Summary of Week 1

First of all: we survived, one way or another, the first week of 6 in the build season -- yay!

Despite the illnesses, we've made a lot of progress.  We:

• Have a working robot!  It moves...
• Talked to an FTC team to see how an FTC robot works, its capabilities, and its components.
• Got all of the electronics working with each other
  
• Finished the inventorying and ordered 1 replacement part
• Ordered our FIRST Choice order from AndyMark
• Placed an order for bumper fabric/new CIMS, and some new batteries from AndyMark 
  
• Total cost our team has spent so far for getting the Lair ready and parts:  Approx $1700
• Total hours worked the first week after build:  18ish
• Added another consulting mentor (Justin:  Labview)
• Figured out our top strategies:
  

1. robot mechanism to move robot around
2. robot mechanism to put tubes on pegs (either single post or claw)
   
3. automation first 15 seconds
4. mini-bot

We also went from everyone brainstorming together to having 4 defined teams for this week:

Electronics/Programming:  Goal:  Get all sensors working and be able to read them and control them with Labview

Scott:  Elise, Zak, Christian, Kevin

CAD/Arm Design:  Goal:  Design the arm so we can order any extra motors by early this week and rest of design by the end of the week

Doug:  Josh, Clark, Keegan, Carl

Chassis/Drive Train:  Goal:  Decide on wheels/gearbox, talk about other areas of the chassis, build bumpers, mini-bot deployment?

Danny:  Fred, Megan, Robby, Ben

I think right now our limitations are:  no laptop with Labview working and waiting on the arm design. 

Week -1 Prior to Build

Lots of work here getting ready.  I was already putting in 20+ hours/week.  This week turned to 30.

Many logistics with the Quick Build for rookies, having medical release forms, tools, subgroups, mentors at the right places, consent and release forms filled out online, etc.

Also brought in several non-parent mentors during that week.  Each mentor came in with some great ideas but then we needed to introduce them to the team, current mentors, and total lack of experience (& age factor) of our students.  Many ideas will be great for next year.  This year, we just need to see how it goes.  Most of the new mentors will be part time so the challenge is how to keep everyone updated on what gets done if they can't be at the build.

With a week to go, I'm finding that what we're needing this first year is a project manager.  Someone to oversee the build, specifically.  My time is going to be spent continuing to talk to sponsors, making sure everyone's on the same page, finding resources we need (like space for a game field!), and making sure all the tools are available for everyone to do their jobs well, and watching all those deadlines.

PreSeason

What a lot we got accomplished as rookies pre-season.  We had so many things going for us that other rookie teams don't have the luxury of having.

We had been through the FIRST experience, with students from 2 experienced FLL teams to a group of students who had been involved in NC's first-ever FRC Regional as volunteers over the full 3 1/2 days from initial set up of the field to tear down at the end. 

By May, we had a core group of invested families who were willing to get this off the ground -- 8 students who were gung-ho about Dean Kamen's vision about FRC and FIRST ("the robot's the vehicle") and parents with at least one parent in each family committed to forming the team and the other parents committed to helping by supporting the siblings/family from behind the scenes.

By September, the students had decided on a name, partially built a chassis with the help of nearby Team #3229 Hawktimus Prime, attended 2 outreach events on behalf of FIRST (Credit Suisse and an Open House at RTP), gotten an overview of Labview programming, got our non-profit underway with bylaws and Articles of Incorporation, and outlined more about what we wanted our team's culture and values should be.  We also did extensive volunteering for some local Jr FLL and FLL classes.

In October, we completed our team handbook (a huge task of defining roles and expectations), held an Open House to give potential new families an overview of what the team was about, the wonders of FIRST, the realities of FIRST and how Team PyroTech fit into it all.  We also attended NC FIRST Robotics' all day workshop to learn as much as we could about different aspects of the build season.

November continued our search for a build space.  We met with ITT and met with great enthusiasm but no money and no workable space.  We called landlords, talked with the local community college, thought we had something that worked with a local retirement center until we saw all the fragile pottery that was being made in the potential workspace, learned some basic electronics and volunteered at 2 different FLL events as refs and YAMs.

The students had a quicker start through December with the mentors' having more logistical work at the end.  We had a 2-session game strategy workshop, watching the animation from 2006's AIM HIGH, playing the human game, and each person designing a prototype.  We also presented about FIRST at the Tech Shop at RDU and toured around there.  One person offered to teach us all how to use the laser cutter so we could create team projects to sell as fund raisers.  The end of December was spent adding to mentors, finalizing our build space (a workshop with a 3 minute walk to a townhouse that we've transformed into a great work space).