What are your off season/summer plans

[angelj]

what are some projects your team is working on in the off season/summer

[kingc95]

Goose robot kits for the team to learn about wiring, assembly and some basic programming in the fall. We were donated a series of Goose decoy shells. The students wanted to make them RC controllable as demo devices. The idea was really good but the initial execution was stalled last year. They were going in blind without one already done as a proof of concept. My plan is to get one done with good instructions and build kits. The new ones will use Bluetooth connection to an app on our scouting tablets

We got the idea from the Platinum Peacocks and their demo rc car/mascot.

I’m also working on a lot of content and guides for frcZero. My goal is to hopefully also have a good demonstration bot built out of my own parts and stock to use as needed. I have 90% of the parts I wanted for a full bare bones FRC robot. So once I get a RoboRio and a new IMU I’ll be ready to have my own bot at home finally.

Edit: some of this is team goals and some of us personal but definitely FRC related

[Technologyman00]

The current plan for 7900 is:

1. Recruitment
2. Training
3. Organization
4. 4th of July Parade
5. Swerve
6. Fundraising
7. More items that always get added later

[asha_forever]

1. We are currently starting our transition to swerve drive.

2. We are remodeling our team and workspace as we go through the change of more than half of our team graduating.

[Andrew_L]

Gonna go to Greece

[No767]

Going off to Japan!

[SammyPants]

for the team, making another robot, doing an offseason comp or two, going to the state fair, and training. (I think the mentors are also making a bot)

for me, the biggest thing will be going to the north cascades next month

[snoman]

County fair
FRC programming camp
Robotics college class
Heading to watch IRI
Gitchi Gummi Get-Together offseason
county fair
Fargo stem alliance offseason

[mathum]

For our programming team at least we’re working on a tank drive for learning to program. We use swerve as a team, but its a bit complicated to program for beginners, so were using tank just for the training. Additionally, we’re planning on working on auto align for our scoring and for substation pickup so we can speed up our arm movement. (We use the arm to help align, so it can’t move too fast right now.) We’re also looking at migrating to the Phoenix Pro API so we can make use of its paid features to improve motor output with FOC and improve odometery by synchronizing all the motors.

[arynnette]

getting sleep

[Origami]

Same

[GeeTwo]

I’m not with a team any more but the best off season/summer when I was with a team consisted of three major items that translate to any team, any year (except 2020/2021), and some minor items I’ll skip here.

• Iterate the robot and compete in off season events. We made major changes, but didn’t start over, either. We worked with what almost worked and ditched that which clearly didn’t. That offseason robot was the most competitive 3946 EVER fielded - and also one of the simplest. But we made it robust and practiced it so much I should use some *s. This happened to be 2018, and by the time summer was half over, our driver could not only shove nine tenths of the pyramid of power cubes into the exchange in just over half a match, he could build the pyramid from the human player station in about a match. Ok, not THAT neat, but definitely recognizable.
• Built a T-shirt launcher suitable not only for football games, but Mardi Gras parades (a big thing here where parades are defined by what and how much you throw!). We built it in the “bed” of a two seat gasoline powered golf cart. I can’t decide if I like this better than item #1 or not, because this was the no doubt the best recruitment ever, and #1 was the our competitive robot ever.
  And as a side effect, one evening A.C., our key electronics student, bled a tank of pressurized air as we were ready to leave and head back to the build space. He left an ice stalagmite on the field. Only an inch high, but ice created outside that early in the year at 30 degrees 12 minutes was epic. And yeah, his coloration is quite similar to Frozone [the character in the movie, not Samuel L Jackson] from the original Incredibles. That night, I photo-shopped his [rather distinctive] chin below a still of Frozone from the movie. I am not an accomplished photo-shopper, but this one was so easy that it was spot on. I posted it on our team slack. [I know now it could have gone so wrong, and I am embarrassed for society for that.] Fortunately, A.C. not only wasn’t offended, but made that image is avatar for several months.
• Did summer outreach like crazy. Went to every event we knew about hosted by feeder schools, plus public events and intentionally demoed for every major sponsor except NASA, for whom we did several of their outreach events.