Team Tips: Remote Training for Robot C with
Renee Spangler: C Master
  With
three rookie programmers we needed a quick boost
to get them up to speed on Robot C. We turned
to a great team from Maryland, Under the Son,
from SSI Robotics. You can visit their FTC
site at
http://www.ssirobotics.the-spanglers.net/FTC/Index.html.
But the Spangler's live about 3 hours from our
house so we needed a solution.
We used
Citrix's GoToMeeting product which enabled
us to have Renee lead our team's programmers and
a rookie programmer from our FTC7 team who was
at his house. We all logged in and added a
another webcam so Renee could see the robot. The
latest version of GoToMeeting allows for HD
Webcams (see below) and enabled recording of the
session for later review. We could also use
computers for the call so we could use the mic
and speakers on the computer. It also enabled
Renee to control our computer and walk them
through the programs.
There are many similar meeting products on
the market (some are free). We feel more teams
should try this since the technology works very
well and can be done from anywhere in the world
(GoToMeeting does not require a large amount of
bandwidth).
This Was Our Agenda for Renee:
1. Demonstrate loading the Auto/Teleop
templates.
2. Get basic tank drive running.
3. Show them how to use the multi-plexers
4. Demonstrate how to include and use each
sensor, motor, and servo
5. Demonstrate includes for sub-code
6. Demonstrate Arrays and stored variables
7. Any additional issues you'd like to address
SSI has contributed huge amounts of time
and expertise the US FIRST community in MD.
Please review their site for great resources.
http://www.ssirobotics.the-spanglers.net
Renee was a fabulous teacher.
Renee at her terminal.
The view from the webcams. Will/Nathan, Andree,
and Renee could see each other and the robot.
Here is a view of the setup. The camera on the
tripod was hooked to another laptop that joined
with meeting and enabled Renee to see the bot.
As you can see the cat had lost interest since
he is a good programmer.
Notice the robot is on 'blocks' so it wouldn't
run off the table.
We setup another laptop in the FTC work area so
the building team could watch as well.
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