Training for FIRST mentors, coaches and parents

Are you a FIRST mentor, coach or parent feeling like you have no idea how to help your team? We are honored to offer training to help you out. We have several options:

We will be arranging FIRST-specific training in engineering at several sites in California in the fall. Topics will include:

  • What Could Go Wrong? Predicting failures before they happen. This workshop will discuss how to design a FIRST robot to minimize failures, using a mix of standard failure mode analysis and experience with FRC robots.

  • 3D Printing Parts That Will Survive Competition. 3D printing, like any fabrication technique, requires some design knowledge for best results. This course will discuss how to make parts that are load-bearing as strong as possible for a given 3D printing technology, and discuss where various 3D-printable materials are and are not appropriate.

  • Coding for Coaches. Basics of embedded programming for coaches that might have a background that is more about lathes and mills than roboRIOs. This will not so much be about making the mentors or teachers into coders, but making them aware of the issues and making them good software development managers.

  • Robot System Engineering. System engineering is the process of creating a complicated machine, integrating physical, software and operational designs. Coaches without prior engineering experience may be daunted by the systems engineering aspects of a robot—breaking the work into pieces, prioritizing, time management. This workshop will give a coach the basic tools of developing requirements and designing and testing.

If you're interested and want to give us your opinion on what you need and get details when we have them, click here. (We are also looking for sites to offer training—Contact us).

Besides that, Nonscriptum has several online 3D printing courses through various providers; you can see details here.

Just want a good book to reference? Our currently-available ones are listed here. Our books are available from their publishers or via retailers like Amazon.