Sunday, January 15, 2012

Build Day 9: Rookie Build Day

Rookie Build Day
The first Sunday of the build season, we take a break from working on our robot to help other teams. We're also normally about to the point where we are waiting on parts so it works out really well. FRC Team#57 The Leopards  and #3103 Iron Plaid host a rookie build day that gives rookie teams a chance to get help from local veterans. The goal of the rookie build days is to get rookie teams as close to a driving chassis as possible. FRC has a pretty steep learning curve and this is a great way to try to make it a little more gradual. We work on setting up the kit bot chassis and electrical systems and teaching some of the basic concepts that allow the teams to continue construction themselves.

One of the best parts of the rookie build day, is getting to know the new members of our community. These teams will hopefully be around for a while and this is our 1st opportunity to work with them. The rookie teams also get contact information from the veterans so that they know that they have avenues for help.

Today's build was pretty successful, I  believe we got all of the teams setup with a chassis, drive train and a fully connected electrical panel. We weren't able to do as much with the control system as I would have liked, such as configuring radios but that's something to remember for next year.

Spectrum's Next Step
This week we are going to get through as much of the robot construction as we can. The goal will be to have the chassis and drive train constructed and to have a working collector. We need to keep working on the shooter prototype until we can do this.

- Allen Gregory

"Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment" - Fred Brooks

2 comments:

  1. The discobots have a metal bump for Spectrum. And yes, we are reading your blog !

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  2. Awesome, thanks Andy. We'll get it from you soon, we keep ripping up our wooden one during test drives.

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