Lesson One - Organize a Schedule for Team Meetings
As we went through the rookie process, we learned many things. We were challenged by the vast amount of material and rules. We were overwhelmed by the time frame and didn't have a lot of knowledge coming into kick-off in January. The first thing we recommend that any team does is read the entire game manual. There is a lot of information that we didn't have a heads up about. No one telling us there being a six-week build window is one example. We got our Kit of Parts on a Saturday and didn't schedule our first build meeting until the following Thursday. We should have started Sunday. Once we realized there was a build window, we had a deadline. We really had to learn to delegate.
Lesson Two - Plan Ahead
One of the big things we learned was to delegate and plan ahead. By putting different people in charge of different parts, instead of turning everything into a group decision, we were finally able to make some headway. We had several people that wanted to program. We actually only had ONE person in the programming class. It got to the point that he was coming to every meeting and having to spend time asking, "Should I do this?" and "Should I do that?" Our mentor finally told him that he was in charge of the program, and he did not have to ask for permission to change things. If others wanted to have input into the program, they could make suggestions, but he was the final decision. Our build team had multiple projects going on at once and kept getting distracted. One of our mentors stepped in and split us up into different groups. That made everything work out much better. In the end, we ended up with a drivable chassis in the bag ready for competition.
Lesson Three - Don't Worry About the Small Stuff
We spent way too long at our competition working to get the robot perfect before inspection. We came in with a drivable chassis in our bag and a bunch of stuff to work on. We got so wrapped up in getting it perfect we were 8 hours in the day before we got inspected. It was awful. Your first robot's design should be simple and easy to reassemble at the competition. We spent a really long time working on our bumpers. If your team needs assistance, don't hesitate to ask others. There were so many teams that helped us with our bumpers and our lift when we got to the competition. We should have asked for help sooner.
Lesson Four - Learn and Repeat
There is a steep learning curve the first year of a team. You come in very overwhelmed with no idea what questions to ask or what help to ask for. You finish the year feeling like you ran a marathon. However, coming out of our rookie year, we felt very confident that we learned enough to do better next year. The conversations and strategy sessions planning for next year were probably the greatest things that came out of this experience.
