Bill Blogged - Full House

6/8/2011 Bill Blogged - Full House

Good Afternoon Teams,

This week, the Regional Directors are in town for a three day meeting. I met with them yesterday to review 2011 and prepare for 2012. We discussed FRC’s plans to expand Bag & Tag, increase FIRSTChoice and extend the event model (along with a few other topics I can’t mention here). If your team isn’t already in regular contact with your Regional Director, make a point of getting to know him/her. They are a terrific resource and they want to help your team succeed.

While I’m thinking about 2012, I should mention. The version of Wind River Workbench we expect will be in next season’s FRC Kit of Parts is not certified for use on 64-bit Windows operating system. Keep that in mind if you upgrade any team computers over the summer.

And since 2012 is built on what we learned in 2011, now is a good time to mention I was surprised to learn that one of the drayage locations for robots that were shipped to a bag & tag events had a problem with robot shipping crates that weren’t built to meet the shipping crate construction standards.  The drayage facility did everything they could to work with the crates, but asked me to remind everyone to read the instructions. If a robot crate isn’t built to spec, it has a dramatically increased risk of sustaining damage.

Now that we are between seasons, returning teams should know the deadline to purchase an 8 slot cRIO chassis (if for some reason your team wants one more) is 10/1/2011, As I have already mentioned, FRC will be supplying 2012 Rookie teams with the new 4 slot cRIO-FRCII in the kit of parts. Returning teams may re-use the 8 slot cRIO in 2012 or purchase the new 4 slot chassis (without modules) for under $300 this winter. The current cRIO modules will work with either chassis. Contact National Instruments at 1-866-511-6285 to get more information or to place an order. The 8 slot cRIO with modules included is $750.

In other news:

Congratulations to the 2010-2011Google Rise recipients Team 399 Lancaster High School Eagle Robotics and Team 3328 Noho Robo

FRC has been included on the 2011-2012 NASSP National Advisory List of Student Contests and Activities. This nationally recognized status makes it easier for staff members and students at many schools to convince their school administration FRC events should be treated like educational field trips. If your principal and school board don’t already know FRC is on the list, you might want to give them a heads up.

Kate tells me she’s just finished her first pass of the 2011 Kit of Parts survey results. She still has all of the individual comments to read (and she does read all the comments), but she thought you’d be interested to know:

  • More than 1000 FRC members completed the survey, 27% of whom were students
  • 84% stated their experience with kit was either good or excellent (only 2% described their experience as poor or very poor)
  • 80% said we should keep the registration fee the same as last year and have teams reuse parts from year to year
  • 68.1% described their experience with FIRSTChoice as either good or excellent (4.7% chose poor 0% chose very poor)
  • 63% said the kit inspires student team members to work with and know more about STEM (16% said no, the kit didn’t inspire students)
  • 47% of respondents said there are parts in the kit that they use throughout the year (beyond build and competition season)

213 days until the 2012 kickoff
See you then!