It has been about a month since FIRST suspended the 2020 Infinite Recharge Season, and since then we have been busy! Just like FRC teams across the world, our competition season was affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Before the season suspension, we had planned to attend a Week 4 competition, the Greater Pittsburgh Regional (GPR). We were disappointed when it was announced that GPR would be postponed, but we also knew that we needed to use our platform to support other FRC teams and provide forums for communication and collaboration. Our solution was to create the GPR Virtual Event!

The GPR Virtual Event, held on April 4th on the virtual meeting platform, Zoom, created a space for FRC teams from across the country to share their experiences. The goal of this event was to strengthen the FIRST community during the offseason, to determine the best ways that we can support each other, and to celebrate the hard work everybody put into the 2020 season. 

The event was open to all students and mentors on FRC teams. Our original plan was to just invite teams that planned to attend GPR with us, however, we felt it was important to gain insight on how teams outside of the Pittsburgh region are coping and decided to open the event to all FRC teams. Twenty-five teams and almost 80 people expressed interest in the event, and while a few had to cancel at the last minute, we had a really great turnout! 

The meeting was divided into two parts: a discussion about the suspension of the season and a robot showcase – examples shown below. We asked each participating team to have 1 representative initially answer questions in each section before we opened the discussion up to everybody at the event.

We posed the following questions:
Season Suspension:

• What does the suspension of the season mean for your team and how are you dealing with its impact?
• How can we support each other as a community?
• How do we effectively continue the FIRST program from afar/virtually?

Robot Showcase:

• What was your experience during the Infinite Recharge season? Share your successes and challenges on the technical and business sides of your team. 
• What is your biggest accomplishment this season and what are you most proud of?

When discussing the season suspension, the answers had common themes. Everyone was disappointed by the abrupt stop to the robotics season and expressed that it was hard on their whole team, but especially the seniors. Some teams were able to compete in a Week One competition and were in the process of improving and redesigning their robot when the news broke. Two teams, SHARP FRC 3260 and FRobotics FRC 4150, were even at the Finger Lakes Regional when it was cancelled. Like us, teams have been utilizing a number of different platforms, like Slack, Zoom, Discord, iMessage, and Google Hangouts, to communicate virtually. FRobotics even mentioned they are working on ways to move their outreach online and recently held a Facebook Live event. Darkside Robotics FRC 7515 and Biohazard FRC 4050 also announced that they have been working to make masks and face shields for hospitals affected by COVID-19. Most teams also stressed how important going to offseason events is to them, and that they are working on ways to make sure rookie members can gain experience before next season. One way Titanium Titans and Centre County 4H Robotics FRC 4027 are doing that is by holding virtual design and programming sessions. Centre County 4H has also been planning cross-team CAD training to support teams who don’t have the resources to hold their own. The Trojanators FRC 5740, Team Appreciate FRC 2468, Titanium Titans, and SHARP, also expressed interest in facilitating a Virtual Chairman’s Exchange.  

During the second half of the meeting, we all got to share our 2020 Infinite Recharge robots with each other. First, each team used photos or videos they submitted to present their robot to the group. Then, everyone shared what they were most proud of this season. Some teams like Spartan Robotics and SHARP were proud to see all their members step up as leaders to get things done, and Steel Dragons FRC 117 and Bad News Gears FRC 5943 were proud that they doubled the size of their team this season.

We were very happy with the results of the GPR Virtual Event. Afterwards, we sent out a survey to gauge the most effective way we should publicize virtual events in the future, how well we communicated our expectations to the participants, what improvements could be made to the meeting structure, and its overall success. The feedback we have received so far was generally pretty positive. However, there are a few improvements we would make for similar events in the future. The length of the meeting was the biggest issue raised in our feedback form, and we agree that there was more we could do to make the event shorter and more engaging. In the future, we would set up time limits for each question to keep the conversation moving and on track. Additionally, our feedback form showed that participants felt they understood our expectations for the event before arriving, however, we should have imposed clearer guidelines for the Robot Showcase section. Asking more specific questions, providing a slide template for teams to fill in, and providing clearer plans for if a team wanted to share their screen could have helped to clarify the event. The tone of this meeting was more formal, but we would also like to hold less serious events that would encourage more people to participate and foster friendships between teams and individuals.

We were really happy with the connections we made at the GPR Virtual Event, and we are excited about creating more opportunities to collaborate with the participating teams. 

Check out the meeting notes notes here.

Check back soon to view the video of the event!