On Tuesday, the coaches and some mentors met with the parents of students interested in transitioning from the club to the team. We had over 15 families in attendance. We bought pizza and soda for dinner. The head coach prepared some slides about FIRST, what our typical Build Schedule is and what kind of support we need from parents. We distributed copies of our team's Handbook which we worked on since the spring. There were only a few parents who asked questions. A few offered their help with food, rides and such. Overall, I think the meeting went well. The goal of the is for the parents to get a better understanding of what their child is signing up for.
The students also had a separate meeting at the same time. There, the criteria for becoming a team member were explained - the Points System. I'm waiting to see how the Points Tracker stands up to more use and volume.
So far, our new training program, dubbed the "SECOND Robotics Competition" (SRC), has been working well. Our current attendance by new members still average about 30 per session. Attendance has actually increased gradually. The kids seem excited and enthusiastic. We have also informed them about the off-season competition that the team is attending - Brunswick Eruption - in just over a week. Over 20 said that they wanted to go! I'm looking forward to the Evil Sundae Contest! With the large influx of new members, we really have to plan the Build season in more detail and delegate more to the other mentors and veterans.
Inventory has started - still registering and labeling the bins and bookshelves at this point. We found a few minor areas in the tool which need to be fixed. I'm also waiting to see how the Inventory tool handles more users and data.
There are a lot of activities going on at school. This week was Spirit Week. Students and faculty dressed up for Twin Day, Pajama Day, Halloween, etc. Seniors were wrapping up their work for the Election Simulations. Others are getting ready for Founder's Day performances next week. Many Early Action applications are due tomorrow for the seniors and teachers.
We've been getting many opportunities for expanding our community outreach work. It is difficult to choose or do all of them when we don't have enough members who are able to meet the additional required time commitments (in addition to time spent on robotics and other clubs, they also have to work 40 hours of community service for school). After watching Karthik's session on the Chairman's Award on Wednesday, I think that we need to be smarter and more unique in how we approach community outreach and this award. Our team isn't big enough to be able to support a large number of outreach activities.
There are lots of things to do next week: the team is scheduled to give a demonstration at a school in Manhattan, we have to finish preparations for Brunswick Eruption (packing, drive team practice, travel logistics, etc.), prepare for the FRC workshops that we are hosting in November, continue Inventory and training, etc.
TTFN!
Friday, October 31, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Inventory Control
Inventory control is a problem. Our team stores most of our stuff - that includes robots, parts, tools, raw materials, etc. - in our storage room. The storage room is actually a boys' bathroom on the sixth floor of the school that one of our coaches had commandeered. This year, when we work on our robot, we don't have a dedicated space. Everything that comes out of the bathroom must go back at the end of the day.
Although we do have shelves and bins (some of which are actually labeled), we don't actually have a good handle on what parts we have or need until we run out. When that happens, we desperately "Google" until we find a similar part and order it with expedited shipping. That expedited shipping is expensive and does add up. Last year, we spent about $1K on shipping. Waiting for the parts to come also puts a delay in our build time.
So this year, we are attempting to implement a system to track inventory. Last year, we tried but started in the middle of Build season and it didn't have resources or tools required to complete it. This time, we have a team member in charge and he designed a new system. It is not meant to become an overhead. The tool was built over the summer and now we hope to use it.
The tool - now named Inventory Control System (ICS) - is a set of Google spreadsheets used with QR codes.
The requirements:
- be available to all members at any time whether you are in the lab, the bathroom or home
- have enough information to be useful - picture of the part, where to order from, quantity, price, weight
- integration with the Bill of Materials - or be able to generate one - and have the tool automatically remove those items from inventory
Since you can encode a URL within a QR code, we are using the QR code to launch a Google spreadsheet. Each bin will have a QR code with a corresponding spreadsheet which will hold the information for the contents of that bin. There seems to be a limitation in the Google Sheets app where even if you provide the gid# for a specific sheet, it will only open to the first sheet. Originally, I was going to have a sheet for each bin but because of this limitation, we now have a spreadsheet for each bin. Separate spreadsheets may lessen contention on a single spreadsheet.
Building a consolidated list of all the items consisted of importing the data from each bin's spreadsheet into a Master spreadsheet. From there you can have a variety of pivot tables and filters to narrow down the view. One of the reports shows which items to reorder.
Maintenance of all these sheets (such as adding a bin, adding a location, adding a category) is done via a series of scripts launched by button clicks.
The Bill of Materials is set in a separate spreadsheet. Here the user interface is similar - fill in some fields and click the button to launch a script which will add the item to the BOM and subtract it from inventory.
Another limitation of Google Sheets is that the images are not displayed. You can see them in the browser on a PC but not on a tablet or phone. Therefore, you cannot see the buttons either - so most of the administration will have to be done on a PC. It also would have been helpful for team members to see what the parts look like when they are searching for a part.
At this point, we are about to train the team members how to use it. The tools have gone through light testing so I'm waiting to hear about bugs as well. I'll post updates on adoption progress later.
Although we do have shelves and bins (some of which are actually labeled), we don't actually have a good handle on what parts we have or need until we run out. When that happens, we desperately "Google" until we find a similar part and order it with expedited shipping. That expedited shipping is expensive and does add up. Last year, we spent about $1K on shipping. Waiting for the parts to come also puts a delay in our build time.
So this year, we are attempting to implement a system to track inventory. Last year, we tried but started in the middle of Build season and it didn't have resources or tools required to complete it. This time, we have a team member in charge and he designed a new system. It is not meant to become an overhead. The tool was built over the summer and now we hope to use it.
The tool - now named Inventory Control System (ICS) - is a set of Google spreadsheets used with QR codes.
The requirements:
- be available to all members at any time whether you are in the lab, the bathroom or home
- have enough information to be useful - picture of the part, where to order from, quantity, price, weight
- integration with the Bill of Materials - or be able to generate one - and have the tool automatically remove those items from inventory
Since you can encode a URL within a QR code, we are using the QR code to launch a Google spreadsheet. Each bin will have a QR code with a corresponding spreadsheet which will hold the information for the contents of that bin. There seems to be a limitation in the Google Sheets app where even if you provide the gid# for a specific sheet, it will only open to the first sheet. Originally, I was going to have a sheet for each bin but because of this limitation, we now have a spreadsheet for each bin. Separate spreadsheets may lessen contention on a single spreadsheet.
Building a consolidated list of all the items consisted of importing the data from each bin's spreadsheet into a Master spreadsheet. From there you can have a variety of pivot tables and filters to narrow down the view. One of the reports shows which items to reorder.
Maintenance of all these sheets (such as adding a bin, adding a location, adding a category) is done via a series of scripts launched by button clicks.
The Bill of Materials is set in a separate spreadsheet. Here the user interface is similar - fill in some fields and click the button to launch a script which will add the item to the BOM and subtract it from inventory.
Another limitation of Google Sheets is that the images are not displayed. You can see them in the browser on a PC but not on a tablet or phone. Therefore, you cannot see the buttons either - so most of the administration will have to be done on a PC. It also would have been helpful for team members to see what the parts look like when they are searching for a part.
At this point, we are about to train the team members how to use it. The tools have gone through light testing so I'm waiting to hear about bugs as well. I'll post updates on adoption progress later.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Points System
How does your team admit new members? What privileges do team members have?
There have been multitudes of polls and posts on Chief Delphi on this topic. For the Steel Hawks, it's been an evolution and continues to be. New people first join the Robotics Club and then decide if they want to commit to the team.
When I first started on the team, there was no system or known criteria for recognizing which students qualified to be on the team. I think it was up to the teachers and whether they remembered if somebody showed up at meetings or not. It was error prone - sometimes people's names were on the team shirt even when they did not contribute to the team. Last year, the Executive Board (EB) tried to define some fair way to distinguish team vs. club members by counting the number of hours that students came during the build season. The cutoff was at 120 hours. That number was realistic for many members but it scared off the less dedicated/passionate people. We also defined some of the team member benefits such as name on the t-shirt, eligibility for travelling to away competitions and FIRST scholarships, etc. Keeping track of these hours was another chore that students ended up loathing. They had to keep a notebook journal to record what they did and get their entry approved before going home. It was a step in the right direction but wasn't perfect. There wasn't an easy way to see the data in aggregate form or run a report on a stack of notebooks.
This summer, after surveying what many other teams do, the EB proposed a points system. It does address many of the issues we found in the other methodology. The points system gives credit for non-technical aspects of a robotics team such as fundraising, working on award submissions, outreach, and attending competitions. After all, we do want to emphasize that building a robot is not the only thing we do on the team.
Below is a table listing ways to earn points:
The next step is to implement a way to track these points. One option was to have a chart with everyone's name on it and paste stickers to show points earned. While that makes a nice display, it lacks on the reporting aspect. One of the teachers wanted to be able to use the number of hours spent in robotics as proof for independent study credit.
Since I had acquired some skills with Google spreadsheets while building the inventory tool over the summer (I'll post something at a later date about it), I put together a simple spreadsheet to track these points. Here's a sample of the Points Tracker. It's still being tested and then there's a matter of training the team to use it as well...
I will post further on this when there are updates.
There have been multitudes of polls and posts on Chief Delphi on this topic. For the Steel Hawks, it's been an evolution and continues to be. New people first join the Robotics Club and then decide if they want to commit to the team.
When I first started on the team, there was no system or known criteria for recognizing which students qualified to be on the team. I think it was up to the teachers and whether they remembered if somebody showed up at meetings or not. It was error prone - sometimes people's names were on the team shirt even when they did not contribute to the team. Last year, the Executive Board (EB) tried to define some fair way to distinguish team vs. club members by counting the number of hours that students came during the build season. The cutoff was at 120 hours. That number was realistic for many members but it scared off the less dedicated/passionate people. We also defined some of the team member benefits such as name on the t-shirt, eligibility for travelling to away competitions and FIRST scholarships, etc. Keeping track of these hours was another chore that students ended up loathing. They had to keep a notebook journal to record what they did and get their entry approved before going home. It was a step in the right direction but wasn't perfect. There wasn't an easy way to see the data in aggregate form or run a report on a stack of notebooks.
This summer, after surveying what many other teams do, the EB proposed a points system. It does address many of the issues we found in the other methodology. The points system gives credit for non-technical aspects of a robotics team such as fundraising, working on award submissions, outreach, and attending competitions. After all, we do want to emphasize that building a robot is not the only thing we do on the team.
Below is a table listing ways to earn points:
| Activity | Point Value |
| 1 hour of Build | one point per hour |
| Assisting in cleanup | 1 |
| Attending Kick Off | 5 |
| Attending Off-Season Competition | 5 |
| Attending a Regional Competition | 10 |
| Attending a Fundraising event (i.e. bake sale) | 5 |
| Contacting a potential sponsor for fundraising | 3 |
| Securing funds | divide $ amount by 200 |
| Filling out an application on time | 3 |
| Chairman's Award Contribution | 20 |
| Engineering Inspiration Award Contribution | 8 |
| Entrepreneurship Award Contribution | 8 |
| Judges’ Award Contribution | 5 |
| Safety Animation Award Contribution | 10 |
| Team Spirit Award Contribution | 5 |
| Woodie Flowers Award Contribution | 5 |
The next step is to implement a way to track these points. One option was to have a chart with everyone's name on it and paste stickers to show points earned. While that makes a nice display, it lacks on the reporting aspect. One of the teachers wanted to be able to use the number of hours spent in robotics as proof for independent study credit.
Since I had acquired some skills with Google spreadsheets while building the inventory tool over the summer (I'll post something at a later date about it), I put together a simple spreadsheet to track these points. Here's a sample of the Points Tracker. It's still being tested and then there's a matter of training the team to use it as well...
I will post further on this when there are updates.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Introduction and Recruitment
This is my first real attempt at blogging so please forgive any inadequacies in blog etiquette.
First, an introduction - I am a mentor for the FIRST Robotics Team (FRC) #2601, the Steel Hawks. The team operates out of Townsend Harris High School (THHS) in Flushing, NY. This is my fourth season as a mentor. I started out by helping the kids with their robot code in the middle of the 2011 build season for Rebound Rumble. Since my background is in software development, I helped them debug and clean up their Java code for competition. I am also a parent of one of the team members. We got hooked on robotics when we went to see a competition at Rutgers over 10 years ago. My brother was a mentor of one of the teams playing - so it's become a family thing. My brother has since gotten married, had a kid and passed the FRC torch to us.
Last year, we had a change in leadership. The previous coach who founded the team in 2008 retired and was replaced by a new physics teacher. We also had a new principal. With new blood on the team, we were able to make a lot of improvements. We were able to bag the robot a few days early and complete a second robot for practice. That was something the team talked about doing but never happened. We played at 2 regional competitions - historically, we registered only for NYC. The team won the Gracious Professionalism award at NYC. We had drive team tryouts, quiz on the rules, and started to actively fund raise. We participated in several outreach events and even had some build time over the summer to work on a new drive train.
Fast forward to today - we recognize that we still have a long way to go before we come even close to one of the elite teams. One of the issues we need to address is that this year, about half of the core team are seniors. Once these seniors graduate, the team is in danger of losing robotics knowledge. Therefore, members of our student run Executive Board (EB) have been working hard at recruiting and training.
Team recruitment usually begins with a Club Fair in September. Here, each club in THHS can set up a display and try to sway the freshmen to join. We had our robot on display and many students signed up. The next day, we held the first meeting with the prospective Robotics Club members. The classroom was full but that is not unusual. Many drop out by the time we get to Kick off in January. Students join the Robotics Club before they can qualify to be part of the Robotics team.
The EB has put together a new training program with more emphasis on hands on activities. Last year, we tried a series of presentations and short videos but people quickly lost interest. In the first session, the new Robotics Club members got an introduction to FIRST. They watched one of the matches from Chezy Champs :) - of course, they didn't really understand the game, the excitement nor could they really appreciate the robots that were playing but I think they got the general idea.
The new members were split into smaller groups and were asked to invent a game to play. As we mentors observed in the back of the room, I noted that there is a remarkable difference between the freshmen and seniors in terms of maturity, how they present themselves, and of course, in height. Some of the shorter kids are just about half the size of the taller ones. It is hard to recall what these seniors looked like in their freshman year.
The new members were asked to vote for a game to play. The winner is called Robo Kart (like Mario Kart). Once the new members left, the veterans discussed:
1- how the game would need to be tweaked and further details added to make it work
2- how to set up the field and where to put it
3- the next steps in training for the next 2 weeks (4 sessions)
1- how the game would need to be tweaked and further details added to make it work
2- how to set up the field and where to put it
3- the next steps in training for the next 2 weeks (4 sessions)
The plan was to have the groups rotate among 8 stations for introductory lessons on Strategy, Design, Control Systems, Programming, Safety, Fundraising, Spirit and Engineering. These lessons are to help the groups build a robot to play the game. The aim is to have them experience a condensed robotics cycle. Another idea that the veterans had is to simulate fundraising where groups would have to go solicit sponsors (aka veteran members) to get "Ishabucks" - named after one of our members. They need to raise enough Ishabucks to buy parts for their robots.
Observing from the back of the room, fellow mentors and I were able to see that some students were very interested while others were not. One in particular left early and indicated that he probably wasn't coming back. When asked why, he said that he wanted to build. We tried to explain that this is all preparation for the building. Some of the veteran members noticed that this person did not fit well in his group. That led to a discussion whether or not to re-balance the groups to 1- even out the number or people in each group and 2- allow people to move to other groups.
When we discussed the other groups, one issue observed was that people with larger personalities overshadowed those who were more quiet. I suggested that if we had enough veteran members, to have one assigned to each group in order to help bring out the quiet ones. The veterans were to be more aware and try to keep the quiet ones involved.
We also talked about how to ensure that group members come back in the future sessions. It wouldn't be fair if some groups lost members. We can have each group elect a leader. It would be up to the leader to make sure his/her members all showed up.
We also talked about how to ensure that group members come back in the future sessions. It wouldn't be fair if some groups lost members. We can have each group elect a leader. It would be up to the leader to make sure his/her members all showed up.
Lesson plans are due on Saturday and I'm looking forward to them !
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