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That is a really lovely story; I'm glad you shared it. I like these glimpses of the true joy and fun that can be had with the craft of engineering. Amidst the

That is a really lovely story; I'm glad you shared it. I like these glimpses of the true joy and fun that can be had with the craft of engineering. Amidst the relentless barrage of bureaucracy that defines most modern SWE jobs, it's nice to know that there's still some good, pure engineering out there.

Waterluvian 4y ago
I actually feel jealous that the students get an engineering problem like this. By only having about 8 weeks from when the challenge is announced, they're forced to cut through bureaucracy. There is no Agile and project planning. There's just round-table discussions on what to design, a bit of CAD work to feel it all out, and then weeks of prototype, build, test, loop. It was so darn lean.
- falsenapkin 4y ago
  FRC was an incredible experience. Like you said, the fast pace round table discussions and develop as you go was a lot of fun and inspiring. The biggest takeaway for me was the positive energy and great sportsmanship I saw in every team and competition. Hope that still rings true 10+ years later. Coming from traditional sports and previously disconnected from the "nerds" and band kids, I came in with a very different headspace than I left with. Thank you for mentoring!! I know every team needs all the mentorship they can get. I've thought about coming back too but cold feet so far. Oh and a bit of fun technical story to relate to yours. Back then touch screens on consumer devices was still pretty new, I remember a couple kids on the team had the original Android and iPhone devices. A couple of years earlier I had followed an Instructables guide for a "touch" device with infrared/glass/webcam and in the process learned how cameras can see infrared after removing a filter. Then in my competition year there was a goal of autonomously interacting with some stage elements and this question of how do we do vision processing to make that work? Maybe it was implied somewhere and I don't remember the details anymore, but I immediately recalled that webcams can see infrared and the stage elements had reflective tape. So we butchered a webcam to remove the IR filter and add a near IR filter and then we slapped some IR LEDs on the front. Of course the software side (we used LabVIEW) was a whole other thing but the hardware side was captivating to the whole team and was a lot of fun to put together organically. Other great memories of replacing 4 motors, soldering heavy gauge wires and all, 15 minutes before a match and walking around the pits with a deep cycle battery wired to a car AC transformer to keep my batteryless sponsor hand me down laptop running.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    I love the stories you shared. When I was a team member 20 years ago (oh my god it was 20 years ago...), we did all kinds of wild hacky stuff. Our entire robot chassis was made from PVC and we felt super clever using the hollow tubes for cable management. These days they put QR codes all over the field for vision processing. It's absolutely !@#$ing wild to see what some of the better robots can do in 15 seconds of full autonomy. We also had a laptop that ran off a car battery =D Though we could afford a new laptop this year, so we finally don't need to use it as much.
- otoburb 4y ago
  >>[...] a bit of CAD work to feel it all out [...] Which CAD program are your 10th & 11th graders using? It seemed that most well-resourced school robotics clubs try for AutoCAD through Autodesk's educational access program but always have to re-apply every year to determine eligibility.
  - throwaway49593 4y ago
    Why Autocad and not Inventor? And, why not Fusion 360?
    - otoburb 4y ago
      My informal survey was based on anecdotal information. Since Inventor, Fusion360 and AutoCAD are all under the Autodesk umbrella it could be that many school teams/clubs lumped them all under "AutoCAD". That being said, I did hear that Fusion360 can be problematic with the cloud-based (always-on) emphasis. No mentions of Inventor, and I was also surprised that nobody mentioned Solid Edge Community Edition either.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    They use OnShape I believe. I think it's something the school board has a license for, and it's 100% through the browser, which makes it a lot more accessible both at school and at home. We're also one of the least-well-resourced school robotics clubs you'll ever meet. The mere existence of the team and having a robot that leaves the starting line in a competition is a resounding success.
  - smoyer 4y ago
    Our FIRST team (4027) also uses OnShape ... Some of the parts are even sent directly to a water jet cutter!

Waterluvian 4y ago

I actually feel jealous that the students get an engineering problem like this. By only having about 8 weeks from when the challenge is announced, they're forced to cut through bureaucracy. There is no Agile and project planning. There's just round-table discussions on what to design, a bit of CAD work to feel it all out, and then weeks of prototype, build, test, loop. It was so darn lean.

falsenapkin 4y ago
FRC was an incredible experience. Like you said, the fast pace round table discussions and develop as you go was a lot of fun and inspiring. The biggest takeaway for me was the positive energy and great sportsmanship I saw in every team and competition. Hope that still rings true 10+ years later. Coming from traditional sports and previously disconnected from the "nerds" and band kids, I came in with a very different headspace than I left with. Thank you for mentoring!! I know every team needs all the mentorship they can get. I've thought about coming back too but cold feet so far. Oh and a bit of fun technical story to relate to yours. Back then touch screens on consumer devices was still pretty new, I remember a couple kids on the team had the original Android and iPhone devices. A couple of years earlier I had followed an Instructables guide for a "touch" device with infrared/glass/webcam and in the process learned how cameras can see infrared after removing a filter. Then in my competition year there was a goal of autonomously interacting with some stage elements and this question of how do we do vision processing to make that work? Maybe it was implied somewhere and I don't remember the details anymore, but I immediately recalled that webcams can see infrared and the stage elements had reflective tape. So we butchered a webcam to remove the IR filter and add a near IR filter and then we slapped some IR LEDs on the front. Of course the software side (we used LabVIEW) was a whole other thing but the hardware side was captivating to the whole team and was a lot of fun to put together organically. Other great memories of replacing 4 motors, soldering heavy gauge wires and all, 15 minutes before a match and walking around the pits with a deep cycle battery wired to a car AC transformer to keep my batteryless sponsor hand me down laptop running.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I love the stories you shared. When I was a team member 20 years ago (oh my god it was 20 years ago...), we did all kinds of wild hacky stuff. Our entire robot chassis was made from PVC and we felt super clever using the hollow tubes for cable management. These days they put QR codes all over the field for vision processing. It's absolutely !@#$ing wild to see what some of the better robots can do in 15 seconds of full autonomy. We also had a laptop that ran off a car battery =D Though we could afford a new laptop this year, so we finally don't need to use it as much.
otoburb 4y ago
>>[...] a bit of CAD work to feel it all out [...] Which CAD program are your 10th & 11th graders using? It seemed that most well-resourced school robotics clubs try for AutoCAD through Autodesk's educational access program but always have to re-apply every year to determine eligibility.
- throwaway49593 4y ago
  Why Autocad and not Inventor? And, why not Fusion 360?
  - otoburb 4y ago
    My informal survey was based on anecdotal information. Since Inventor, Fusion360 and AutoCAD are all under the Autodesk umbrella it could be that many school teams/clubs lumped them all under "AutoCAD". That being said, I did hear that Fusion360 can be problematic with the cloud-based (always-on) emphasis. No mentions of Inventor, and I was also surprised that nobody mentioned Solid Edge Community Edition either.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  They use OnShape I believe. I think it's something the school board has a license for, and it's 100% through the browser, which makes it a lot more accessible both at school and at home. We're also one of the least-well-resourced school robotics clubs you'll ever meet. The mere existence of the team and having a robot that leaves the starting line in a competition is a resounding success.
- smoyer 4y ago
  Our FIRST team (4027) also uses OnShape ... Some of the parts are even sent directly to a water jet cutter!