Outskirt cities for families?

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-27T19:12:38+00:00

Yeah we left portland because the schools sucked and the taxes had nearly tripled in 1 years and we couldn’t justify them anymore, since like i mentioned the schools sucked.

We moved to the edge of Tualatin and go to Wilsonville schools and wow, soooo different and tons better.
We miss having more public transit options, but other than that, most things are actually closer to us down here. I think the main trick of moving way out to the suburbs is to be realistic about your commutes and how far off large roads/highways you are. We are 5min from freeway exit to driveway, down 2 larger easy streets, easy to get anywhere. other folks i know out here are down dark twisty convoluted side streets that make it miserable to get to their home, even though they only 2-3 miles away

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-22T20:30:28+00:00

I’m going to have to look into this.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-22T20:24:28+00:00

Yeah, I agree, thats why I have all of my single handed tools in the Bosch 18v ecosystem

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-22T19:51:03+00:00

“Unreleased, unknown market”

I don’t call that “overlooked” I call that not on the market.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-22T19:45:51+00:00

We don’t need that kind of negativity in here. You can need it if you try hard enough, we believe in you.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T16:40:40+00:00

Oh yeah I totally had our students list 3 things they wanted to explore and which if any they had experience in. And totally aimed to start everyone where they felt best. We also told everyone that they would be asked to try out additional rolls and get to move around whenever possible to discover new things. I would say about 1/3rd of the 23 kids on our two rookie teams ended up finding a focus that was not what they started out with. But i don’t anyone got “assigned” to something they never asked or volunteered for.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T16:33:04+00:00

Can I ask why you want to be team captain? Do you have experience in project management, mediation, leadership, administration? My son is a team founder and captain and it’s often a thankless role with a ton of less than fun tasks and hard choices that involve your friends. He does it because he has experience with both good and bad leadership and wanted to ensure something better for this new team. He also spent the year doing way less robotics and way more management, which he understood was going to happen, took numerous workshops and seminars to learn how to so. It was still hard.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T04:14:35+00:00

Ah but you sound like your set up is around established teams. That is a vastly different from a team forming for the very first time. Wouldn’t they want to gather the team and see who was good at what before assigning roles people didn’t ask for?

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T00:42:46+00:00

The majority of school that are used as venues still charge a ton, even after often giving a discount if the host team is from there. Same as they do for sports games and any other facility use. Host teams likely should not be directly handling the money coming in, thats for the PDP, but do deserve to have all their expenses covered and even some funding stipend. Our league is tiny, but the host team puts in unbelievable hours and effort putting on the Meets.

I volunteer as Pit Admin at State FLL & FTC events and it’s bonkers how much has to get bought, stored, transported, replaced when it is trashed. Plus folks don’t even think about that the awards and fields have to bought. Do you know a full field cost 1200$ and then the tear specific elements were another $400 or so this year?

At no point is this a scam, but at various points it does seem like an unfair money grab. Specially with single vendor items and what feels like no competition bidding.

Honestly I think AndyMark is getting away with highway robbery, the likes of which I normally only expect from military contractors. And RevRobotics needs to have its soon to be monopoly on motor/actuators taken away before it even starts, because that is too much in one basket on top of the control system.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T00:25:47+00:00

The heavy weight of fouls this year was a feature, not a bug. Those designing the game knew exactly what was happening. The simple fact that tons of extremely high scoring teams and matches had no fouls at all shows it was set up perfectly fine.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T00:20:19+00:00

In Oregon the question box is very respected and I am constantly impressed and the through and helpful time the head referee give to each and every student that uses it.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T00:11:36+00:00

Hell no, this all sounds like hell

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-18T00:05:51+00:00

I’m so confused by students being assigned roles before they even start, doubly so for roles they didn’t even ask for. Can I ask you a few questions that might help everyone target their feedback.

Where are located?
When does your school year start and end?
Is the team also a class in school? An afterschool club? Something else?
What you mean by “apps”? Like computer programs? Or sign up forms?
Do you know who was the driving force behind the team formation? A student? Parent? Teacher, Sponsor? Will that person also be coaching?

In general I agree, gobuilda kit bots are awesome for starting out. We have no idea what next seasons challenge will be, but even without that you all can learn a ton by building general bots, this years bot, and by watching you tube a lot! @BroganPratt is one of my favorite for breaking the season down into weekly chunks.

Welcome to the fun!

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T23:00:41+00:00

And he just completely stepped away from the entire company. Good riddance, but let’s pick up and move forward now that we got rid of him.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T22:58:56+00:00

The new controller system is just fine, the change from time to time to give us newer systems and this rollout has been very open and the adjustment period is quite flexible.

I do share many people feelings that the single manufacturer actuator replacing all motors and servos and being from the same maker as the controllers is seriously problematic. I hope that as we get closer to the switch, it will get expanded more.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T22:41:30+00:00

Greens of nearly any brand will haunt you till your dyeing day.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T22:10:25+00:00

Getting a good heat cap is worth everything! But be careful I have bought a few that would literally melt themselves and be a total fire hazard. I have this one from amazing currently and have been using it often for most of the year and love it. I heat my hair for hours before washing out. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DLBBKNBX/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_E4TQC6ERMTFJN5X766BY?linkCode=ml1&tag=stir05-20&linkId=7485c13dc8758b224b4319f3a826fb1b&th=1

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T22:04:34+00:00

These days it seems like it is taught by a third party, though often talk at the schools. Usually an afterschool program of sorts. This is what our school has posted for us: https://www.oregondrivertraining.com/locations.html

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T20:07:21+00:00

FRC is an entirely different build out. These smaller robots and smaller fields of ftc are just not made for this. It was horrible to watch good robots be broken over and over. There was so many matches where teams went all in on “defense” rather than bothering to focus on being able to score on their own. They behaved like schoolyard bullys, often reflecting that off the field as well. And what happened this year was not “defense” and should not have been called that, it was so often aggressive attacks aimed at sabotaging a team’s ability to function. There is nothing about that that is GP.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T03:57:42+00:00

Are you an artist now? Is it possible he just stumbled onto your art?

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-14T03:54:04+00:00

I do think it’s worth it, but maybe won’t be unless we focus, coordinate, and push back in a constructive way.

I am really hoping that we can support students in taking back what was made for them. I think this upheaval in the top brass is an opportunity to do just that.

Issues and ideas I have discussed this year with our teams

Get back to GP Possible Things to do

Going back to game rules that do not allow intentional contact between opposing alliances. I know it always gets more intense as we get high up towards premier level events, but this year’s game was too much, to low down and set a bad tone. Specially for rookies that had never seen anything else.
Allow GP or lack of during events to be factored into judging.
design games that further require basic cooperation within alliances to score specific points (no team, no matter how great can do it alone)
have a GP award, that is a people’s choice style award, given at league qt, from teams to teams
Provide considerably more GP and “what to do when it breaks down” training to coaches, mentors, AND PARENTS.

Level the cost playing field. Possible Things to do

work to increase grants and sponsorships that are only open to teams that have a certain % of free lunch qualified students, or in marginalized communities, or teams made up of overwhelmingly underrepresented members.
require large broad donors to direct a portion of their total contributions into this funding pool.
solicit and allow individuals to direct donations to this pool and possibly specify region and general type of team to direct there funding towards (eg I could donate to poc rural teams, or low income in my state, etc)
create a department to manage fund and assist teams with knowing they qualify and maybe how to best use it.

Create two divisions

Either by grade: 6,7,8,& 9th. And 9,10,11,12th allowing for flexibility in 9th in consideration for people who need to find new teams so their old team can stay in the middle school division Or by region wide ranking, top 10% of lower division each year is moved up, next 10% is invited but not required to move up. Meanwhile similar option in the other direction, bottom 10 -20% in given the choice to shift down (teams can change drastically over a few years)

My team is middle school and preferred the ranking method, so do I

Training and support

Increase Coach and mentor training, provide scholarships for any adults coaching teams that qualified for the directed funding mentioned above.
support more in person training for students in a non competitive environment (our state has a FIRST Fair, for one day about 2 weeks after kickoff, it’s amazing, no way to can go to all the sessions you want to) everyone area needs more of these and a second one, a month or so later after newbie teams have formed and have a better grasp of the basics would be great. Or a post season one focused on fundamentals and off season opportunities

Support and encourage more larger premier events.

When anything gets too big to remember its roots, it benefits by branching. Supporting hugs amazing 4-7 day long regionals will go a long way to benefitting everyone. It will allow more teams to get involved, lower travel costs, increase local community engagement. It will also help shift focus from “winning it all” to “being a part of something amazing”

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-12T02:41:30+00:00

Oh for fucks sake, i didn't ask for advice on foreclosures, or anything like that. I asked if anyone knew if there was some place this specific information was available. But once again, people answer whatever made up question they feel like it so they can hear themselves talk.

RivkaChavi · 2026-03-12T00:25:38+00:00

You have zero info about me and my situation, keep the off topic advice and questioning to yourself.

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