for 2018.
The time-logging system and Jetson TX1 guide have helped our team so much!
Marshall’s cats made me realize mine aren’t quite so annoying as they could be.
Also Kevin eventually found us a way out of that parking lot.
But seriously, the ROS papers were useful, the NN stuff was dope. And I’ve really enjoyed working with you guys on the sustainability stuff.
Direct help over email was amazing when we were first figuring out how to use our Jetson.
Additionally, we just implemented your time clock this year getting rid of our pen and paper time log sheets.
Thanks for everything you guys do from publishing code, providing resources based on your experiences, 1 on 1 help, etc.
The one on one email help with the Jetson was so nice and got us going in the right direction. Marshall is the man!
Battery white paper, Jetson white paper, marshall’s help with getting our jetson happy with the FMS, all had big impacts on our competition season, especially mine as a programming student with no mentor.
I don’t trade team items often, but there’s a pair of zebra pants in my wardrobe.
I stand on the shoulders of giants. Trust me when I tell you, it’s more than me and the group of mentors (and the students we are all struggling to keep up with) are part of helping to answer questions that come our way.
Your Jetson TX1 setup guide was very helpful this year!
900’s emphasis on sustainability-- not just of their own program but of youth STEM education outreach as a whole across North Carolina-- is a continuing inspiration to my team. In cooperation with the leadership of FIRST Chesapeake, we’re now seeking to use the Zebracorns’ TIGER program as a model for similar intervention with FRC rookies who might otherwise twist in the wind here in Virginia. There’s a scorched earth effect where schools don’t want to give FRC a second try when their previous rookie team had imploded due to huge uncontrolled costs and lack of support-- the need for the TIGER program is self-evident to those of us who have witnessed that. We are watching this program closely and eagerly looking forward to followup reports about its outcomes, effectiveness, and sustainability.
On the technical side, this year 900 helped cement some of Triple Helix’s ideas about using larger main battery cable in our robot. We also developed a new time tracking web portal that’s inspired by the Zebracorns’ time tracker.
They gave us a wire we needed for an encoder the weekend before bag and tag. Allowing us to dial in the PID loop for our elevator.
The Zebracorns were the only reason we were able to progress and step up for our second year in FRC. They were the only reason we could make custom gearboxes, and fabricate a custom drivetrain.
I’ve sent at least a dozen emails with questions about everything from barrel jack radio prints to making custom ribbon cables for Talon SRXs, all of which were answered in less than 6 hours.
In the heat of the season (when the Zebracorns were supporting the weight of at least 4 other teams), Marshall let us come in and use his lathe to make our drive output shafts. We also used 900’s battery paper to outfit our batteries with 4awg wire, as voltage sag was an issue we noticed during testing.
The impact y’all have on other teams and what you do for the community and teams like ours is honestly immeasurable (and somehow you guys managed to build 2 robots this season on top of everything).
Last year the Jetson whitepaper was a massive help!
You demonstrated your vision and control system when a few of our students visited your workspace this past summer. We were inspired by your ingenuity and are striving to work with vision for the next season!
Plus, you gave us a gear for our VersaPlanetary when ours got stripped last year. It’s always helpful when a team caries extra parts like that.
First time thanker… long time mentor and former student.
I have to thank The Zebracorns for becoming something that the 16 year old me never could have imagined while sitting in a room in Hill over an NCSSM extended weekend during the middle of my first build season with another student working late into the night on tapping 1/4-20 threads into 8020 frame parts.
The Zebracorn students today can’t recall how the 50% year over year turnover of the team’s students created the most uncertain and unsustainable team in NC for so many years. Most of them can’t recall a time before district events or even a time before the NC Regional. Some of them will never know a drivetrain other than swerve. They definitely don’t know what it was like to go 11 seasons without winning a blue banner or even 2 without winning a trophy.
When we started writing white papers, it wasn’t to teach others. It wasn’t even because of R14/R15. It was because we had to to survive. We were losing knowledge and ideas far too quickly. We keep writing them because we see the value in our own students as well as what they can do for other teams. We found the religion of sustainability because our roots weren’t planted in it and we’ve come to believe in it through shear determination.
My hope for the future is the team continues to champion the ideas of sustainability within FRC and that one day I’ll have students who no longer know what #BDIBS stands for or what a CAW is. In the meantime, you all should keep on being awesome and doing what you do best - wearing fashionably loud pants while knocking down walls (or scanning them with LiDAR) and blazing a path for others to follow.
Congratulations on the win this weekend.
#MentorBuilt #NotCryingJustSomethingInMyEye