Now that build season is over for FIRST, is anyone else here on a robotics team?

Sorry but as I watched Austin Powers 3 just a couple of days ago, and you mentioned robots; I feel that this video needs posting in conjunction with it.

Although I currently am not on any formal robotics team (I expressed interest in one, but found that I couldn't make the meetings) I am competing in our State Science Olympiad with a partner in a "Sumobot" mobile robot competition.

I looked up FIRST, and it seems like an awesome robotics organization that I would participate in any day. Since you mention FIRST, have you participated in it? I'll wait for an answer before I ask a bunch of follow-up questions.

Yep; I'm currently a member of team 449.

Edited February 23, 201214 yr by cp702

1) What is it like at the site of FIRST?

2) How big was your build team?

3) I understand this competition to be pretty massive, and the video detailing the event says that there are three main competitions for it. Could you describe what your task was?

4) How is it like working with engineers on the robot with your team? Did it ever get stressful?

5) Lastly, I understand that FIRST is very prestigious, yet I've never heard of it until recently. Is it a competition that's well-known in certain regions, or is it just something my community has never participated in, and it is national/international?

Thanks for entertaining these questions!

1) What is it like at the site of FIRST?

2) How big was your build team?

3) I understand this competition to be pretty massive, and the video detailing the event says that there are three main competitions for it. Could you describe what your task was?

4) How is it like working with engineers on the robot with your team? Did it ever get stressful?

5) Lastly, I understand that FIRST is very prestigious, yet I've never heard of it until recently. Is it a competition that's well-known in certain regions, or is it just something my community has never participated in, and it is national/international?

Thanks for entertaining these questions!

1. The competition itself is generally in a convention center, with 2 areas. One part is bleachers and a field, set up sort of like a sports game. The other area is the "pit", where teams work on their robots and get them ready for games. In the bleachers, it tends to be pretty loud and excited; people are cheering on their and other teams, the announcer is talking, music is playing, etc. (and teams are scouting out other teams for later rounds). In the pit, it tends to be much quieter; people are focused on the robot, and have to work quickly. The pit is much friendlier, IMO; you're right next to the other teams, you are doing similar things, and you wind up talking to them without the noise of the field area.

Build happens at schools and machine shops, and is different for different teams. We do it at a tech ed room at our school, and it tends to be pretty hectic. Generally, our schedule is 3 PM-6 PM Mon-Fri, and 10 AM-6 PM Saturday and Sunday, with the end time pushed back as the end of build season nears. There is a TON of time commitment during those 6 weeks.

2. We had probably about 50-60 people on the team, of whom about 20-25 came regularly.

3. The 3 competitions are sort of like divisions. I've never done Lego League or Tech Challenge, but my understanding is that Lego League introduces young kids to robotics (elementary and middle school), and Tech Challenge is a more basic competition for high schoolers (smaller, simpler robots; easier programming; smaller teams; etc.) FRC is the "main" division, and it is full-scale, 5-foot-tall, 120 lb robots built from raw parts (meaning we don't have a specific kit we use; we machine most of the robot). I'm on an FRC team.

I am on the mechanical sub-team of my team, so I work on the actual construction and design. Our other main groups were electronics and programming. I was on a couple of projects: a ball shooter and a bridge tipper.

4. It's a great experience working with mentors. They have varying levels of involvement depending on the team, but ours tend to coach you through the work instead of doing it themselves (this is good - if they did it themselves, you wouldn't learn as much). They actually know what they're talking about, so they can teach good techniques for both designing and building. The mentors were pretty much never a source of stress, but were often good at defusing stress; the main stress came from time pressure and our robot not quite working and being overweight with 2 days to go.

5. FIRST is definitely nationwide. Because of the way regionals work, teams can go to any regional they want in the entire country (or even multiple regionals). There are a lot of teams from Canada, and a few from elsewhere, but it's mostly US (last year, there were 1,910 US teams, 80 Canadian ones, and only 85 from the rest of the world). My area does have a lot of teams, so it may be better known in some areas than others.

Any more questions/need clarification, just ask.