Frc?

Anyone out there a mentor or competitor in an FRC team? I'm a mentor (won't say which team, obviously!) and can't wait for kickoff! My first year as a mentor. Getting kids involved in this stuff (especially the at-risk ones that I'm working with) is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life, but it sure is a lot of work!

 

Jan 5th, should be awesome! I'm a tad bit overwhelmed myself, never done this before. The good news is that we're just a second year team, so expectations aren't too high....yet

But I'm a fierce competitor by nature. I tried to convince some of my friends that this was a sport, and they kept on telling me why it wasn't and everything was just going in circles.

FIRST Choice this year had IR remotes and receivers, hmmm.....

 

Yeah, I'm gonna try to remain fairly hands-off if I can. But I suspect they're gonna need a lot of help. So my Saturdays for the next 6 weeks are shot!

As well as Friday afternoons at least. The good thing is that my job considers this to be PART of my job, so I don't have to do crazy stuff to get time off.

I also suspect our lead mentor (a guy with about 9 years of experience or so...) may be in the same boat as yours. My role (in my view) is to nurture and let them learn something new every time they come...

 

Geez, the organization and scheduling is where they need the most help!

On my work performance review, one thing that was mentioned as an area for improvement was organizational skills and task management. Compared to these kids, I could write a book on those topics! (and I suspect it's similar with most high school students).

And how I got work to buy into it was simple - external contribution to stuff like this is a core part of our culture. If only you knew who I worked for, you'd think it odd that's the case. But it is, and it's part of why I didn't get promoted this year - I wasn't doing enough in the "corporate citizenship" aspect of things.

Of course, next year that's going to change - I'm doing this, and now that I'm in the coming out process, I plan to be more involved (more than just attending events) with the LGBT network, etc. I suspect 2013 will be a banner year for me at work

 

Yep. already doing the breakup and stuff. Just had an offsite (over winter break) meeting today with the team, went really well. We did it at a library, which really isn't conducive to collaboration, but it worked somewhat well (and we got a lot done!)

One thing that I noticed though - in the game hints, the number 3 keeps on coming up (and Rick Astley was in one of them, so I take it we have to pick things up and put them somewhere), and the size of the drive train kit has been reduced this year. Do you think that means there are going to be 3 alliances on the field at once? That could get really interesting....

 

Nah, I wouldn't say that we have more than anyone else . I'm the jolly fat programmer (what language did you use BTW? We're using Java, which I have no experience in, but oh well...I can learn a new language quicker than kids can!)

We have a mechanical mentor, but some things are beyond his expertise, so we're sorta flying blind on some of this. I can just hope that the game is relatively simple for us.

Why can't you return to your previous school and help out? Go away for college?

 

I guess you're in upstate NY? Winters down here in the "real" part of the state (you know, where everyone actually lives!) aren't nearly as dreadful. We just get hurricanes from time to time (too soon? :/)!

 

Alrighty, so bring an old thread to life....

Ultimate Ascent is the game this year. Basically, you shoot frisbees at various levels of goals. The hard part is the end game, where you climb a pyramid. Given the shape of the pyramid (94" wide on each side at the base, with rungs every 30", at an angle of 68 degrees) it would be difficult to get inside of it (you'd need a robot less than 30" tall as not to run into the first rung). Outside, you wouldn't have the advantage of gripping on multiple surfaces. Hmmm.....

 

Well, to bring a REALLY old thread back, we're in a week 2 regional (the NYC regional) and we're not doing too well. PM me for the team number if you want it, but we've got a really complex robot that can fail in a variety of ways, and we've seen all of them.

Particularly when we get two discs in our shooter - we're done for the match if that happens Our climbing has been abysmal in competition, but works OK in practice (of course!). We've got 3 matches tomorrow, I think we've figured out our autonomous and can get 12 points (2 high goals) if we position the robot appropriately (where we need to be on the pyramid means we only get to pre-load 2 discs).

All in all, a most exciting (and exhausting!) 2 days!