Another Saturday, another week gone in the 6 week build season. Week 2 has yielded a driving base and much of the top of the robot for the Flying Platypi. The climbing mechanism was also tested this week and our programmers made great headway on robot code.
The scouting team has been working on learning how to use some industry data analysis tools in order to find trends in other robot performance and strategy. One of our students on the programming team came up with an app to be used by students in the stands to record data on teams as they compete in their matches. We want to find out what they can and can't do, and what they can do well. This is a critical task at many levels of the competition, since good solid scouting data will translate to smart alliance picks should we wind up being an alliance captain in the elimination round. Good alliance picks and solid data can make or break an alliance, especially in a state like North Carolina where the robot capability is typically very closely matched and difficult to accurately distinguish the strongest teams from the weaker ones. The team did a lot of work on creating sample visualizations of data that we will later use once we begin collecting data during the Week 0 event live stream to test our solution. You can check out some of the visualizations our students created this weekend here: https://public.tableau.com/profile/frc.team.2655#!/
I also took an opportunity to talk to Susan Miller, whom is the head of our Awards and Marketing team.
KC: How did you get involved with FIRST?
SM: I got involved with FIRST when one of my mom's friends told me about the Flying Platypi. I decided to go to one meeting just to see what the program was all about. After that first6 meeting I was hooked, and I've been part of the team ever since!
KC: What is your favorite part about being a FIRST Student?
SM: I think that my favorite part about robots is learning something new every day and getting to meet new people. During build season and throughout the year I have the opportunity to learn new things about the robot, STEM, and FIRST. I also get to meet lots of new people. Whether it is a professional engineer, a student from another FRC team, or a little kid asking questions about our robot, I absolutely love talking to everyone and hearing about their experiences with STEM an sharing what I do on Team 2655.
KC: What is awards aiming to get done next week?
SM: We are shooting to have a finished Chairman's essay and finishing the questions for it. We also have plans to begin working on our Chairman's video. We are nearing completion of our outreach notebook, which showcases all of the community work our team has done. We will also start working on our Engineering Inspiration notebook now that we've completed gathering information and pictures from the many demos we have done this year.
KC: Where is the team at this week?
SM: We have a lot of progress done this week. Programming finished creating the dashboard for drivers to use to monitor key features of the robot during the match. They've implemented teleop driving code as well. Scouting team is working hard on a cool new scouting app and has committed countless hours researching rising strategies for this year's game to help keep us on track for what is important and what is not in case strategies begin to shift. The awards team has been focused on our Chairman's essay and Outreach Notebook.
Where is your team at? Are you excited for competition? Have a burning question you want me to ask a student next week? Join the conversation in the comments below!
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This blog post is part of a series about the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition season, FIRST Steamworks. We'll have weekly updates during build season from ADI FRC Team 2665 Flying Platypi, and updates from many of our ADI teams performances during the competition season. Stay tuned until the end for coverage of BOTH Championships in Houston, TX and St. Louis, MO in April!
