Winter Exemption
Date: 12.1.13
Time: 15:30
Location: Deerfield Academy
Usually during the winter term I ski for the Deerfield Ski Team, however this is a very large time commitment, something I do not have space for in my Junior Year schedule. I decided to take the term to pursue other interests that would allow me more free time to focus on my schoolwork during such an important year. As the founder of the Deerfield Robotics Team, I decided to take the winter term off to focus on robotics and help prepare the team for competition. The FIRST FTC robotics competition is a serious time commitment, requiring many different components for a team to be ready for competition. While Deerfield is a boarding school, and the presence of the team together at all times should effectively eliminate meeting time as a concern, department policy means that the team can only meet when a faculty member is present to supervise. The teacher assigned to supervise the team, however, can only meet twice a week for an hour. Two hours per week is simply not enough time, and so the exemption is to supplement the biweekly meetings.
This exemption will last the duration of the winter term, from after Thanksgiving break in November to the week before spring break in March. I am working with another member of the team, Chloe, who is a sophomore. We meet every day after school for a few hours while being supervised by the school's lab technician.
Chloe's focus is on the engineering notebook, a crucial part of the FTC
competition series. The engineering notebook chronicles the engineering process as different designs are prototyped and tested, and the robot is created. This is one of the most important skills learned from FIRST, as engineering notebooks are used in professional engineering occupations. Every time the team meets, a new entry must be started. The entry will then go on to record ideas discussed by way of rough sketches, diagrams and lists, whether or not these designs make their way into the final robot. The engineering notebook is also a great place to put down team contact information, schedules and deadlines, competition details, as well as other miscellaneous notes and comments. Each member of the team has to contribute equally to the notebook so that everyone's voice is represented, and the more creative and detailed the book, the better. At competition, each team submits their engineering notebook to be reviewed by a team of judges and teams are able to win an award, specifically The Inspire Award, which would allow teams to advance on past the initial qualifying competition.
As manager of the team, I must do administrative work in addition to helping with the engineering notebook and robot construction. While I also have coding experience, the team requires more help with physical construction.
The culmination of all this work is the competition. Every September, the new season's game is released. Every year the game is different (this year the game is called Block Party), and the tasks and points allotted to the completion of each of the tasks differs. It is then up to the team strategists to determine which tasks are worth going for to maximize the points gained in the two minutes allotted. For example, while it is very difficult to devise a way for the robot to do a pull-up, the points gained from the completion of this task make it worth attempting as you would gain more points than if you only placed blocks in the baskets for the duration of the game, a task much easier but with a lower point yield.
FIRST is a rapidly growing program, and so space in qualifying competitions is very limited, therefore when we tried to sign up for a competition, there was no longer any space. We quickly got into contact with the tournament coordinator for Massachusetts. We found a space in a competition and took it, however as we were leaving for Christmas Vacation, I realized the competition was during our Long Winter Weekend, and we would not be able to get team members to participate in this event, however there were no other events open and even getting into this one had been a difficult task. Fortunately, a spot in another competition suddenly opened up and was offered to us. While this was great, this new competition date is three weeks earlier than the first date, and also the first weekend back from vacation, meaning we're entering my favorite part of the season: crunch time. Last season this time consisted of ordering chinese food and working all afternoon and into the night for the duration of the time leading up to the competition.
Overall, this exemption should prove to be incredibly helpful in preparing our team for competition this season. The extra time I will have (when compared to ski team), should also allow for more focus on robotics and my other schoolwork. Since I have to do a lot of the boring administrative work, this exemption time allows me to get my hands dirty and do what I've always liked about robotics; tinkering.
Time: 15:30
Location: Deerfield Academy
Usually during the winter term I ski for the Deerfield Ski Team, however this is a very large time commitment, something I do not have space for in my Junior Year schedule. I decided to take the term to pursue other interests that would allow me more free time to focus on my schoolwork during such an important year. As the founder of the Deerfield Robotics Team, I decided to take the winter term off to focus on robotics and help prepare the team for competition. The FIRST FTC robotics competition is a serious time commitment, requiring many different components for a team to be ready for competition. While Deerfield is a boarding school, and the presence of the team together at all times should effectively eliminate meeting time as a concern, department policy means that the team can only meet when a faculty member is present to supervise. The teacher assigned to supervise the team, however, can only meet twice a week for an hour. Two hours per week is simply not enough time, and so the exemption is to supplement the biweekly meetings.
This exemption will last the duration of the winter term, from after Thanksgiving break in November to the week before spring break in March. I am working with another member of the team, Chloe, who is a sophomore. We meet every day after school for a few hours while being supervised by the school's lab technician.
Chloe's focus is on the engineering notebook, a crucial part of the FTC
 |
| Example of an Engineering Notebook |
As manager of the team, I must do administrative work in addition to helping with the engineering notebook and robot construction. While I also have coding experience, the team requires more help with physical construction.
The culmination of all this work is the competition. Every September, the new season's game is released. Every year the game is different (this year the game is called Block Party), and the tasks and points allotted to the completion of each of the tasks differs. It is then up to the team strategists to determine which tasks are worth going for to maximize the points gained in the two minutes allotted. For example, while it is very difficult to devise a way for the robot to do a pull-up, the points gained from the completion of this task make it worth attempting as you would gain more points than if you only placed blocks in the baskets for the duration of the game, a task much easier but with a lower point yield.
FIRST is a rapidly growing program, and so space in qualifying competitions is very limited, therefore when we tried to sign up for a competition, there was no longer any space. We quickly got into contact with the tournament coordinator for Massachusetts. We found a space in a competition and took it, however as we were leaving for Christmas Vacation, I realized the competition was during our Long Winter Weekend, and we would not be able to get team members to participate in this event, however there were no other events open and even getting into this one had been a difficult task. Fortunately, a spot in another competition suddenly opened up and was offered to us. While this was great, this new competition date is three weeks earlier than the first date, and also the first weekend back from vacation, meaning we're entering my favorite part of the season: crunch time. Last season this time consisted of ordering chinese food and working all afternoon and into the night for the duration of the time leading up to the competition.
Overall, this exemption should prove to be incredibly helpful in preparing our team for competition this season. The extra time I will have (when compared to ski team), should also allow for more focus on robotics and my other schoolwork. Since I have to do a lot of the boring administrative work, this exemption time allows me to get my hands dirty and do what I've always liked about robotics; tinkering.
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