Are you planning a Pre-Robot Ship Scrimmage?

Good Afternoon Teams,

As we get closer to Robot Ship day, I want to know if any of you are planning pre-robot ship scrimmages. Every year, I attend the Suffield Shakedown in CT where teams gather on the last Saturday before robot ship to test their robots in head to head competition on a full sized field. This is a great opportunity to see the game played for real and is a big help to teams, volunteers and staff as we all get an idea of what to expect during week one competition. If you’re holding a scrimmage, please, email me at FRCteams@usfirst.org to let me know when and where. Also tell me if I can include your event in the community events list on the FIRST website. Even if you don’t want me to tell anyone about it, I’d like to know if you’re holding a practice scrimmage.

If your team is thinking of going for the 3 point challenge of suspending a robot, Woodie asked me to remind you that the FRC forums are a great place for teams to discuss standardization of robot lift methods.

The 2010 FRC Manual is available as a single, searchable download, right. Go here http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=452 to open the file. As team updates are posted here http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=450 the updates will be made to this manual.

27 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

We want to know more about what makes FRC student members tick

Good Afternoon Teams,

WPI is conducting a survey in cooperation with FIRST to help us learn more about FRC student participants.  You can help us out by visiting http://users.wpi.edu/~skorinko/FIRST/ and taking the survey.  It’s completely confidential, it should only take about 20 minutes and the information collected as a whole, will help us better understand what makes FRC student members tick.

29 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Are your award submissions ready?

Good Morning Teams,

The Award Submission section of the Student Team Members website is now live.

Here’s how it works:

1. The student(s) who will submit the awards for your team must create an account in STMPLGIS  If you’ve already signed the Consent & Release form on line, you’re all set.  If you don’t want to sign that form online, that’s ok.  You can create a student award submission account in STMPLGIS with just your team number, name, email address and a phone number.
2. The team Main or Alternate contact logs into TIMS to assign the student(s) who will submit the awards for your team.  
3. The student(s) who will submit the awards for your team logs back into STMPLGIS where they will then have access to the award submission section.
   

I know it looks like a lot of steps, but the new Award Submission system is designed to prevent a number of problems teams (and judges) had in the past.  It verifies the person submitting the award really is from your team, it allows teams to edit the submission right up until the deadline and behind the scenes, it will make the volunteer judges’ lives a lot easier.   More details can be found here

33 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

And still more updates

Good Morning Teams,

I want to thank the Kickoff Coordinators who made 57 local Kickoffs possible this year.  These volunteers find a place to hold the kickoff (not an easy thing to do), they organize everything that happens at the event, (broadcast screening, field element construction, workshop preparation, food delivery, speaker support, kit distribution, etc.), they accept shipment of the kit of parts (which comes from a bunch of different places at a bunch of different times) and once you leave the building with your kit, they have to ship all sorts of paperwork back to FIRST.  My personal thanks to the heroes who made the kickoffs happen this year.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

Oh, and if you’ve indicated in TIMS that you’re missing something that should have been handed out at kickoff, but wasn’t.  It’s coming.  Right now the Kickoff Coordinators and our Kit of Parts Engineer are tracking down the shipments that didn’t arrive at the Kickoffs in time, they’re routing them back to Manchester, NH and we’re packaging up the contents to send to teams.

If you didn’t attend a Robot Quick Build Session at your local Kickoff, but are curious about what happened there, the training materials are now available on our website here

Field drawings are available on our website here. We’ve made a few changes to these drawings :
GE-10027 – Tower, Assembly
GE-10029 -  Side, Tower
GE-10030 – Base, Tower
GE-10061 – Goal Assembly
GE-10062 – Chain Assembly

And added two drawings:
GE-10065 – Insert Tower
GE-10066 – Hanger, Chain

Don’t worry, the changes shouldn’t affect how the game is played, they mostly just make the elements more robust.

40 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Team updates and what to do if you have a question

Good Morning Teams,

Team Update #1 was posted yesterday. Be sure to check it out. Every year we create a new game, and every year, thanks to the questions asked by teams, the game manual evolves during build season.   Updates  are posted every Tuesday and Friday, so check this page often

If you have a question about the game, the game manual or the 2010 FRC season let us know at http://forums.usfirst.org  (live as of noon ET today).  The GDC regularly reviews and answers questions on this forum.  There might be a small delay before an answer is posted, or if you asked a question someone else already asked, you might be directed to an already existing answer, but you will get a response.  Keep in mind, the Q&A system is for questions about rules.  The GDC will not review your specific robot design.

New this year, the FRC forum includes a Competition Discussion area where teams can exchange posts on everything from game strategy to Gracious Professionalism.  There is even a ‘Standardization’ section teams may use for such things as coming up with consistent ways for robots to hang from or lift each other in this year’s game.  I look forward to seeing your ideas.

41 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Important updates

Good Afternoon Teams,

Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 13th at 11:59pm is the deadline for teams to indicate in TIMS if they are missing anything from their Kit of Parts.  If you haven’t done it yet, download the kit of parts checklist check your kit and let us know if you need a replacement part.

Today is supposed to be opening day for teams to submit for the Chairman’s Award, the Woodie Flowers award and the Website award.  I say supposed to, because it won’t be.  We’re building a new system for award submission and it’s not quite ready yet.  Watch this space.  I’ll let you know when the system goes live.  In the mean time, you now have time to go over your award submissions one last time before you have to hand them in.

FRCMastery.com went live at kickoff.  Check it out.  There are free Video Tip Jar lessons on programming your robot in LabVIEW.

Also, we’re official!  The FRC Logo is now copyrighted.  Don’t worry; teams are still welcome to use it on their websites, documents, t-shirts, robots, etc. In fact, we encourage you to use the logo to promote FRC.  The graphics and logo standards are available here.

42 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

My Sympathies to the family and team

Good Afternoon Teams,

I imagine by now many of you already know about the bus accident that happened in Connecticut on Saturday.  It is with deep sadness, that I tell you, members of Team 3125, Pirates of the Pythagorean, from the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science were traveling to the Farmington, CT Kickoff when their bus collided with another vehicle on Interstate 84 in Hartford CT. One FIRST student died and 17 other members of the team were injured.  Most of the students were released from the hospital over the weekend and I wish them a speedy recovery.

Paul Gudonis, President of FIRST traveled to Connecticut to share our condolences with representatives of the High School.  He will be returning for the funeral service of Vikas Parikh on Tuesday, January 12, 10 a.m. at Carmon Windsor Funeral Home, 807 Bloomfield Ave., Windsor, CT.

If you wish, you can make an online condolence at www.carmonfuneralhome.com

43 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Got any plans for Saturday?

Good Morning Teams,

If you’re attending a kickoff, consider bringing a dolly or hand truck with you to make kit of part pick up easier on your back.  Also, heads up.  While you are picking up the kit this year, you will be asked to open a security tag on one of the plastic totes and confirm the classmate computer is inside.  I suggest you bring your own clippers or wire cutters.  This process might slow down the line, so please be patient.  We want to make sure everyone goes home with everything they need.

The encrypted chapters are now available here http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=452

Did you know planning for the 2010 game started at a meeting of the GDC the afternoon of the 2009 kickoff?  It’s true.  And while you’re brainstorming robot designs after kickoff this Saturday, the GDC will be discussing the 2011 season.   My thanks to all of them for their hard work to create this year’s game.  It’s your future.

Did any of you notice that I wore the 2009 Championship Alliance Captain hat during the Kickoff last year? 

Oh and there might be a good reason to monitor the  FRC landing page of the usfirst.org website today…

3 days until the 2010 Kickoff
See you there!