Foreword

Welcome

As a freshman, you’ll need to learn new skills, and be able to execute them. As I’ve said, my freshman year was not nearly as good as my sophomore year, but I learned many skills and lessons to prepare me. I’m trying to include 3 things in this manual: General robotics knowledge, Stuff no one teaches you but expects you to do (like taxes), and Theory. You have to understand general robotics knowledge to be able to do anything. This includes everything in The Basics and everything except Leading in The Techniques. I would also include Resources here, but it contains links for all types of skills. Still check out Resources and know how to use the links. Next is the tax-like stuff. You should understand this to become a better teammate, and to understand how to handle situations. If you know how to properly handle situations, you’re a very valuable person. These include Leading, and everything in The Season and The Tournament. Last, we have theory. This may be the worst part of this document because we get away from the robotics standpoint and approach the “political” side of it. I’ll elaborate more in the actual section, but Theory teaches you how to lead and change the entire club. Take everything I say as a guideline; always put your own spin on these to better conform to your environment. Other than that, I can only give you my best.

Being a Good Teammate

A good teammate has valuable robotics skills, but is also generally a good person. We’ll start on robotics skills, which I’ll elaborate more on in The Techniques. Each person has their own job. Each person should be the best person, or close to the best, for that job. If you know how to navigate your job well, and solve problems within your job, you have valuable robotics skills. But, let’s say that you have the best person for each role. All of them hate each other. This team won’t work as each person can’t be a good person to each other. If you have a team with people that can work well together, no matter the robotics skill, they will be a good team and if not they’ll at least have fun. To close, be a nice person to your teammates. You should have different opinions and ideas, but you should also resolve the differences healthily. Robotics will get heated, but if your team can solve the problem using logic, you’ll turn out on top.