There is life after Robot Ship day

Good Afternoon Teams,

I want to welcome the International teams and encourage you to welcome them too.  Check the list below for the number of teams from each country.

1 Australia – look for them at BAE Granite State
1 Bosnia – look for them at Israel
1 Chile – look for them at Los Angeles
1 Germany – look for them in Las Vegas
1 Netherlands – look for them at Las Vegas
2 Great Britain – look for them at NYC and Boston
3 Mexico – look for them at Dallas and Arizona
3 Turkey – look for them at Israel, Microsoft Seattle and Midwest
5 Brazil – look for them at North Carolina, Palmetto, NYC, Boston, NU Connecticut and New Jersey.
54 Israel – all are attending the Israel Regional
65 Canada – look for them everywhere

We’ve received 5 submissions for the Dean’s List award since the site opened yesterday.  There will be 10 winners at Championship which makes pretty good odds for the students who have been nominated so far.  Get your submissions in soon.  The website closes this Friday at 4:30 ET.

Here’s the list of spare parts available at regional events.   New this year, mentors must complete a form before they may borrow a part.  If the part doesn’t make it back to the spare parts booth by the end of the event, don’t worry, we’ll bill you.

Are you wondering how Michigan (MI) teams will advance from District events to the MI State Championship and on to the FIRST Championship? At each of the seven MI District events, teams winning the Chairman’s Award, the Engineering Inspiration Award and the Rookie All Star Award plus the teams on the winning alliance will all earn a berth at the MI State Championship.  The balance of the 64 MI State Championship spots will be filled according to the Michigan point system.

18 slots at the FIRST Championship have been allocated for teams advancing from the MI State Championship (to compensate for the 3 Regional Events Michigan held annually before adopting the District program).  3 Chairman’s Award winning teams, 2 Rookie All Star teams, 1 Engineering Inspiration team and the 3 winners of the MI State Championship will all earn berths at the FIRST Championship.  The remaining 9 slots will be filled according to the Michigan point system.

There will be a change to the FIRST website soon. Here’s a link to a mock up of what the new pledge button will look like.  Have you considered who you’ll encourage to come see your events this year? 

And there’s a new search feature for the FRC Competition Manual that searches the entire PDF.  It’s been added toward the top of the page here http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=452

8 days to the Week One Events
See you then!

Lessons Learned, A New Award and an Early Team Update

Good Afternoon Teams,

I hope everyone’s week zero events went well.  Thank you to all the teams who sent in details on their practice scrimmages.  It was a big help to have a list of events where key volunteers could see this year’s game in action before Week One comes around.

I attend the Suffield Shakedown and have a few suggestions for teams everywhere:

• Charge your classmates early and often. You don’t want your classmate to run out of power while your robot is on the field.  (Really, it happened.)
• Update your Driver Station software now to save time and aggravation at your first event.  Teams must have the latest software update to compete.
• Practice your ball return technique and read the delay of game algorithm.  If you don’t get the ball back into play soon enough, the point scored with that ball will be nullified. (This also happened.  A  lot.)
• Check your bumpers.  This year, teams must have a system in place to change their bumper colors from blue to red and back again during competition. 

Dean has instituted a new award.  Details on the FIRST Dean’s List for FRC student team members can be found here. Check it out soon, submissions open tomorrow and close this Friday.

Tomorrows Team Update will include the following: Rule , as amended in Team Update #11, permits the TEAM to utilize a 65 pound WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE. The choice of which FABRICATED PARTS of the ROBOT are included in the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE is entirely up to the TEAM.

Please note that a ROBOT is an assembly of FABRICATED and COTS parts. Teams attending traditional events may not bring fully assembled ROBOTS to the competition. Teams attending bag & tag events may not bring a fully assembled ROBOT that has not been bagged. For both traditional and bag & tag events, teams may bring up to 65lbs of FABRICATED parts for use on the ROBOT, even if their ROBOT weighs less than 65lbs.

Heads up.  Weights will be spot checked at the event.

Tomorrow is Robot Ship Day
See you then!

And we’re off.

Good Morning Teams,

I’m excited to say, robot shipments have started.  A few teams are far enough ahead of the curve that their robots are already on their way to week one events.  How do I know?  I was contacted by FedEx.  We also have our first overweight robot crate and it’s not just a little over weight, it’s almost 600lb over the limit.  If I didn’t make it clear before, please understand the 400lb limit is the TOTAL weight of the crate and all the contents.  If a team ships a crate weighing 1000lb, they use up 2 ½ times their share of the total FedEx donation which will cost all FRC teams in the long run.  The FedEx donation is generous, but its not unlimited.

Please weigh your crate and adjust your shipment as necessary.  If your scale can’t handle 400+lb, weigh the individual components then add them together to find the total weight.  You can save your team and FRC some big bucks.

5 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Deadlines are looming

Good Morning Teams,

Have you called FedEx yet?  Robot Ship day is less than a week away.  Now’s the time to arrange pick up or to confirm drop off to ensure Tuesday the 23rd will go smoothly.  If you plan to bag and tag your robot, now’s a good time to make sure you know where your bag and tag (and the lock up form) are.

Have you downloaded the latest Driver Station, cRIO and Jaguar Firmware software updates?  You need the most recent software versions to compete.

The awards website closes tomorrow.  Have you submitted your CA, WFA and website for judging?

Worried about Robot Inspection?  Our Lead Robot Inspector Trainers gave me a list of the top five reasons they expect teams to fail inspection this year.  So RT(FRC)M and double check your robot before you get to the inspection station.

1. Weight
2. Size – remember to check the frame perimeter
3. Bumper Configuration – don’t forget you need to have your team number (and only your team number) on your bumpers and you must have a way to change bumper colors from blue to red and back again.   
4. Minimum Wire Sizes
5. Appropriately sized Circuit Breakers

Do you know a student who has done something remarkable to address the Grand Challenges our world faces?  http://www.grandchallengestories.org/

6 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!

Changes to Robot Ship this year and updates to LabVIEW and the Driver Station

Good Afternoon Teams,

Over the last week, I received several requests to extend the FRC build season due to the unprecedented snow in the mid Atlantic region.  I had to take a number of items into consideration as I looked for a way to accommodate those requests.

Robot Ship Date is set every year well in advance so that FedEx, UPS and the drayage companies may all make special arrangements for the unusual volume of activity FRC creates on a single day in February.  Moving Robot Ship date back has repercussions that may hamper on-time delivery of robots to week one events and are expected to increase costs.  Plus there is the challenge of finding a fair and equitable way of determining which teams were affected by the snow and which were not.

After discussions with the Game Design Committee I decided that, although Robot Ship Day must remain February 23rd, this year, all FRC teams will be allowed to hold back 65 pounds of their robot’s weight on Robot Ship Day.  (That’s roughly half of the total weight of an FRC robot.)  Teams may continue to work on the items they hold back and then hand deliver the items to their event.   Watch for a team update coming soon.

As you pack your robot for shipment, please keep in mind the 2010 shipping overage rules mentioned in my December 15th blog and outlined in Section 4.4.2.3 of the Game Manual.  If your crate exceeds 400 pounds (a possibility if you send a full crate to the event, then add the 65 pounds of items you hand carried in before you ship it home or to your next event) the drayage company will charge your team an overage fee for their portion of the pickup or delivery plus FedEx will bill the extra cost of shipping your overweight crate to the FedEx donation thereby affecting all FRC teams.    Please pack carefully.

FRC LabVIEW Update 2.1 for 2010   This is needed by all teams, since it also updates the cRIO image. 

Driver Station Update 1.1 for 2010   Install this update on your classmate.

Fixed and Known Issues updates

8 Days until Robot Ship
See you there!

Did you miss me last week?

Good Afternoon Teams,

Whether or not the weather cooperates, robots must be shipped (or bagged and tagged) on Robot Ship day.  Heads up, February 23rd is coming soon.

February 18th is the deadline to submit for the Chairman’s Award, the Woodie Flowers award and the Website Award.  Now might be a good time to make sure someone from your team is on top of this.

FRC teams may nominate a mentor for the Woodie Flowers Award at one Regional Event (Michigan teams indicate which district event they want their mentor’s name read at, then their mentor is nominated for the Michigan State Regional whether their team is attending the State Regional or not).  AND FRC teams may nominate one mentor who has already won the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award to be re-considered at the Championship.  Right now the Awards system won’t let you do both, but a solution is in the works.  If you want to nominate two mentors (one at a Regional and one at Championship) keep an eye out for an email blast coming in the near future.

Be sure to download the latest Java and C/C++ updates.  My thanks to WPI, Sun Microsystems and the volunteers who made these possible.

And while I’m thanking volunteers, have you noticed the green shirted people walking around at FRC events asking questions and handing out safety tokens?  They are thanks to Underwriters Laboratories who partner with FRC to promote safety throughout all aspects of the FRC season.

Are you about to graduate with an Engineering degree or are you an engineer looking for summer employment?  We hope to have two entry level positions in FRC by July with a potential for permanent employment if all goes well.  We need an ME, EE or Robotics Engineer to help with Kit of Parts and we need a Software Engineer with proficiency in LabVIEW or C++ to assist with scoring and the field management system.  FRC experience as a team member or mentor is a plus. Contact HR@usfirst.org for more details or to submit your resume.

Calling all college/university organizations related to FIRST, FRC would like to connect you with a group at Purdue who are planning a training at Championship on how to prepare student members to be mentors.  They want to hear what you’re doing.  Contact nrosenberg@usfirst.org to get connected.

When your team is ready to start thinking about Championship, be sure to visit this link. www.atlanta.net/first

Real robots not enough anymore?  You need to check out 5th Gear, the 6-player, 3D Breakaway match simulator from FIRST, Lockheed Martin and WPI.  Discussions are already underway here.

13 days until Robot Ship Day
See you there!