Author: bIrobot Admin

To prepare this Lessons Learned Report, each member of the team was asked to write a short essay on that topic. Simeon Richards (11th Grade) When we signed up for a computer science and programming class, we had no idea that FIRST was even on the radar. About a quarter way through the year, however, we agreed that it would be a good course of action for our class to take. We registered immediately, and began to design our robot. This led to the first lesson we learned: Design the robot, but quickly. We learned this the hard way; we spent two weeks designing the thing. Next year we are going to limit our design period to maybe a week. This will give us the time to debate a general design, make the necessary modifications, and stick to the plan. Unfortunately, this led to the second lesson, build it. It sounds simple, but we spent a long, long time theorizing about the design during the building process. We built one part at a time, making sure it was perfect. There was nothing wrong with being careful, other than the fact that it slowed us down considerably. Next year we might consider branching out and giving everyone a job to speed up the process. Speaking of branching out, I believe our design style needs to change. At our first two...

Team bIrobot has wrapped up its rookie season with nice showing at the FRC FIRST Championship ranking 54th in the Carson division and number one for defense crossing points out of 75 robots in the division. We’ll be home on the island on Monday with plenty of stories to tell about working with our pit neighbors from Turkey and Mexico, alliance partners and opponents from across the country and around the world (including Beijing, China) , neighbors from Israel at our hotel and all sorts of new friends found across the divisions at a spectacular event. We thank the island community that came together from near and far to make our participation in FIRST...