Last Saturday, the symbolic starter pistol was fired at 10:30am sharp, starting the six-week clock for high school teams to build custom robots for 2019 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). [1,2,3]
For our own Team 5066, “Saline Singularity,” that meant the first day of work — all business. Along with providing a video overview of concept, field, and scoring, an access was opened to extensive resources page that includes a list of Mechanical Resources. [4,5,6,7]
Well before January 7 announcement time, mentors for our own two dozen or so gathered students had helped divide them into groups tasked with summarizing key sections of the 125-page Game Manual. Some of those considerations include understanding the arena, match play, and tournaments. Rules for safety; rules for conduct and the game itself, too — with rules that govern the behavior of humans, and rules that dictate what robots may and must not do. [8]
From those reports, beginning strategies are agreed upon to set priorities for best chances of success for advancement both in opposition and competition with other teams. Given restraints of both time and money, self-assessments must be made to prioritize certain approaches and sometimes even completely abandon other ways of putting points on the board.
Then the work begins.
Following, the early part of this week were “for idea generating and getting mock-ups made to see if the ideas work,” Saline Singularity mentor Ed Burgess told Saline Journal.
For me this is the most interesting part of bringing a team together. Nobody wants to be seen as having a bad idea, or offering up ideas on how to improve someone else’s idea, because it might be offensive. Then again, sometimes you get a clown that wants to add their input whether it is appropriate or not!
“Until the team members see that they will not be admonished for speaking up, the first meetings can be trying,” he admitted. “Once they gel as a team, they typically gravitate to a couple of ideas and start to make it happen.” Mr Burgess was quick to add that this sort of growth also applies to adult mentors.
Currently, Saline Singularity has exactly thirty students participating.
Lead mentor Brent Bendes has been involved in FIRST Robotics since 2000, when he was himself a youth LEGO League member. In addition to helping guide Singularity, he is part of the group that runs broader competitions in the field. [9]
“Thirty students tends to be the right size” he observed. “It’s not overwhelming, but everyone still has stuff to do. When you’re doing prototyping, which is where we are now in the process, you break down into groups. You don’t want more than seven people in a group.
“Much larger groups like Livonia, which is more established, has two hundred students. But the biggest part of that is on the business side; they do a lot on social media and with fundraising.”
As students get their feet wet and then start making serious progress in prototype development this week, Mr Bendes helped connect them to quick-start and social networking sites that he’s personally found useful. FIRST Updates Now includes content accessibly references as “Robot in Three Days.” The second, Chief Delphi, is a straightforward chat setup similar to what we used in the late 1970s — when nascent personal computers began to provide practical access to main frames for everyday individuals at remote locations. [10,11,12,13]
“The best way to advance is by points,” Brent Bendes concluded.
But each round partners you with two other teams, so it’s three blue teams against three red teams. And that changes along the way. Those are all chances for your team to prove that you’re in collaboration. Or in the pitt area, which is really tight space with teams next to each other. If you’re helpful, you can be ‘selected’ by a winning team to advance with them.
Follow Saline Singularity on Twitter @SingularityRobo for real-time updates. [15]
References
- “FIRST Robotics Competition Game & Season Info” FIRST Inspires.
- “2019 FIRST Robotics Competition: Destination: Deep Space Game Animation” FIRSTRoboticsCompetition (January 5, 2019) YouTube.
- “FIRST Robotics Competition 2019 season officially kicks off Saturday; here’s the background you need to follow it” Dell Deaton (January 3, 2019) Saline Journal.
- Saline Singularity Team 5066 (home page).
- “FIRST Robotics Competition Game & Season Info” FIRST Inspires.
- “Destination: Deep Space, Presented by Boeing” FIRST Inspires.
- “Resource Library: Mechanical Resources” FIRST Inspires.
- 2019 Game Manual – Destination: Deep Space, Presented by Boing, FIRST Inspires.
- “First LEGO League” FIRST Inspire.
- FUN: FIRST Updates Now (home page).
- Chief Delphi (home page).
- “The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems” Benj Edwards (November 4, 2017) The Atlantic.
- “Heathkit H89” (December 7, 2012) Vintage Computer.
- “Saline Singularity” Twitter.
