Networking

Networking is an amazing tool that you can use to connect with teams, sponsors, partners and pretty much anyone else. Be sure to visit other teams pits at competitions to share knowledge and contact information. You can also host sponsor appreciation nights to thank your sponsors and connect with them. In short, networking can open many doors for your team.

Week 6

The final week of district events and regionals fast approaches. Be sure to use your unbag time to make improvements to your robot. Continuous improvement is crucial as the season progresses.

North Bay District Event

This weekend is the North Bay District Event! 1305 is super excited to welcome teams to our hometown! The robot invasion has begun and North Bay is ready to receive the amazing teams that will be competing here! Check out the public schedule here: https://www.firstroboticscanada.org/new/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NorthBay_2019_FRC.pdf

Pit Safety

As district competition Week 4 comes to an end and Week 5-7 begins, make sure to ALWAYS follow the safety parameters for putting up and taking down your pit. Here's what it says from the FIRST 2019 Safety Manual:

Setting Up the Team Pit Station
• Bring and use work gloves for uncrating and re-crating, if a crate is in use.
• Design and set up your pit station safely and use proper tools to construct any components (displays, shelves, banners, etc.)
• Use ladders; don’t climb on items not meant for the task, such as tables and chairs.
• Observe the ten-foot height limit for all portions of your pit station, including banners.
 • Small, bench-top band saws and drill presses, with appropriate guards, are allowed in team pit station.

Please ensure the safety of yourself, along with others around you :)

Elimination Matches Strategy

Coming off of our week 3 District even win I would like to congratulate our alliance partners 4476 and 781, as well as the event Finalists 1325, 4903 and 7664! One thing that you may have noticed upon entering the elimination rounds was that we changed our match strategy. In qualification matches we attempted to complete a rocket to gain an extra ranking point. However, in the elimination rounds we changed our strategy to be geared towards placing hatches on half of the field,  while our alliance partner 4476, placed cargo on the other side of the field. At approximately half way through the match, we switched sides of the field, so that 4476 could place cargo on the other half of the field, while we placed more hatches, and eventually cargo. We went with this strategy because upon entering elimination matches we realized that to reduce cycle times we should focus on the cargo ship. This allowed us to maximize our score and to win our first event in the 2019 season!

Continuous Data Collection

Gathering data for award submissions and other documents can be challenging. Recording collected data in easy to reach locations can reduce the time it takes to find it later on. Also, setting specific days to do this can help stream line this process.

Just Because the Robot is Bagged Doesn't Mean You Stop Improving

As the title says even if the robot is bagged you can still keep making improvements, especially to the robot code. There are many great resources lying around that provide good code or even a great place to get started working with unknown features, just like how we are using this to help provide our code for a PID loop for our improved tower.

Always improve

After your first competition it is a good idea to fix any problems you had. whether it was a broken piece or something you can do to make your robot better. Always try to improve your robot for a better experience at competition.

Safety at Georgian!

The event went great! Everyone was safe, they wore their safety glasses, had all the necessary PPE, and followed all safety rules. We won the Pit Safety award, which means that our pit was organized, clean and able to be worked in. To win this award, make sure to keep your pit super clean and organized! Also, we actually used our Battery Spill Kit at the event! always make sure to have a Battery Spill Kit in your pit in case someone needs to use it!

Keep having fun at all the events you're attending, and keep being as safe as you can be :)

 

Pre-match Checkups

To ensure your robot is match ready it is a good idea to check parts that frequently break and to make sure that everything is in order. You can make a physical checklist of things that you might forget to do or even have a mental checklist.

Check out our "We Belong in FIRST" song!