During the first few months of the season, also known as pre-season, students meet up with their mentors and team leaders to learn about FIRST and to gradually master the tasks needed for build season. These meetings generally take place once or twice a week, depending on each sub-team.
Below are the 2015-16 pre-season meeting days for each respective sub-team:
Tuesdays: Design, Programming, StrategyWednesdays: Programming, Electrical, A/VThursday: Mechanical, Design, Business, Communications
Once January rolls around, our Kickoff event marks start of build season and things get a whole lot busier. Students are then required attend Saturday meetings from 9AM to 2PM. Throughout build season, meetings will be held after school and the frequency of those meetings determined by the team leaders.
After build season is over, competition season starts. Although the activity around the robotics room is not as hectic, sub-teams still are busy with adding to the old code, fixing up the robot, and of course attending the competitions to see our robot in action! At competitions, students are required to wear a current team t-shirt and khaki pants to competitions to show solidarity with the rest of the team. We do a lot of work in robotics, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun! Robotics is a family, and it forms a common bond between each member of Team 1403.