A lesson learned

Good Afternoon Teams,

First the lesson: It is a good practice to inspect your robot batteries for damage at the end of the season and a good idea to monitor your batteries throughout the off season.  Batteries need to be stored and/or charged in a well-ventilated area away from sparks, open flame and direct sunlight.  Persons handling batteries are to wear safety glasses (preferably non-vented goggles) and acid resistant gloves. If you use metal tools on the battery, remove metal jewelry such as rings and bracelets first. Have an eye wash station nearby and have supplies on hand to clean up in the event of a spill. The batteries are factory sealed.  Do not attempt to open or “service” recycle any battery that will not hold a charge.

Then the reason I mention this now:  Last week the occupants of 200 Bedford Street were greeted by a really unpleasant odor when we arrived at work one morning.  It took us a while to track it down, (we’ve had some work done recently on the AC which turned out to be a red herring), but we found a swollen 2008 robot battery plugged into a charger on the game floor.  We always have a few batteries charging.  We use them when we’re trying out GDC game ideas, when we prototype robots, and when we’re working on the FMS and scoring systems.  No one was hurt, nothing was damaged and we had the air quality in the building tested.   The battery has been retired with thanks for its long service.  We’ve updated our battery process and procedures and thought now was a good time to remind teams to do the same.

Now the news:  The Team Information Management System (TIMS) opens for FRC teams tomorrow with two noticeable changes.  1) Every user in TIMS must have a unique email address and 2) team members must be invited by the Main or Alternate Contact.  Why?  IT worked hard this summer to streamline the data collection systems and to clean out the old, inaccurate data we have already collected.  Specifically:

1) We need each user in TIMS to have a separate, unique email address because sometimes we want to contact just one person on a team, not everyone who is looking at a joint email account. Also, when we need to reach a team in a hurry (a space has opened up at the event where you are on the waiting list, do you still want to go? Or Dean is holding a press conference in your area, can your team bring a robot?), if the whole team has only one contact email, we don’t have a back-up email to try when the main contact doesn’t respond.  Finally, some of you have experienced ‘lock-out’ when you try to use online FRC systems because you have more than one FRC account.  If there is only one person associated with each email address, that is a lot less likely to happen.  So in short, we’re looking for better accuracy – each real person has an individual account; better security – no one can go in using your shared email and alter your data; and better (cleaner) data – which will help the systems run more smoothly.

2) Requiring team members to be invited by the Main or Alternate Contact solves two problems.  No one can be associated with your team if the Main or Alternate Contact doesn’t know them.  And new this year, even if the Main and Alternate Contact know you, they can’t put you into the system without your permission.  They invite you, then you either accept or decline to participate in TIMS. 

A brief word about Main and Alternate Contacts:  From FRC’s point of view, the Main and Alternate Contacts are our primary communication link with teams.   Main and Alternate contacts receive regular emails that we expect them to share with all team members.  We send them questions to answer on behalf of your team, they are the gatekeepers for team information and they sign your team up for events.   We want teams to give the title Main Contact to the adult on your team who is the best communicator.  If you have someone who is the best mentor, or the most valuable resource, or the person you most want to honor for their participation, please feel free to create your own title for them (Supreme Commander is always good), but assign the job of Main Contact to the adult who is most likely to check their email and forward information to everyone who needs to know what FRC sent your team.

If you need to replace your team’s Main Contact this year and they are not around to do it themselves, call or Email FRCTeams@usfirst.org 1-800-871-8326 x0. They’ll be happy to help.  We want teams to receive every bit of information we send them.

In other news:
Greatnonprofits.org  is running a science and technology competition to find the best science and tech nonprofits and FIRST is signed up to ‘accept reviews’.   We’d love it if teams shared their stories.  The deadline is August 31st.

The GDC is due to arrive in three days.  Engineering has prototyped a few robots to ensure the latest game ideas are achievable.  It should be a very interesting weekend.

136 days to Kickoff
See you then!