Below are presentations and other downloads from past FIRSTFares and other venues.
Year | Title | Description | Author(s) | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Basic National Instruments Training | Learn the basics of using National Instruments LabVIEW. | Aaron Peña National Instruments | FRC-2013-Basic-Training.zip |
| 2013 | Advanced National Instruments Training | More advanced training for using National Instruments LabVIEW. | Aaron Peña National Instruments | FRC-2013-Advanced-Training.zip |
| 2012 | 7 Steps to LabVIEW Autonomous | Learn how to program LabVIEW Autonomous mode for FRC | Jim Chastain | 7 Steps to LabVIEW Autonomous |
| 2012 | Dean's List Award | The Dean's List Award is certainly the highest honor that can be bestowed on an FRC student for their leadership, passion, technical expertise, entrepreneurship, and overall commitment to FIRST and increasing awareness for the program. You've seen the two Finalists chosen at each regional, and maybe even the ten Winners at championships. But what happens to these members of the Dean's List following their award, and what does it take to become one? Marina Dimitrov, our very own 2012 Winner from FRC Team 1540: The Flaming Chickens in Portland, OR, comes bearing stories and tips. We want to make this a discussion-based session in addition to the presentation, so bring your questions and thoughts! | Marina Dimitrov | FIRSTFare 2012 - Dean's List |
| 2012 | Beginning Pneumatics | This session is for team members with no exposure to pneumatics. What are all of those mysterious components and tubes and why you'd want to use them? We'll discuss regulators, storage tanks, relief valves, pressure switches, cylinders, solenoid valves, fittings, etc. If you already know what all those things are and how to connect them then this is NOT seminar for you. | Dale Yocum | FIRSTFare 2012 - Beginning Pneumatics |
| 2012 | Scouting FRC: Competitive Analysis at FIRST Competitions | Alliance selection is a very important part of FRC competitions, yet so many times base their picks off of FIRST team rankings. In this seminar, we will look at the various modes of tracking the competition, analyzing it, and producing a helpful picklist. | Tucker Gordon | FIRSTFare 2012 - Scouting FRC: Competitive Analysis at FIRST Competitions |
| 2012 | Chairman's Award | The Chairman's Award is the highest award bestowed to a FIRST Robotics team at the Regional and Championship competitions. It is based off of how a team demonstrates FIRST's ideals through community service, recruitment, mentoring, and gracious professionalism, along with other great team attributes. Discussion will include an introduction to the award, activities teams do to win the award, essay writing style, presentation tips, and sample questions. Presenters: Marina Dimitrov and Anne Gilleland, two members of FRC Team 1540: The Flaming Chickens' Chairman's team. Team 1540 has won the Chairman's award in 2012 (Oklahoma), 2010 (OR) and 2007 (PNW), and the Engineering Inspiration award in 2008 and 2009 (OR). | Marina Dimitrov & Ann Gilleland from 1540 | FIRSTFare 2012 - Chairman's Award |
| 2012 | Overview of Electronics | An introduction to the control system both from a hardware and conceptual standpoint. Learn what the Input and Output capabilities of the cRIO are. Learn how all this stuff is wired and best practices. | Tim Bennington-Davis | FIRSTFare 2012 - Overview of Electronics |
| 2012 | Manipulators for FIRST Robots | Compilation of approaches used for FIRST robotics game piece manipulating systems. Will briefly discuss pro’s, con’s and design trade offs for a number of different manipulator designs. | Bruce Whitefield | FIRSTFare 2012 - Manipulators for FIRST Robots |
| 2012 | Team Fundraising tool via Piggybackr | Andrea Lo, creator of Piggybackr, has launched a tool specifically designed for high school teams to become more effective in their fundraising efforts. Andrea is coming in from Silicon Valley to specifically help our Oregon FIRST teams learn how to effectively raise funds in a professional way using a tool that is easy and will keep you connected and communicating to sponsors and potential sponsors. | Andrea Lo & Keenahn Jung | FIRSTFare 2012 - PiggyBackr Handout from FIRSTFare |
| 2012 | Tool Design and Safety | Faster, easier and better quality work is done by using the right tool for the right job. This presentation is focused on WHY tools are designed the way they are and HOW this affects safety. Safety captains, mentor/parent volunteers who supervise students, and new team members, will benefit most from attending. | Matt Driggers | FIRSTFare 2012 - Tool Design and Safety |
| 2012 | Introduction to Designing Mechanisms with Inventor Fusion | We will explore basic modeling using Inventor Fusion. You will learn how to create some simple parts and assemblies of parts, and join them together using mechanical relationships. We will create a simple mechanism that is representative of some that might be used in robot design. Special note: Be sure to check out bxd.autodesk.com before the class in order to get the most out of it! | Manjiri McCoy and Jeff Strater | FIRSTFare 2012 - Fusion Joins |
| 2012 | What Judges want in a Business Plan | Teams will learn from a professional how to create your business plan that works not only for judging, but for telling your story to potential sponsors, mentors and legislators. Terri has been a FRC judge for 4 years and has seen a need for teams to better prepare their business plans and we're excited to have her time and talents. | Terri Nopp | FIRSTFare 2012 - FIRST ROBOTICS - HOW TO MARKET YOUR AWESOMENESS! |
| 2012 | Highlights from the FRC Business Roundtable | Glencoe business team members and other session leaders will present the latest findings on public relations, fundraising, and outreach strategies. | Chris Steiner | FIRSTFare 2012 - Roundtable Presentation |
| 2012 | Drive Trains for FIRST Robots | The drive train is the most important part of your robot yet many teams make some basic mistakes in their design and construction. This session compares 2 wheel, 4 wheel, 6 wheel, Mecanums, treads, and some of the unusual ones. We'll look at the various transmissions and motors available to FIRST Teams. Vendors such as IFI, Skyway, and AndyMark will be discussed and audience members will share their experiences. | Dale Yocum | FIRSTFare 2012 - Drive Trains |
| 2012 | Advanced LabVIEW | The Advanced LabVIEW Workshop will discuss how to use Global Variable to trouble shoot FRC LabVIEW programs and cure the most common programming mistakes team have see. Workshop is open to anyone with FRC LabVIEW programming experience. Questions are encouraged from all. | Jim Chastain | FIRSTFare 2012 - Advanced LabVIEW |
| 2012 | Web Design 101: Getting a Website Online | Get the word out about your team in a high impact way. This session looks at the way website design affects the user experience. Teams planning on creating award-winning websites, no matter their technology, will want to pay close attention. See what website judges are looking for. | Bob Goetz, webmaster for oregonfirst.org | FIRSTFare 2012 - Web Design 101: Getting a Website Online |
| 2011 | Manipulators for FIRST Robots | Compilation of approaches used for FIRST robotics game piece manipulating systems. Will briefly discuss pro's, con's and design trade offs for a number of different manipulator designs. | Bruce Whitefield, shop and design mentor for Team 2471, Team Mean Machine. Director of Manufacturing Quality at ON Semiconductor. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Manipulators |
| 2011 | New Coach Essentials | This pre-session is designed for coaches and student leaders new to FRC though anyone is welcome. We'll cover team organization, logistics, mentor roles, sample build schedules, budgets, facilities, tools, strategy, and much more. | Dale Yocum, Head Coach Team 1540, Oregon regional volunteer of the Year 2011. FIRSTForce Metro coordinator. | FIRSTFare 2011 - New Coach Workshop |
| 2011 | Java - Introduction | If you've never programmed in Java before or need a refresher, this session will give you a high level idea of what the language looks like and what this object orientation stuff is all about.. | Andrew Merrill, Computer Science Instructor at Catlin Gabel School and software mentor for team 1540 | FIRSTFare 2011 - FRC-Java-Introduction |
| 2011 | Control Systems for FIRST Robotics | An introduction to the control system both from a hardware and conceptual standpoint. Learn what the Input and Output capabilities of the cRIO are. Learn how all this stuff is wired and best practices. | Tim Bennington-Davis Mentor of Team 1425 and Woodie Flowers winner 2011. | FIRSTFare 2011 - FRC2011-Overview of Electronics |
| 2011 | LabVIEW for FRC | Building on the introductory session, this seminar explores how LabVIEW is used for FRC robots. | Dennis Erickson, 1510 Mentor. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Creating Custom Dashboards with LabVIEW FIRSTFare 2011 - Sensors for FRC Robots |
| 2011 | College Admission for FRC Students | Select Colleges and Universities around the country are providing scholarships and admission preference to students with a FIRST robotics background. This session will help you leverage your FIRST experience to get into the best school for you. | Jodi Walder-Biesanz, College Admission Coach. | FIRSTFare 2011 - College Engineering Admissions FIRSTFare 2011 - Engineered to Succeed |
| 2011 | LabVIEW Introduction | For those who want to know more about the programming language LabVIEW, this offers an overview. It will discuss the salient features of the language which includes its being a graphical interface, its ability to create virtual world that can surround code to test that code, and that it is self-documenting. Also discussed is the fact that it is one of the very few dataflow languages which significantly aids in preventing ambiguous instruction paths which leads to efficient and rapid programming. | Dennis Erickson, 1510 Mentor. | FIRSTFare 2011 - LabVIEW Overview |
| 2011 | Pneumatics for FIRST Robots | An introduction to the pneumatic parts used on FRC robots, engineering challenges and possible solutions. Calculations related to pressure, cylinder, compressor and force and torque needs will be introduced | Tim Bennington-Davis, 1425 mentor and Woodie Flowers winner in 2011. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Pneumatics for FIRST Robots |
| 2011 | Tool Design and Safety | Faster, easier and better quality work is done by using the right tool for the right job. It also significantly reduces the amount of blood and skin needed to be cleaned off of your robot parts. This is focused on WHY tools are designed the way they are and HOW this affects safety. Although this is intended for everyone with less than 20 years of experience using tools; Safety Captains, mentors and parent volunteers supervising students, and newer team members, will especially get value from attending. | Matt Driggers, Mechanical Engineer and mentor for team 2517, the Green Wrenches. Matt has been known to demonstrate his topic in gory, noisy or messy ways so beware. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Tool Design and Safety Video on youtube, provided by David Dean of David’s OnSite IT/Video Consulting. |
| 2011 | Drive Trains for FIRST Robots | The drive train is the most important part of your robot yet many teams make some basic mistakes in their design and construction. This session compares 2 wheel, 4 wheel, 6 wheel, Mecanums, treads, and some of the unusual ones. We'll look at the various transmissions and motors available to FIRST Teams. Vendors such as IFI, Skyway, and AndyMark will be discussed and audience members will share their experiences. | Dale Yocum. Robotics Program Director, Catlin Gabel School Team 1540. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Drive Trains |
| 2011 | Websites Using Wordpress | An overview of the Wordpress Content Management System and its application for creating full blown websites for FRC teams. | Bob Goetz, webmaster for oregonfirst.org | FIRSTFare 2011 - Website 101 for FRC Teams |
| 2011 | Fundraising | Learn how to create your team image and story so that your fundraising efforts are successful. Included will be tips on how to partner with industry, tactics for getting students in front of an audience plus giving an effective. Topics will include messaging, marketing materials, elevator pitch, budget clarity and how to find sponsors as well as grants. | Deb Mumm-Hill, FIRST Regional Director | FIRSTFare 2011 - Fundraising |
| 2011 | Public Relations Ê- Working with the Press | Advice on how to work with the press | Jodi Walder-Biesanz, PR Executive. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Robotics and the Media |
| 2011 | Website User Interfaces | Get the word out about your team in a high impact way. This session s looks at the way website design affects the user experience. Teams planning on creating award winning websites, no matter their technology, will want to pay close attention. See what website judges are looking for. | Bob Goetz, webmaster for oregonfirst.org | FIRSTFare 2011 - Website Design for FRC Teams |
| 2011 | Project Management | A discussion of basic tools that mentors and team leaders can use to establish a proper project scope, manage resources, track progress, and deliver results on time. Tools discussed include: Skills Matrix, Resource Loading Diagram, Design Review, Work Breakdown Structure, Functional Efficiency Technique, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Gantt Chart | Jason Marr and Jean Oh, Boeing Corporation. | FIRSTFare 2011 - Project Management |
| 2010 | Creating Custom Dashboards | The real-time dashboard in LabVIEW is one of the most exciting features to be included in the game. It provides status information on the robot itself as well as returns any or all sensor data for use in enhancing the driver's ability to make decisions during the game. With the inclusion of a video feed to the dashboard, the driver can have eyes just in front (or back) of the robot to help guide or in special cases have the robot seek on its own during the Autonomous or even in TeleOp sessions. | Dennis Erickson, 1510/2898 Mentor | FIRSTFare 2010 - LabVIEW Creating Custom Dashboards |
| 2010 | Drive Trains for FIRST Robots | The drive train is the most important part of your robot yet many teams make some basic mistakes in their design and construction. This session compares 2 wheel, 4 wheel, 6 wheel, Mecanums, treads, and some of the unusual ones. We'll look at the various transmissions and motors available to FIRST Teams. Vendors such as IFI, Skyway, and AndyMark will be discussed and audience members will share their experiences. | Dale Yocum. Robotics Program Director, Catlin Gabel School Team 1540. | FIRSTFare 2010 - Drive Trains |
| 2010 | Grant Writing Tips | Everything you need to know about writing grant applications to NASA, Platt and how to look for other grant opportunities. | Deb Mumm-Hill, FIRST Regional Director | FIRSTFare 2010 - FIRST Team Grant strategies |
| 2010 | FRC Radios and Communication | This will explore how the robot talks to the field during a match. We'll talk about tech specifics on the game adapters, the network communications as we understand them, how to avoid some common problems, and troubleshooting utilities. | Faith Baynes, Catlin Gabel School System Administrator, FRC Field Admin | FIRSTFare 2010 - Field Connectivity |
| 2010 | Introduction to Java | If you've never programmed in Java before or need a refresher, this session will give you a high level idea of what the language looks like and what this object orientation stuff is all about. This is a 1.5 hour talk followed by the latest on the Java Beta.. | Andrew Merrill, Computer Science Instructor at Catlin Gabel School and software mentor for team 1540 | FIRSTFare 2010 - Java-Introduction |
| 2010 | Marketing Your Team for SuccessfulÊ Fundraising | Learn how to create your team image and story so that your fundraising efforts are successful. Included will be tips on how to partner with industry, tactics for getting students in front of an audience plus giving an effective. Topics will include messaging, marketing materials, elevator pitch, budget clarity and how to find sponsors as well as grants. | Deb Mumm-Hill, FIRST Regional Director | FIRSTFare 2010 - FIRST Fundraising Toolkit |
| 2010 | Java Beta Update | Team 1540, was chosen as the NW team to beta test Java this year. Hear their insights about this new version of the language and what they've found so far. | Andrew Merrill, Computer Science Instructor for Catlin Gabel School and mentor team 1540. | FIRSTFare 2010 - Java-Beta-2011 |
| 2010 | Robot Design, Brainstorming and Rapid Prototyping with 80/20 and QuickFrame | Learn how at least one team, 1540 the Flaming Chickens, designs their robot. From prototyping suggestions to appropriate use of robotic components, this seminar will provide you will all the know-how you need to make the idea in your head become reality. It will also cover the proper usage of 80/20 and Quickframe, a lightweight aluminum framing system that will allow your prototyping to be done efficiently and with less effort. Come see what designing a robot is all about! | Rohan Jhunjhunwala, Manager of Design, Team 1540 | FIRSTFare 2010 - The Design Process and FIRST Robotics FIRSTFare 2010 - 2010_Motor_Data.xls |
| 2010 | Scouting & Competitive Analysis | Scouting can make or break a competition. It can propel a team to victory, and can also spell defeat for an otherwise strong alliance. Regardless of your robot's performance, competitive analysis and strategy development are key for the success of any robotics program. This talk will cover the basics including: system development, management at the competition, strategy development and data interpretation, as well as the basic scouting resources that all teams should know. Following that, we'll explore more advanced topics like Offensive Power Rankings and more formulaic ranking systems. | Henry Gordon, Competitive Analysis Manager and 2010 Dean's List Finalist, Team 1540 | FIRSTFare 2010 - Competitive Analysis and Scouting |
| 2010 | Sensors for FRC Robots | It seems that each year the use of sensors on the robot brings more to the game including the experience gained by students in integrating them. Working with the wide variety of sensors available becomes easier due to the ability to test and calibrate them using charts and graphs that is intrinsic with LabVIEW programming. Couple this with the ability to transfer real-time data to the dashboard, allows for a more realistic view of real world robotics. | Daniel Bramblett, 1510 Student Programmer. | FIRSTFare 2010 - LabVIEW Sensors for FRC Robots |
| 2010 | Website 101 for FRC Teams | Get the word out about your team in a high impact way. See what you need to do to win a FIRST Web Site award, basic design principles and how to setup and manage a website. Some of the talk will focus on general website design and some will concern the use of WordPress as a content management system. | Bob Goetz, webmaster for oregonfirst.org | FIRSTFare 2010 - Website 101 for FRC Teams |
| 2010 | Project Management | Project management is the organization, planning and management of group resources toward a specific, time-based goal; a discipline which many organizations fail to use effectively. Project leaders will learn to use concepts employed by Project Managers such as work breakdown structure, task dependencies and critical path. Following these and other concepts will not only allow teams more time and energy to complete the design and build process, but will allow a greater share of resources for necessary support functions like fundraising, sponsor relations, community outreach and earning awards. | Ejvin Berry & Chris ImondiÊ Boeing Corporation. | FIRSTFare 2010 - Project_Management |
| 2010 | Pneumatics for FIRST Robots | An introduction to the pneumatic parts used on FRC robots, engineering challenges and possible solutions. Calculations related to pressure, cylinder, compressor and force and torque needs will be introduced. | Craig Boezwinkle, Mechanical Engineer, Western Integrated Technologies and mentor to team 2811. WIT is a distributor, manufacturer, and integrator of Pneumatic and Hydraulic systems. | FIRSTFare 2010 - Pneumatics |
| 2010 | Effectively Using the FRC Camera | Using the camera both in the Autonomous and the TeleOp modes is becoming more exiting each year due to the relative ease in programming and managing video cameras. This will review the last two year's video approaches including masking (capturing a scene and displaying only the target and its characteristics) and pattern recognition (viewing a scene and identifying a predefined mathematical object) using LabVIEW. Both approaches would return the distance the target is away, its direction relative to the robot and how many targets are in the camera's view. | Amy Wiegand, 2915 Student Programmer. | FIRSTFare 2010 - LabVIEW Effectively Using the Camera |
| 2010 | Chairman's Award | The Chairman's Award is the highest award bestowed to a FIRST Robotics team at the Regional and Championship competitions. It is based off of how a team demonstrates FIRST's ideals through community service, recruitment, mentoring, and gracious professionalism, along with other great team attributes. Discussion will include an introduction to the award, activities teams do to win the award, essay writing style, tips, and sample questions. | Rohisha Adke, Team 1540's Chairman's Manager. Team 1540 won the Chairman's award in 2010 and 2007, and the Engineering Inspiration award in 2008 and 2009. | FIRSTFare 2010 - Chairman's Award |
| 2010 | LabVIEW Overview | For those who want to know more about the programming language LabVIEW, this offers an overview. It will discuss the salient features of the language which includes its being a graphical interface, its ability to create virtual world that can surround code to test that code, and that it is self-documenting. Also discussed is the fact that it is one of the very few dataflow languages which significantly aids in preventing ambiguous instruction paths which leads to efficient and rapid programming. | Dennis Erickson, 1510/2898 Mentor. | FIRSTFare 2010 - LabVIEW Overview |
| 2009 | Chairman's Award | Nate Edwards - 957 Alumni/Head Mentor | FIRSTFare 2009 - Chairman's Award | |
| 2009 | Advanced Web Development | Abdurrahman Qadan, FRC Team 3188 | FIRSTFare 2009 - Advanced Web Development | |
| 2009 | Drive Trains | Dale Yocum - Catlin Gabel | FIRSTFare 2009 - Drive Trains | |
| 2009 | Java beta team insights | 957 Beta team members | FIRSTFare 2009 - Java beta team insights | |
| 2009 | Introduction to Java | Andrew Merrill - Software Mentor, FRC Team 1540, Computer Science Teacher, Catlin Gabel School | FIRSTFare 2009 - Introduction to Java | |
| 2009 | Overview of Electronics | Tim Bennington-Davis - Team 1425 Wilsonville Robotics | FIRSTFare 2009 - Overview of Electronics | |
| 2009 | Project Management | Ejvin Berry, Chris Imondi,ÊTim Christensen - Boeing | FIRSTFare 2009 - Project Management | |
| 2009 | FIRST Overview | Deb Mum-Hil - FIRST Pacific NW Regional Director | FIRSTFare 2009 - FIRST Overview | |
| 2009 | Engineering College Admissions | Jodi Walder-Biesanz - College Admission Coach | FIRSTFare 2009 - 2009 FIRST Scholarship Program Year-End Summary FIRSTFare 2009 - Engineering College Admissions handout |
|
| 2009 | FIRST Fare Pneumatics | Craig Boezwinkle, Mechanical Engineer, Western Integrated Technologies, Team 2811 Mentor (Skyview HS, Vancouver WA) | FIRSTFare 2009 - FIRST Fare Pneumatics | |
| 2008 | Overview of New Controller | Tim Bennington-Davis (1425) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Overview of New Controller | |
| 2008 | Pneumatics | Craig Boezwinkle (WIT) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Pneumatics | |
| 2008 | Chairman's Award | Nate Edwards (957 Alumni) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Chairman's Award | |
| 2008 | Building Robots with 80/20 | Rohan Jhunjhunwala (1540) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Building Robots with 80/20 | |
| 2008 | Marketing Your Team | Creating a media buzz | Roger Collier (2550) int | FIRSTFare 2008 - Marketing Your Team |
| 2008 | Drivetrains for FIRST Robots | Dale Yocum (1540) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Drivetrains for FIRST Robots | |
| 2008 | Fundraising | Ilana Walder-Biesanz (2915) | FIRSTFare 2008 - Fundraising | |
| 2008 | LabVIEW Beginning and Advanced | Matt Spiegelberg (NI) | Tutorials and Training | |
| 2007- | How To Utilize Mentors In Creating A Winning FRC Team | From kcfirst.org | How To Utilize Mentors In Creating A Winning FRC Team | |
| 2007- | Robotics and the Media | Great tips on working with the media! | Robotics and the Media | |
| 2007- | invite Mentors to your team | From kcfirst.org, this video only has students starring in it. | Video 1: invite Mentors to your team | |
| 2007- | Elevator Pitch Video | How to give a quick pitch about FIRST Robotics | Elevator Pitch Video |
