FRC 2010: FIRST Robotics Kickoff - Join the Robotics Revolution!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chi Meson
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Robotics
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the 2010 FIRST Robotics Kickoff event, focusing on the new game and the experiences of participants as they prepare for the upcoming build season. Topics include team dynamics, programming challenges, and the overall experience of participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express excitement about the new game and the challenges it presents, including the use of soccer balls and field bumps.
  • Several coaches share their experiences and expectations for the build season, emphasizing the time commitment and learning opportunities for both students and mentors.
  • Participants discuss the importance of keeping a photo record for presentations and fundraising, as well as the evolving dynamics of team participation over the years.
  • Some participants reflect on past experiences with technical issues, such as faulty power switches and design challenges that affected scoring.
  • There are mentions of team sizes and the roles of mentors, with some emphasizing the need for diverse skills among team members.
  • One participant shares a specific technical challenge they faced with a pneumatic kicker design and their decision to switch to a mechanical reset.
  • Others express nostalgia for their past involvement in FIRST and the impact it had on their education and career paths.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally share a common enthusiasm for the competition and the challenges it presents, but there are varying perspectives on specific technical approaches and team dynamics. No consensus is reached on the best strategies or designs, reflecting a range of experiences and opinions.

Contextual Notes

Some discussions highlight the importance of mentorship and scheduling, while others note the challenges of team dynamics and technical problem-solving. Specific technical details and assumptions about designs are not fully resolved.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be useful for current and prospective FIRST Robotics participants, mentors, and educators interested in team dynamics, technical challenges, and the overall experience of participating in robotics competitions.

  • #31
The Beast is in the Box!

The robots are all in their crates now. Tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb 23) is ship day.

Then we have to wait five weeks for our first competition.

And the robot was never fully working yet!

Luckily they allowed 65 pounds of the robot to be "withheld" from the shipping crate, and that's half of the robot!

So we are going to be finishing our lifting device over the interim.

Now for some sleep.
 
Engineering news on Phys.org
  • #32
Chi Meson said:
And the robot was never fully working yet!
So? That's standard for the robotics competitions I've gone to. Back when I did FIRST (team 1155), almost everybody was working on their robot between rounds. Even when I got to college and did IGVC, there were teams asking around for motors and we were working on our bot in the hotel room. (Crashed that bot into a car in the parking lot during testing.)
 
  • #33
I'm curious: what did you do for autonomous? Because of how things turned out, I was the only person coding autonomous and everything related to it. I wrote out the code in full yesterday and scrambled through today to debug it, working through two spares, the lunch period, a class that the teacher allowed me to skip, and two hours in the evening. I didn't finish; the robot could find a ball and kick it in the right direction given good lighting conditions, but there were still major problems. I was rather disappointed, to be honest.
 
  • #34
ideasrule said:
the robot could find a ball and kick it in the right direction given good lighting conditions, but there were still major problems.
That sounds really really good for high school level autonomous programming (hell for college level), especially considering you only spent two days on it. Don't beat yourself up over it.
 
  • #35
Autonomous mode: we are planning to have the robot sit still for 15 seconds and stay out of the way. heh heh.
 
  • #36
Yep, robot has been shipped. Wheww, now for the regional.

We also shipped with a questionable lift arm, however, we are extremely proud of our kicker. the same concept as Chi's but I had them place a potentiometer encoder on the kicker Axel. Using the joystick we can dial up the strength of our kick, we can boot into zone 1 from zone 3 or putt it into the goal from zone 1.

Being new to the team I believed that our self proclaimed cracker jack programmer was actually a cracker jack programmer. I have come to doubt that now. It seems that he has no idea how to trouble shoot his code. When he runs into a problem he throws up his hands, claims he can't fix it. Logs on to Chief Delphi and spends the next 2 hrs looking for answers. It is not clear that we have vision capabilities or a working autonomous mode.

Good luck to all!
 
  • #38
Integral said:
We also shipped with a questionable lift arm, however, we are extremely proud of our kicker. the same concept as Chi's but I had them place a potentiometer encoder on the kicker Axel. Using the joystick we can dial up the strength of our kick, we can boot into zone 1 from zone 3 or putt it into the goal from zone 1.

I have to say that that's extremely good, in terms of accuracy, adjustability, and distance. Our kicker can kick over one and a half zones, and has only two modes, high kick and low kick.

Being new to the team I believed that our self proclaimed cracker jack programmer was actually a cracker jack programmer. I have come to doubt that now. It seems that he has no idea how to trouble shoot his code. When he runs into a problem he throws up his hands, claims he can't fix it. Logs on to Chief Delphi and spends the next 2 hrs looking for answers. It is not clear that we have vision capabilities or a working autonomous mode.

What kind of problems does he go on Chief Delphi for? If they're related to the camera, I wouldn't blame him. I spent a week with another programmer trying to get a live feed on the dashboard. When we finally got something, the feed had a five-second lag. We managed to reduce it to 0.5 seconds, using the most counterintuitive method possible: setting the camera to its best settings. We asked on Chief Delphi two times about how to further reduce lag and, after another week, somebody finally discovered that one graph on the dashboard which didn't do anything was causing all the lag. Removing the graph got rid of all detectable lag.
 
  • #39
Hey,

My project for the "interim period" is to build a kickass robo-cart. Does anyone have any good input on things to put in, things to avoid? Got pictures of your cart?
 

Similar threads

Who else is involved in the First Robotics Competition?
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
5K
FIRST Robotics Redux | Semifinals, Double Elimination, Last 2
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
Engineering I’m having second thoughts about my job position. How can I proceed with it?
  • · Replies 13 ·
Replies
13
Views
6K
Can I get into MIT, cal Berkeley or Stanford?
  • · Replies 29 ·
Replies
29
Views
21K
Physics Dejected question about physics future
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
4K
Countdown to Doom Release: Revisit the Original and Celebrate with Easter Eggs
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
5K
The Education of a Physicist (1965)
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
4K
Current and Future AI Threats to Humanity and the Human Response
  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
5K
Chemistry 35yo combustion chemistry PhD, free time and still no plan
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
3K
Statement of Purpose for us physics grad
  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
10K