Jonathan Daudelin and I would like to share some good news - No Starch has been wanting to do an FLL book for some time, and Jonathan and I have recently completed assembling a Table of Contents that covers a substantial amount of material. I'll ask Jonathan to Update this post with his own comments, but I'm very happy to be associated with this project. We don't have a lot of information to share with you at this moment, but here's what I can tell you:
1. Release date is tentatively Aug/Sept 2008, hopefully in time to be of use for the upcoming FLL season
2. Page count is unknown but right now the best guess is 300 pages or so.
3. The book is being written for both rookie and experienced teams - coach, parent, student, mentor - plenty of information/advice for all involved
4. In addition to building and programming sections, we're also devoting chapters to the other portions of FLL - technical, project, and teamwork judging. These don't seem to get as much coverage as the Robot Table part of FLL, so we're aiming to fix that.
5. Brief histories of FIRST and its various competitions, with obvious focus on FLL.
6. 18+ chapters (broken into 5 parts) plus Appendices.
Now, here's where we can use YOUR help...
We're creating a special section in the BOOK area of our forum. We are calling on all coaches, parents, kids, and anyone else involved with FLL (past and present) to help us with a few features of the book.
First... we're including a Q&A chapter of our own that will point readers to the specific chapter(s) where potential answers can be found. We want to collect questions from REAL teams... REAL coaches... REAL students... REAL parents. We can't guarantee that your question(s) will end up in the book, but if it does we'll credit you (or your team - name, city, state, country) with the question. Our goal is to take all the questions and make certain we cover as much as possible in a book like this.
Second... we're looking for "real life" stories that might be inserted here-and-yonder in the book - these would be no longer than 3-4 paragraphs and would include some sort of lesson-learned or advice for rookie teams or any team, really. Again, if we use the story, we'll share your name (or team) in the book, plus City/State/Country. We're hoping these will inspire other teams to read about one another's experiences with FLL - as of now, we have no real limits on what you can write about (but it should be about FLL) but if that changes, we'll let you know.
If we choose to use your question or story, we'll contact you in the forum and also let you know if we need any editing or clarification. Do keep in mind that this book is going to move FAST, so if you've got a question or story, get it in soon!
Click here to go to the Forum area - PLEASE read the README post before submitting any questions or stories. THANK YOU!
1. Release date is tentatively Aug/Sept 2008, hopefully in time to be of use for the upcoming FLL season
2. Page count is unknown but right now the best guess is 300 pages or so.
3. The book is being written for both rookie and experienced teams - coach, parent, student, mentor - plenty of information/advice for all involved
4. In addition to building and programming sections, we're also devoting chapters to the other portions of FLL - technical, project, and teamwork judging. These don't seem to get as much coverage as the Robot Table part of FLL, so we're aiming to fix that.
5. Brief histories of FIRST and its various competitions, with obvious focus on FLL.
6. 18+ chapters (broken into 5 parts) plus Appendices.
Now, here's where we can use YOUR help...
We're creating a special section in the BOOK area of our forum. We are calling on all coaches, parents, kids, and anyone else involved with FLL (past and present) to help us with a few features of the book.
First... we're including a Q&A chapter of our own that will point readers to the specific chapter(s) where potential answers can be found. We want to collect questions from REAL teams... REAL coaches... REAL students... REAL parents. We can't guarantee that your question(s) will end up in the book, but if it does we'll credit you (or your team - name, city, state, country) with the question. Our goal is to take all the questions and make certain we cover as much as possible in a book like this.
Second... we're looking for "real life" stories that might be inserted here-and-yonder in the book - these would be no longer than 3-4 paragraphs and would include some sort of lesson-learned or advice for rookie teams or any team, really. Again, if we use the story, we'll share your name (or team) in the book, plus City/State/Country. We're hoping these will inspire other teams to read about one another's experiences with FLL - as of now, we have no real limits on what you can write about (but it should be about FLL) but if that changes, we'll let you know.
If we choose to use your question or story, we'll contact you in the forum and also let you know if we need any editing or clarification. Do keep in mind that this book is going to move FAST, so if you've got a question or story, get it in soon!
Click here to go to the Forum area - PLEASE read the README post before submitting any questions or stories. THANK YOU!