13 April 2006

Long time busy...

Busy with everything related to FIRST, so much so that I can't even begin to pick a restart point.

Suffice to say the team did OK at Granite State Regionals. What I didn't figure on was the impact that being at the school would have. Things like being able to run down to the model shop and talk with the guys building our parts, or having the luxury of heading to another shop to acquire fasteners. Even not having a scrap aluminum heap to go diving into.

There were other things, too, that contributed to the difficulty, a lot of which had to do with the lack of understanding, by the school, of what intense effort the FIRST program requires for 6 weeks.

Other things also were probelmatic and that was revealed when we held lessons learned meetings.


Mentors met a week prior to the team members and discussed many things that were on our minds. The faculty advisor had kept a running log of things which was not in any order other than by date captured.


The basic realization was we didn't do the traning in the fall, as we usually did, nothing at the school starting in September was ready for us to use. This was a major sticking point for the advisor.

Anyhow, the meeting with the students solidified the need for training. What was somewhat disappointing was the turnout. The team knew well in advance of the meeting and could have been more attentive. However, a smaller number, mostly mechanical people, sophomores, were present.

I know who I would like to see as Mechanical lead next year.


More later...

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