How to Prepare for the Judge's Interview
This is what we talked about in our Judge's Interview. Because every team is different, no judge's interview should ever be the same. You should have everyone on the team talk and explain how your season went. Keep it under ten minutes and leave time for the judges to ask questions.
Robotics Interview-Programming
For this year in FTC, we used Labview as our programing system. While we programmed, we tried a few different routes in our autonomous mode to figure out which one would be the best. Our program consists of several different parts. The first part of our program, is dropping a block in the pendulum basket, then landing on the bridge. Later, we decided that we needed to add an IR sensor that would bump up our points. Since we are a rookie team, learning the new programming system was quite hard at first, but as we progressed, everything started to make sense. We learned several basic programs, such as a while loop,which tells the robot to be constantly repeating the tasks, until you tell it to stop. We also learned a case statement that allows the robot to do different tasks depending on the condition. Overall, learning how to program was a great experience!
Robotics Interview-Outreach
To help spread the word about the FIRST robotics experience, our team participated in a STEM Expo for FLL, and a STEM Expo for Girl Scouts. This was a great way for our team to reach out to our younger students, and show them how FIRST robotics is an amazing way to learn, and have fun at the same time! We showed them how the robot works on the field, the basics of starting a team, and were able to answer many questions from the students and parents. Reaching out to our younger students was a great involvement for us too!
Robotics Interview-Team Bonding
At the beginning of our robotics season, most of us didn’t know each other. Team-building activities helped us get to learn more about each other, and were a good short break between robot buildings. We usually have our practices during week days after school, and many of us have a lot a curricular activities, causing us to not have many time to have dinner. Thanks to one of our mentors Mrs. Sabin, we were able to have dinner before we got down to working. It was a great way to talk about our goals of the meeting. Another way our team bonded during practice, was when Riya brought in baked goods. Every Sunday meeting, Riya had prepared great goodies for the team to share during our breaks. She put a lot of time into them, and our team really appreciates that.
Robotics Interview-Chassis
Next it was time to build. We first started out with a basic chassis, then we changed it so our other components such as the arm, the flag raiser, and other elements can fit on our robot. We also had 4 inch wheels so that we can go faster and save more time. Later on, we decided to change it back to the smaller wheels because we were having problems turning on the 4 inch wheels. But then, we changed it back to the 4 inch wheels, because that’s when we got the 4 inch Omni wheels so we could have speed and turning accuracy. For this season we had lots of fun of building, learning and changing our chassis to make it the best it can be!
Robotics Interview-Business Plan/Expenses
We also had to make sure we had enough funding for our robot related parts and our spirit wear. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to have many spirit wear and robot parts. Such extra motors, motor controllers, and other robot part related objects handy to our use. For our spirit wear, we had to consider buttons, T-shirts, and alternative accessories. We had a really great business plan that kept our team running, to get us this far.
For this year in FTC, we used Labview as our programing system. While we programmed, we tried a few different routes in our autonomous mode to figure out which one would be the best. Our program consists of several different parts. The first part of our program, is dropping a block in the pendulum basket, then landing on the bridge. Later, we decided that we needed to add an IR sensor that would bump up our points. Since we are a rookie team, learning the new programming system was quite hard at first, but as we progressed, everything started to make sense. We learned several basic programs, such as a while loop,which tells the robot to be constantly repeating the tasks, until you tell it to stop. We also learned a case statement that allows the robot to do different tasks depending on the condition. Overall, learning how to program was a great experience!
Robotics Interview-Outreach
To help spread the word about the FIRST robotics experience, our team participated in a STEM Expo for FLL, and a STEM Expo for Girl Scouts. This was a great way for our team to reach out to our younger students, and show them how FIRST robotics is an amazing way to learn, and have fun at the same time! We showed them how the robot works on the field, the basics of starting a team, and were able to answer many questions from the students and parents. Reaching out to our younger students was a great involvement for us too!
Robotics Interview-Team Bonding
At the beginning of our robotics season, most of us didn’t know each other. Team-building activities helped us get to learn more about each other, and were a good short break between robot buildings. We usually have our practices during week days after school, and many of us have a lot a curricular activities, causing us to not have many time to have dinner. Thanks to one of our mentors Mrs. Sabin, we were able to have dinner before we got down to working. It was a great way to talk about our goals of the meeting. Another way our team bonded during practice, was when Riya brought in baked goods. Every Sunday meeting, Riya had prepared great goodies for the team to share during our breaks. She put a lot of time into them, and our team really appreciates that.
Robotics Interview-Chassis
Next it was time to build. We first started out with a basic chassis, then we changed it so our other components such as the arm, the flag raiser, and other elements can fit on our robot. We also had 4 inch wheels so that we can go faster and save more time. Later on, we decided to change it back to the smaller wheels because we were having problems turning on the 4 inch wheels. But then, we changed it back to the 4 inch wheels, because that’s when we got the 4 inch Omni wheels so we could have speed and turning accuracy. For this season we had lots of fun of building, learning and changing our chassis to make it the best it can be!
Robotics Interview-Business Plan/Expenses
We also had to make sure we had enough funding for our robot related parts and our spirit wear. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to have many spirit wear and robot parts. Such extra motors, motor controllers, and other robot part related objects handy to our use. For our spirit wear, we had to consider buttons, T-shirts, and alternative accessories. We had a really great business plan that kept our team running, to get us this far.
