5 Insights from our FIRST Robotics Competition Virtual Build Session

February 12, 2021

With FRC kickoff just a month behind us and our first FRC virtual build session in the books, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the things we’ve heard from the community that resonated with us. Here’s our top 5!

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  1. Establish roles, document your work, and hold regular meetings: Whether you have been on the team for years or are new to FRC, breaking your team into subgroups is a great way to get the whole team working together. Documenting your work and holding regular meetings not only keeps everyone in the loop, it provides a valuable time for everyone’s voice to be heard.
  1. Communication is key!: In a year where we don’t have those chance encounters to pass information between teammates, establishing a platform to communicate is more important than ever! Devoting specific channels for questions, resources, updates, and announcements is a great way to introduce organization to your team communication so nothing gets lost in the shuffle! Some of our favorite virtual tools to stay connected include: Discord, Slack, Google Meet + Docs, and Monday.com
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  2. Try New Skills: With so many ways to virtually participate this year, we have a world of opportunities to learn something new, prototype new ideas, and share! This is a year to conduct research and development, and expand your team’s repositories of knowledge.
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  3. Connect with other teams online to get help and share resources: Let’s face it, we’re all online anyway. Connect with local to global teams to share ideas, technical knowledge, and foster new connections. You’ll be surprised how eager teams are to share, and you will be making friends in the process. Hosting information on Google Docs and GitHub are great tools to help you organize and share your team’s knowledge with the community.
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  4. Make time for fun! With the challenges this year has brought us, take time to check in on your teammates, and to be silly. Robots are important, but things seem to always work better when our spirits are high. 

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