Sippin' on the haterade

[martin417]

Now that several days have gone by and I have digested the events of this weekend, I want to address a recurring issue at many regionals. At GTR, it sounds like many teams don't like 1114 because they win every year, the same seems to hold true for teams like 148 and 217 at their "home" regionals. While not comparing 1771 to any of those those teams, we have done well at Peachtree for the last 4 years or so, and we are starting to see some of the same behavior from other teams there. I sit in the stands with the team during matches, so I don't hear any of what goes on in the queuing line or on the field, but the students do. They heard many comments such as " where did you buy that robot?", "how much did you have to pay someone to build that for you?", "how many mentors did it take to build that robot" and "It must be nice to have unlimited funds to build with." In addition, we played nine matches during quals, and every match we solicited the opposing alliance teams to balance with us on the coopertition bridge. Only three times did we get a team to attempt a balance, two of which were successful.

Having said that, let me tell you a little about team 1771. We have ~18 students on our roster, about six of which show up with any regularity, and four that were there every day, week in week out. The teacher sponsor is a sponsor in name only, to give school legitimacy to the team. For mentors, there is me (a mechanical engineer), and one college student mentor, studying mechanical engineering. So we had six people that showed up every day, four students and two mentors, with a few students that showed up with some regularity. I should mention at this point that we invited kids from a nearby school (Lanier High School) that plans to have a team next year to participate with us this year, and had several join our kids this year, one of whom was our human player.

This year we lost one of our larger sponsors, so our entire budget, not including entry fee, was ~$4,000. That budget includes all costs associated with the running the team: T-shirts, sponsor recognition, robot parts, etc. I don't know how much money other teams have, but I would not classify our team as rich, or having unlimited funds.

Finally, design and build. On kickoff day, we had a big turnout of students. One rule we have on kickoff day is that no-one can talk about robots. We spend the whole day talking about the game. How do we want to play the game? What are some good strategies for playing the game? What are obstacles to overcome? etc. Then we develop a strategy and a game plan. This is an interactive process, with input from all students and mentors. After the first day, we try to figure out how to execute that strategy, is it even possible? etc. We then prototype different aspects of the planned design. Often what we find out in this stage causes us to re-evaluate our game plan or strategy. Again, this is an iterative process, with input from all students and mentors. Once we finalize the design, the CAD work starts. We don't have many kids that can use CAD programs (CAD is not taught at our school), but one of the Lanier kids was well versed in Inventor, so he did the CAD for the frame, with some guidance. The rest of the CAD work was done by myself and the college mentor, with constant input from the kids.

While we didn't have a lot of money, we did have some great sponsors in the laser cutting field, one of whom cut out the wood frame for us, and the other cut out our aluminum parts.

Once we had the parts, plus a lot machining on our lathe and mill, we built the bot. Everyone that was there pitched in to build the robot. Yes, the mentors helped, but with only four students there, all the help we could get was required in order to get it built.

Edit: I forgot to mention programming. I used FORTRAN in college, so I know nothing about C++. 100% of the robot programming was done by a 17 year old senior. He had no outside help other than suggestions on algorithms and interpolation.

So, when someone makes a comment such as mentioned above, it is not fair to the students or the mentors, all of whom put in many hours every week for six to eight weeks to get to where we are. Comments like this just show the ignorance and prejudice of the person making the comment (prejudice means to pre-judge without facts, not racist)

[DampRobot]

Reading your story is certainly interesting. Since I'm not familiar with your team, I'll respond regarding teams I am more familiar with, which may or may not have dynamics similar to your own.

Personally, what can make me begin to dislike a team isn't budget, or even mentor experience, but how much the kids actually work on the robot.

I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

To me (and there certainly are a lot of differing opinions on Chief Delphi on this), the students are the ones that should be learning, and the best way to foster this learning is hands on. Ask yourself if they learn much from others making the design and others giving them parts. Is this a "lesser of two evils" that allows students more learning somewhere else? In my opinion, no. There is very rarely anything that needs to be done in the build process that a student cannot do.

This is my opinion, and I know it may be unpopular. You may even see it as part of the "haterade," and if so, I'm sorry. I only want to present my thoughts and provoke discussion, not anger.

[Taylor]

Even if a hypothetical team somewhere "buys that robot", "pays someone to build that for them", "uses how many mentors to build that robot" and "has unlimited funds to build with", and I say this with absolute seriousness,

WHO CARES?!??!!

Is the team celebrating Science and Technology?
Is the team creating Inspiration?
Is the team Recognizable?

If any or all of these answers is even a little bit "yes", then Mission Accomplished.

It's a learning process for teams and individuals to understand this. It took me about 4 years for it to sink through. I don't believe any team is 100% student built or 100% mentor built (for those that claim to be completely SB, who do you think created the KOP? It wasn't 15 year old kids!)

If I were in your shoes, I'd take those interactions - while quite unfortunate - as a compliment. Perhaps you could create a flyer outlining the different abilities of your robot, and highlight the team member who spearheaded each component. Invite the naysayers to your shop. Point out to them that students are in the pit working on the robot, not adults. Haters gonna hate; kill 'em with kindness.

Congrats on the ICA.

[martin417]

Reading your story is certainly interesting. Since I'm not familiar with your team, I'll respond regarding teams I am more familiar with, which may or may not have dynamics similar to your own.

Personally, what can make me begin to dislike a team isn't budget, or even mentor experience, but how much the kids actually work on the robot.

I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

To me (and there certainly are a lot of differing opinions on Chief Delphi on this), the students are the ones that should be learning, and the best way to foster this learning is hands on. Ask yourself if they learn much from others making the design and others giving them parts. Is this a "lesser of two evils" that allows students more learning somewhere else? In my opinion, no. There is very rarely anything that needs to be done in the build process that a student cannot do.

This is my opinion, and I know it may be unpopular. You may even see it as part of the "haterade," and if so, I'm sorry. I only want to present my thoughts and provoke discussion, not anger.

While I agree that "students should be learning" (that is what a student does), I think you are misinformed as to the purpose of FIRST. We are not trying to teach kids to be an engineer or to design a robot, or even to machine parts. The purpose of FIRST is to INSPIRE kids, to make them take a look at engineering and technology as a career choice. If they learn something about CAD, or designing, or machining, that's just a bonus.

Using our model, how successful has our team been at that goal? Let's look at a few examples. The founder of the team graduated from MIT and is a grad student there now. Not the best example because he was destined to be an engineer from the day he was born. In 2009, 100% of the seniors on the team went on to college in engineering. I know of three that had never thought of engineering as a career before being involved with the team. By the way, all three of those happened to be girls. I consider that special because there are so few women that choose engineering as a career. In 2010, only one of the seniors did not choose engineering. She wanted to be a veterinarian. she has since thought about it and may change her major to biomedical engineering. Last year, we again had 100% of the seniors go into engineering. This year's crop are all planning to go into engineering. Every year, a high percentage of the team is female.

So is our model successful in inspiring kids to go into engineering and technology fields? I doubt you will find anyone who can honestly say that it is not.

[nahstobor]

All I can say is that I'm deeply sorry to hear this. The worst thing to read in this post is that the high-school students are the ones getting attacked. If someone wants to say a robot is "mentor built" go after the mentors [Insert I'm a man, I'm 40 rant].

I feel a lot of the time people forget in the heat of battle that these are high school students who are trying to get inspired about engineering. Claiming that a group of students hard work isn't there own might be enough in some cases to lead them away from engineering.

In 2009, as the coach, my human player committed a penalty at championship. While I was getting chewed out by our alliance partners coach after the match, I stopped him and simply thanked him for coming after me and not freshman who made the mistake. It allowed me to calm the student down, have a laugh with him, then go to the practice field and work with him 1 on 1 to make sure the penalty wouldn't happen again.

I'm not going to lie, as a mentor, I advise my students not to get the robot painted. It usually ends up that we don't have enough time, but the advice is out of protection for the students. Once you have a professional looking machine, the "mentor built " card comes out.

[Squeakypig]

These comments are unfortunate, but jealousy does set in. When a group of students sees a robot that is absolutely an engineering spectacle and then look at their robot made of plywood and c-channel, they tend to get a little jealous. Little do they know, it doesn't matter what your robot looks like or even how your robot plays the game, if your robot functions the way it is supposed to function, it is an engineering success. But when you see a 'perfectly engineered' robot, you just want to believe that the team 'cheated' in a way. It is completely the wrong attitude, you should go to those people that make those comments and compliment their robot, ask them about their design process, give them tips and hints on how they could master your techniques.

As far as people not wanting to do the cooperition bridge with you, this could just be strategy. I know at Waterford, HOT was wanting to do the coopertition bridge every match...and they did it 11 our of 12 matches. The one they didn't get it on was a failed balance, not being rejected the opportunity. I don't know if it is just like this in Michigan, but the elite veteran teams are teams that we look up to. Being from Crevolution, a spin-off from the Thunderchickens, it will take quite some time before we can compete on their level year after year...but we will get there. We have adapted many of their practices and it shows, this year we took home our first ever banner. It took 4 years of biting at TC's ankles to finally get our own banner.

To the teams making those comments, I have 2 things to say:
1) Coopertition in every single match, you can't seed high without it.
2) Stop ridiculing teams and start learning from them instead.

[pfreivald]

I think that in general people should worry more about what they are doing, and less about what others are doing. That goes for a lot more than FIRST.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Martin,
This behavior really gets me steamed. How can any team know what another team does in the confines of their own shop/school/sponsor? Where does it say that students are the only ones that are part of the inspired masses? Where does it say that we should dislike a team because of our perception on how that team decides to best run it's program, inspire it's students or participate in FIRST? So let me state the facts one more time for effect...

We believe that our students get the most out of this program when we stand together and work side by side. We are not a 'rich' team nor do we have sponsors with deep pockets. We are simply an old team (1996) and have collected a lot over the past 17 years the same as any team that has been around for multiple years. We have learned over the years, mostly from others, how to best utilize our resources, design our robots, and compete with other teams. Above all, that formula changes all the time as our student population and mentor group changes. Our students this year are one of the best groups we have had and they seem to get better with each passing year. I consider them colleagues and will do whatever they ask. I am proud of them and every mentor that works on the team. I am also very proud of every team I see that builds a robot whether fully student built or not, mentored or not, rich or not. I have never seen a team that has not built on what they have accomplished each year and become more successful in our mission which is to inspire. My only regret is not being able to do more to keep teams from closing their program.

If you believe in your program and that what your team does/runs is best for your students regardless of your formula, then keep doing it!

[tsaksa]

Very well put. And congratulations on doing so well with what you had to work with. Rather than being the object of scorn these other students should see you as a source if inspiration and information on how to achieve without a lot of resources. From what I have seen so far this year, I believe that most teams in our region have difficulty raising much more than about $4000 in most years, so learning how to make that money go as far as possible is really important.

But I have been struggling with a different aspect of the same problem. Our team has had mixed luck over the years both with funding, numbers of mentors and students, and support from the school. Right now we are really struggling as many teams are due to a loss of financial support. The students go to the regionals and sometimes fail to see how many teams are in the same boat. What they do see are the power house teams with scores of mentors, a fancy robot and pit, perhaps even their own trailer to hall all of their stuff around. They go to the pits of these teams and pick up brochures and business plans and they say this is what our team needs to do.

It is really great that there are teams like that out there, and I am glad that so many of them are so willing to share information and advice. However, it it is not always useful for our students to get too focused on what those power house teams are doing. Most teams will never have even one large sponsor. The math just does not work out. If we are to ever reach Dean's goal of a team in every high school it cant. There simply are not enough large companies or enough grant money out there for all of them to compete at that level.

So where does that leave us. Many teams will probably not know from year to year where the money will come from to pay for even one regional. But that is no reason obsess over getting some huge sponsor. Sure, try for the grants and do whatever you can to raise money, but never begrudge teams that have more funds. What we need to do is to always strive to do the best we can with whatever we have available. After all, it is the learning and experience that is most important. Hopefully one day our team will be as successful as yours in leveraging what we have. If that day comes, I hope we have found a way to leave the sort of sentiment your team has seen a long way behind us.

[Zflash]

It is unfortunate when events like this occur to teams, especially at your home regional where everyone should know you and how your team operates. However it does sound as if you have the right attitude knowing that the folks that spoke ill of your team are just drinking the haterade and trying to come up with reasons as to why they could not reach your level of play. Which are all false and baseless as you have explained.

Once again 1771 had a great robot this year, here is to a future where events like this do not take place and other teams aspire to be great rather than attacking the ones who are.

[ebarker]

I feel the need to jump in on this. There were definitely some teams floating around with some attitude.

For those of you out in CD land, 1311 and 1771 were on the same alliance and I'm glad to say, alliance captain. For years it has been our goal to catch up with 1771. I'm comfortable saying we finally got there.

Instead of sitting around whining, this team worked their butts off. Very often starting before the sun rises, and ending late at night.

About money. We stretch money till it screams. If you walk around a typical event, there is a ga-gillion dollars worth of parts being thrown around in boxes like the daily trash. You don't need a ton of money to be successful. You need a ton of resourcefulness. We count and inventory every part all the way down to the lock washer. It is a crime how many teams treat their parts and tools.

Resourceful - guess what one of the factors was in keeping this team #1 seeded ? TWO RUBBER BANDS.

If you look at our sponsor board, half or more is material or services "in-kind" which is as good as cash. Money is an on-going struggle. People think we are rich and we are definitely not. Straining every day.

The students own this program, hardware, software, and Chairman's in a HUGE way. My personal goal is to spend time this summer and learn how the students designed this robot in Inventor. We don't have single mentor on the team that knows how.

This link take you to our Chairman's video, but if you take the first 15 seconds, and substitute 'Chairman's' for 'Robot'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-4FA5RBWVg

A large point in this video is to work hard, think hard, and have fun doing it.

[ebarker]

When a group of students sees a robot that is absolutely an engineering spectacle and then look at their robot made of plywood and c-channel, they tend to get a little jealous.

The # 1 seed had a c-channel kitbot base.
If I'm not mistaken, the #2 seed had a plywood frame, but Martin can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Joe G.]

Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house?

You bring up an interesting question. Are these the most valuable skills that students can generate through the FIRST program? Answer as you will, but I'd answer with a resounding "no."

I would much rather have my students designing parts, than building parts based on someone else's drawings. I'd rather have my parts manufactured at an outside facility, precision machined from a student's drawing, so that the students can see EXACTLY what they designed come to life. I'd rather have my students learn to prototype, design, think, and iterate. I'd rather have my students learn how to think like a software engineer, than how to punch Java code into a computer. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. It doesn't matter who drafts the robot. It matters that the students learn what it means to engineer a robot.

And one could argue that even that doesn't matter. The bottom line is, FIRST is about inspiration. It is about being inspired to go into STEM fields, not about showing off what you can do with your current skill set. It is about working with mentors, and being shown what's possible...what you didn't think could be done...what CAN be done. Good FIRST teams teach their students that they can do, what they didn't think they could, through mentors. Good FIRST teams even show members of other teams the amazing things that can be done with good engineering.

Without teams as strong as 1771, we wouldn't have a constant, dependable source of inspiring robots and teams. We wouldn't have anyone to look up to. Sure, there would still be an imbalance in the teams...some students would of course come into the program more prepared than others, and sometimes a bunch of particularly skilled students pair up and make something amazing. The team would probably fall back to mediocrety in a few years, since the students would have no incentive to stick around in a "student only" program, and we'd loose our source of inspiration. And, most of the haters would still find a reason to hate. If they find a reason to hate teams better than them now, they'd find a reason to hate later.

And the majority of us? We'd look like this. (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1125500#post1125500) Trust me. I've been there. You don't want to.

Finally, a reminder. It is NEVER in anyone's best interest to hate on teams, because they may run themselves differently than yours, or value different things. Doing so only drags the program down.

[Koko Ed]

I always find it ironic that the teams vomit acid on the Elites time and time again but the Elites are the ones in their pits fixing their robots at the competition so they can get out there and play. They are often the teams that supply a good portion of the volunteers so the event happens as well. There's alot more to those team than just a robot and blue banners. All it takes sometimes is just more than a moment to look at not just what they are but who they are.

[sdcantrell56]

Martin,

I'll start out by saying Haters gone' hate! Apparently this is becoming the price you pay for being a top team in a region.

Now with that little bit out of the way, I will say that I was actually standing around while some of these comments were said and was frankly shocked, considering the teams that were saying them. With us (2415) being in the same situation the past few years, I have been hearing more and more mindless banter directed at our team in addition to 1771 and until this year it hasn't bothered me. However, this year, multiple times have I heard that I have personally designed our entire robot. As much as I would like to take credit for it, this is a blatantly wrong comment and it irks me that other students and mentors alike don't believe that students are capable of designing our machine. It has been a strange year for me, I have never had a problem with people complaining about us having money and resources because that doesn't personally insult my students but once teams start insinuating that students aren't capable of what they clearly are, I take offense.

It seems many of these "haters" would be much better served to take the time to talk to my students who designed the majority of the robot and the same for all these teams that are traditionally in the crossfire for being "mentor built and designed". I can't remember a single person from any of these teams that were so eager to call us out actually taking the time to talk to myself or any of the students who were responsible for the majority of the build and design. It might just inspire some of these adults as to what they should expect from their students with a little bit of guidance and mentoring.

Finally, of course their are teams with insane budgets and that are fully mentor built and designed but WHO CARES. FIRST has never taken a stance on this subject because these teams still manage to inspire kids to go into the engineering field which is the entire point of the program.

[ebarker]

Without teams as strong as 1771, we wouldn't have a constant, dependable source of inspiring robots and teams. We wouldn't have anyone to look up to.

It took us 9 years to get there...... And as awesome as it would have been to get a robot winner trophy, it is REALLY awesome seeding ahead of 1771.....

lovin it man...

There are a lot of rookie teams in Georgia, and a few vets that need some help. We sent out an email to all the rookies yesterday asking them to keep working on their robot because we are going to have a series of mini-tournaments from May till September. We have not yet contacted the veteran teams.

No, it will not be IRI or GRITS, or Rah Cha Cha Ruckus. So for all you powerhouses wanting to spend a summer rocking and rolling, back up..

It will be oriented toward improving these weaker teams. All this leads up to GRITS in October.

What we need is strong vets is to work alongside these other teams to help them improve. Any vet team that wants to jump in contact me offline.

While I'm here - next year 1311 is going out of town chasing our non-robot awards, Peachtree will be robot only for us. We are looking for an out of town regional to go to.

Ed

[Joe Johnson]

While I agree that "students should be learning" (that is what a student does), I think you are misinformed as to the purpose of FIRST. We are not trying to teach kids to be an engineer or to design a robot, or even to machine parts. The purpose of FIRST is to INSPIRE kids, to make them take a look at engineering and technology as a career choice. If they learn something about CAD, or designing, or machining, that's just a bonus.

Using our model, how successful has our team been at that goal? Let's look at a few examples. The founder of the team graduated from MIT and is a grad student there now. Not the best example because he was destined to be an engineer from the day he was born. In 2009, 100% of the seniors on the team went on to college in engineering. I know of three that had never thought of engineering as a career before being involved with the team. By the way, all three of those happened to be girls. I consider that special because there are so few women that choose engineering as a career. In 2010, only one of the seniors did not choose engineering. She wanted to be a veterinarian. she has since thought about it and may change her major to biomedical engineering. Last year, we again had 100% of the seniors go into engineering. This year's crop are all planning to go into engineering. Every year, a high percentage of the team is female.

So is our model successful in inspiring kids to go into engineering and technology fields? I doubt you will find anyone who can honestly say that it is not.

This is not a new debate. A lot of folks think that T in FIRST is teaching and forget that the I is for Inspiration.

Inspiration is the yardstick that all things FIRST should be measured against (imho). It the kids learning new skills gets us to more inspired kids then let's get teaching. If kids seeing engineers and scientists do their magic behind a glass window gets kids inspired, then let's do more of that. The I think the optimal case is somewhere in between.

Two things that we should keep in mind.

First, it is about more than the kids on FIRST teams. I really believe that if it is about just our kids on our teams, then FRC is a very inefficient vehicle. Really. I am sure that my kids would be just a psyched about competing in a half dozen (much easier and much cheaper) robot competitions. I am equally sure that the community AROUND my team would not be as impressed with a tabletop robot competition. The size and spectacle of FRC make an impact that justifies the difficulty and expense (again, imho).

Second, I STILL think back to Hexcaliber, my rookie rookie year (the first year I was a rookie ;-) Our team was lucky to have a robot at all with all the mistakes I made designing that robot. And here was Hexcaliber. You could literally shave by looking at the mirror shine they had on their seat motor cans. I have no idea if how much the kids on that team did, but I can assure you, our kids were really impressed ("Not only does that machine kill at playing the game, they had enough time and energy to polished their MOTORS!"). We all swore that next year, our robot would be awe inspiring as well.

So... ...this is an age old debate. I know which side I come down on.

Joe J.

[wireties]

This is the 8th season for FIRST Team 1296. We have gone through a progression like many of the teams in this thread. These days we do not do a lot of large-scale machine work but it has nothing to do with money. We have 2 in-kind sponsors who help us. One makes commerical window frames and can cut out robot chassis built of reinforced 1" Al extrusion. The other is a first-class sheet metal company that can laser anything we need. Should we not take advantage of sponsors like these? Plus we have always had numerous EE mentors to help make the electronics and software fool-proof. But the students develop the design, learn CAD, wire the robot, write much of the code and other useful activities.

148 is a few miles up the road and we have always looked up to them. Their mentors have been very helpful over the years, extremely generous. There is a playful rivalry I reckon (because many of the 148 mentors work with our mentors or have kids in our schools) but we harbor no jealousy of 148 and never did.

I think it is a good thing to learn how to run a mill, lathe, break, sheer etc. It helps one create a build-able, testable design. But in reality most engineers do not do this day-to-day, they do the math and produce drawings.

[Megalodons333]

It is very unfortunate to hear about this going on. Being a student and a mentor, like many people in this community, we know how hard it is to build and program in six weeks. Personally the best part about this whole experience is when its over and the competition arrives and all you can do is dream, think, and talk about robotics. Then the big day arrives and you see your robot out there competing it just brings everything altogether.

As an alumnus I frequently come back to the school and help the team anyway I can especially since we have only 1 teacher in charge + a couple other alumni to help. However this year as much as I wanted to participate I was taking far too many courses along with work and just didn't have the time. Towards the end of the 6 week process when I stopped by to check up on the team I saw this unbelievable robot already done, programs running well. I was very proud and only comes to show how much a small team can do so much.

I don't care too much about teams who actually paid for professionals and had their robot made. As much as it may benefit them on the arena, the students are the ones who truly are scarred from this. They get deprived of learning science and technology and fully experience something as great and wonderful as FIRST.

Although this probably goes on in every regional, I see very little of this negativity in NYC. Competing in the NYC regional we are blessed with a wonderful audience and remarkable robots everywhere you look. Although teams do have a reputation of doing well in prior events the competition is always up for grabs.



CONGRATULATIONS ON ALL THE SUCCESS YOU'VE HAD TEAM #1771

[engunneer]

I also want to weigh in here. When I was a student, our team had a great sponsor, and four to six engineers from the sponsor would come help us out (not to mention great parents as well). We were a large team, and the different engineers were all interested in different things, so the mentor student ratio was pretty good all around in my view. We were lucky enough to have a machine shop in the school, and our teacher (A WFA winner) was the shop teacher and knew how to inspire kids, and guide design decisions with a light touch. The fancy parts of our robots were still made out of plywood and welded metal. I'll end this part by saying my experience in FIRST as a student made me want to go into engineering, and made me want to be a Mentor.

When I was a mentor with 1318 in WA, I worked for a machine tool company that made waterjets. The school had some drill presses, and that was about it for machine tools. Our milling machine was a bunch of freshmen with files. We had a few students very interested in CAD and design, and we spent a lot of time together talking about how to design with the given tools in mind. I got them thinking about how to design things that can be made out of flat parts. Our 2008 and 2009 robots were jointly designed, but students had the last say for final design. One student was taught how to make DXFs for the waterjet, and I'd cut them out at lunch and after work. The students got a tour of our shop and got to learn about how our machine tools are similar to the robots they build (and what a machine shop looks like). I don't think it should matter that I cut out the parts instead of the students. It was an exercise in ordering machined parts from a vendor. They had to learn about drawings, tolerances, and making sure it worked in cad before ordering. It's very much like a real engineering company. Our 2009 robot went on to seed between 111 and 67 on Galileo, and the students all went on to good college programs in things they enjoy.

This year with 2151, I didn't have access to a waterjet, but I do have a 3D printer. The tool situation is similar (they at least have a band saw). We were going to try to do CAD this year, and have separate Design/Build phases, but one mentor got sick, and the programming mentor had to travel for work for long periods during the season. The students turned out to be not interested enough in CAD for it to be effective, so we basically went to design while building. They decided the basic outline of what they wanted, but it took a lot of prodding to get them to prototype and build things. We made great strides this year, but I would estimate I designed at least 35% of the robot. I did not get to go into the design process as much as I would have liked with the students, but I think we'll still have a good competition. I've heard the students talk about the "rich, mentor built" teams, and have tried to discourage that as being necessarily bad. Most of the 3D printed parts on our robot were designed and printed by me. Towards the end, two of our seniors got to get into the process, and they have parts on the robot that they designed.

I guess my main point is that each team is working with the resources it has. Some have money, some have engineers, some have a machine shop, some have time, some have large numbers of people, and some have tenacity and resourcefulness. The nice thing is that any combination of these elements can create a successful robot and can inspire students to learn. I no longer focus strictly on Science and Technology, but just about learning and thinking in general. FIRST is good at teaching how to run a business, how to build confidence, how to present and talk to strangers, how to build things, how to use tools, how to write, etc.

Our robot isn't the prettiest or the best, but it works. 111's robot will be prettier (They know how to make a robot look good), other teams in the area will have faster and stronger robots. (This is my first year in this regional, so I don't know the other robots/teams well). Our mentors picked up tools and helped build the robot. Some teams frown on that to the point of extremes. We all do and think different things, and that is what makes FIRST great.

TL;DR, I agree with Taylor here. Student built vs. Mentor built is not as important as inspiring students to go on to do great things.

[IndySam]

We heard a few comments this weekend about our robot but we heard many many more compliments from people and I am proud to say that no team refused to cooperate with us.

I know that 234 has had to put up with this for a long at Boiler time because of their success and quality products they produce. I'm sorry to say that back in the day even I made comments. But I took the time to learn about their team and came to realize that it was hard work and organization that made them good. We came to the realization that we needed to work to emulate them and raise ourselves to their level and like most of the top teams Cyber Blue is always more than willing to extend a hand and help lift you up.

In the heat of competitions teams can get frustrated and even angry, it's just natural. It's times like those when its time for us to step up and teach.

[jblay]

I think that the main issue is that you have the majority of teams who do all of their own machining and design and go into the competition feeling very proud of what they have accomplished and then they get destroyed by the best teams on the field and they find the things that the best teams do differently. They take these things like getting your robot machined by companies, having mentors design the robot, etc... and they blame that team's success on it because let's be honest it is a massive part of that success. They find it unfair that some teams get this and some don't and they feel that the playing field should be even.

I am not saying that these teams are right or wrong considering that in my time in FIRST I have thought the way of those teams and I no longer do, but what I am saying is that it is an issue with the naturally developing culture of FIRST and I don't know that there is a way to change it.

[Seth Mallory]

Each team has their own goals and goes about it in the way that serves it best. How much is inspiring and how much is teaching is up to themselves. There is no best way. Our school now has over 200 students in 5 different engineering courses. Our modle works for us. You must choose your own way. Then the hard part is not to compare the way other teams work compared to yoursl

[Wayne Doenges]

At Boilermaker in the "Breakaway" year our team was the first match after the opening ceremonies. A couple of the judges were looking at our robot "Delta Ice" and one made the comment "There is no way this robot is student built." It was the wrong thing to say but we took that as a compliment and proceeded to show them it was student built. I'm the team photographer and I take a ton of pictures during build season and we made them available to them.

As it was stated before "Haters are going to hate." Live with it and go on.

As for the coopertition bridge, if you make a deal to cooperate, with an opponent, then please make the effort to cooperate. Don't make a deal and then leave them hanging.

[MrForbes]

A couple of the judges were looking at our robot "Delta Ice" and one made the comment "There is no way this robot is student built." It was the wrong thing to say but we took that as a compliment and proceeded to show them it was student built.

I like your attitude....I agree that these type of comments should be taken as a compliment (even if not intended that way), and your team members should take this opportunity to explain how your team designs and builds your robot.

[JesseK]

I'm a bit late to this conversation, but the last time I checked CAD was free for FRC teams. Putting 100's of hours into CAD in Weeks 1 & 2 is also free.

The funny thing is, our secret to high-seeding success these last 2 years wasn't "be the best robot". Our secret is to simply work on Friday morning while many other robots are still working kinks out. This is a combination of building within our means during the build season and rejecting overly complex designs.

There's a quote that was repeated many times during the VCU competition and it goes something like this:
"The greatest pep talk in the history of sports cannot make up for a player who has cheated during his preparation. You're either ready or you're not".

Keep steam rollin'. See you at champs?

[Hawiian Cadder]

Although Alpine Robotics is absolutely 100% student centered, I don't think it matters how much mentors work on the bot, or where/how the parts are made. It is pretty interesting though, to go to a competition and see a pit of students working on one teams robot, and a pit of mentors working on another teams robot. I try not to judge teams by this however, as I do not know the circumstances of their build season.

[Gir_450]

Sounds like some teams need a little lesson in gracious professionalism. Team 1566 goes to the Utah regional (which was just last weekend). The last two years, team 399 and team 2122 formed an alliance and many teams found that unfair (they were the top two seated teams both this year and last...and they were champs last year). Well guess what? People griped, whined, and complained that it was unfair and it shouldn't be allowed. The teams that were going against them first instead of griping and whining instead wished 399 and 2122 luck and they met on the field. It all came down to the final seconds when their opposing alliance balanced two bots on the bridge and they got to go on. I'm all for thinking that newer teams should have a chance to win, but instead on whining and griping, make a strategy with your alliance and win fair and square please. And if you don't win, you did you're best, you made it far, and you should be proud!

[ttldomination]

Mr. Wilson,

Unfortunately my team's robot isn't good enough and doesn't look professional enough to receive the hate, but the only thing to say is let the hate power you to do better and better.

The hatorade tends to have one hell of a kick.

- Sunny G.

[Nemo]

If I could quantify the impact of having machining resources vs having a large budget vs having great mentors, I think the mentors would be the biggest factor.

If a team has a volunteer mentor that helps a lot with design and build, that person ought to be duly recognized as somebody who dedicates a lot of time and effort to a FIRST program. Those people are there because they believe in the program and want to help. It is unfortunate any time somebody tosses those contributions back in their faces in the form of "mentor-built" accusations.

Students on teams that have really experienced / involved / dedicated mentors should be grateful to have those people around, but they certainly should not feel guilty about it.

People should avoid assuming the worst about each other, especially in FIRST, where one is especially likely to encounter other people of outstanding character. Thus, people should avoid assuming that a great robot is the product of a group of overly competitive, bossy mentors who shove the students out of the way so they can bask in glory.

I also think that a lot of teams would be surprised to learn that even with a huge budget and nearly unlimited machining resources, it is still very difficult to produce a robot and prepare a team that competes well at the highest possible level. I'm not speaking from experience, but I am pretty certain that this is true.

[Ben Martin]

We heard a few comments this weekend about our robot but we heard many many more compliments from people and I am proud to say that no team refused to cooperate with us.

I know that 234 has had to put up with this for a long at Boiler time because of their success and quality products they produce. I'm sorry to say that back in the day even I made comments. But I took the time to learn about their team and came to realize that it was hard work and organization that made them good. We came to the realization that we needed to work to emulate them and raise ourselves to their level and like most of the top teams Cyber Blue is always more than willing to extend a hand and help lift you up.

In the heat of competitions teams can get frustrated and even angry, it's just natural. It's times like those when its time for us to step up and teach.

As an alumni, I appreciate this. Much of 234's direct awards-level success at the Championship was directly spearheaded by students. I remember putting countless hours into the 2008 Inventor Award entry, and the same was done by the design team in 2010.

When I came to Purdue to mentor another team, I began to realize the value of having a unified team driven toward producing a quality product for all facets of the program. 234 does a very good job of inspiring students to succeed in everything they do. I truly enjoy mentoring 1747, but I constantly look back to the team I came from for inspiration of how to improve how we mentor our students, as accepting nothing less than success in what you do in high school can encourage that same paradigm in college and beyond.

When I see the top teams perform at competitions, I cannot honestly believe that any of them would be a totally mentor-produced operation. As a student, I would find that so amazingly boring. We have given our students lectures and classes about robotics topics, and they have told us flat out that the best thing we can do is keep everything hands-on and everyone involved. I find it very hard to believe that mentors on a top team would be so insensitive as to not allow students to do any technical work for the robot. I am very encouraged and inspired when I read on CD about students and mentors working collaboratively together to produce working products and sponsoring companies being so impressed by the students that they hire them as interns while they are still in high school.

[Legator91]

I have experienced this situation a lot. My junior and senior year of high school my team ( 67, HOT) won worlds back to back. I remember hearing snide comments all the time. When we were on the field, in the pits, or just hanging out with other teams.

As a student on the team hearing these things really angered me. No team has the right to accuse another team of things, when they have no idea what goes on during build season. In 2009 our robot was designed by a then senior, his name was Nick Orlando. His design was then taken by our design team, made up of nearly 15 students, and was done in CAD, refined, and then sent to the machining group to make. I personally made parts for that robot. Whether it was on the water jet, lathe, mill, etc I made them. If you ask any mentor or student, other then training, every part is made by a student.

I spent nearly 40 hours a week making parts, testing, and assembling the robot. Winning that year was not because of an unlimited budget either, that was during the bankruptcy of GM, so other then the shop, our robot was nearly completely student funded. We rode to Atlanta on a city bus, with no storage, no air conditions, hard plastic seats, and it broke down while in Atlanta.(That's 722 miles)

We didn't win because it was mentor built, or from an unlimited budget. Our skill came from years of experience, great strategy, and the countless hours of work we students put into our robots.

So before you go bashing a team, maybe you should get to know them. Talk to the students, and find out what the team is really like.

[Andrew Schreiber]

A couple of the judges were looking at our robot "Delta Ice" and one made the comment "There is no way this robot is student built."

The sentiment is annoying when it comes from teachers and students but when it comes from judges it is outright a problem. Awards are supposed to celebrate great things but if the people choosing those things don't understand that these machines don't have to be student built. What does it say to students who get t work alongside mentors to build a really awesome system only to be passed up for an award because it doesn't look student built?

We need to celebrate great things because good enough isn't inspiring.

[Alan Anderson]

We rode to Atlanta on a city bus, with no storage, no air conditions, hard plastic seats, and it broke down while in Atlanta.

That's HOT.

[GDG 2337]

Back in 2008 when GHWB commented that "FIRST is like the WWF, but for smart people”. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that statement at the time. Reading posts/threads like this one and seeing/hearing it first hand, particularly starting last year, FIRST definitely can be compared to an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company with revenue sources coming from film, music, product licensing and direct product sales. FRC has its own versions of Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and Vince McMahon, in our case it’s Teams that people love to hate, just because of who they are.

Wonder if GHWB would say “FIRST is the WWF for smart people” after listening to how we talk and treat each other these days?

[Mr. Lim]

Martin,

I'm going to try and share some insight to your situation, but I hope you don't take it the wrong way.

I know many won't agree with me, but it is perspective nonetheless.

At some point, strong teams will need to understand that opponents saying "no" to coopertition is not some kind of personal attack against your team. Opponents may just be giving themselves the best chance at winning the regional.

Despite information which may have been spread about the GTR-E event, very few teams actually "hate" the powerhouses. In fact, if you read the dialog on CD, it's overwhelmingly supportive. Nearly all say they've pushed the level of competition in Canada to a level never before seen, and the community has benefitted immensely from the bar being set so high. They are directly responsible for the high quality of robots in this country. As someone actually in Canada, who has competed in the these competitions and interacted with a large number of students and mentors up here, the level of "hate" up here is greatly overstated.

In fact, I'm willing to bet some of this "hate" has been attributed to me PERSONALLY, and I can unequivocably state that I do not "hate" any of them.

However, I and much of the community here really want to beat them. Badly. And I don't think you can blame us for that... this IS a competition after all.

To address the comments about the student vs mentor or high vs low resource teams. I can only share my personal opinion:

I couldn't care less if your robot was fully conceived and built by a crack team of engineers with limitless manufacturing resources, and constructed entirely of pure unobtanium. I couldn't care less if your robot was fashioned from common household goods, and held together with an adhesive based mostly on the hopes and dreams of your all-student crew.

I do care if your team is REALLY REALLY GOOD, and is about to lay the smack down at my regional.

If saying "no" to coopertition helps me compete against you, I will do it.

Nothing personal.

It's not an attack on your team or how it operates.

And who knows, maybe I'll be eating my own words in a few days when teams are declining my offers of coopertition. If they do, I'll chalk it up to them playing smart. Not due to hatred against us.

[Gaurav27]

So before you go bashing a team, maybe you should get to know them. Talk to the students, and find out what the team is really like.


2) Stop ridiculing teams and start learning from them instead.

Guys, I totally agree. We're all mentors (note the obvious exclusion of students' opinions) in this thread discussing the gravity of this issue but really it seems there is a simple solution.

Don't just assume, interact with students on the team, find out how they're experience has been like. There is a reason why teams become elite, it is because they are doing things the right way. Why not just learn from them?

When in doubt, go to the grass roots and really review what FIRST truly values.

[Taylor]

Martin,
...
Nothing personal.
While what you say rings true, it does not coincide with what Martin pointed out:
They heard many comments such as " where did you buy that robot?", "how much did you have to pay someone to build that for you?", "how many mentors did it take to build that robot" and "It must be nice to have unlimited funds to build with."
That, to my mind, equals ignorance and prejudice. Not cooperating with a team is one thing; making hateful statements is entirely different.

[Mr. Lim]

While what you say rings true, it does not coincide with what Martin pointed out:

That, to my mind, equals ignorance and prejudice. Not cooperating with a team is one thing; making hateful statements is entirely different.

Which makes it even more important that we not confuse one with the other.

Just because a team doesn't wish to coopertate, don't assume they hate you.

I think this is a point that needs to be reinforced, as the discussion here seems to link the two.

[Starke]

After watching this thread develop, I am surprised that no one has compared this to the game we are playing this year: Basketball. More specifically, the NCAA March Madness is going on right now. Don't most spectators (who do not have an allegiance) cheer for the underdog? Isn't it cool as a spectator to watch a big upset on a "powerhouse" team?

These spectators also like to make excuses for why the powerhouse always beats the underdog. People, who do not have an allegiance, like to cheer/support/motivate the team that is not supposed to win. This also means that they are willing to slander/bad mouth/be rude to the "powerhouse" teams.

I sense that this translates to FIRST as well. By no means am I say that it is right, I am just saying that FIRST as a sport will also create sports spectators.

[huberje]

I've always wondered why people get upset when even haters admit that their robot looks and performs well enough to be designed and fabricated by a group of professionals.

When I was on the team, I wish people would come up to me and say that we were doing so well we had to be cheating. Being a driver, I would have felt pretty good!

[Taylor]

Which makes it even more important that you not confuse one with the other.

Just because a team doesn't wish to cooperate, don't assume they hate you.

We're arguing opposite sides of the same position. I think you interpreted the exact opposite of what I tried to say.

I don't think, and have never thought, you or your team acted in a poor manner, and honestly I didn't even equate coopertition/noncoopertition with the statements quoted by Martin. There was no confusion; I was intending to point out, much like you are, that the two are indeed separate. Compete like crazy on the field, but leave it on the field. You did this; some of the teams at Peachtree allegedly did not.

I apologize for not being more clear in my statement. I will try to do so in the future.

[Mr. Lim]

Taylor,

You are right, we are saying essentially the same thing from opposite sides of the coin. There is no dispute here!

Thanks for being so gracious and professional.

We're arguing opposite sides of the same position. I think you interpreted the exact opposite of what I tried to say.

I don't think, and have never thought, you or your team acted in a poor manner, and honestly I didn't even equate coopertition/noncoopertition with the statements quoted by Martin. There was no confusion; I was intending to point out, much like you are, that the two are indeed separate. Compete like crazy on the field, but leave it on the field. You did this; some of the teams at Peachtree allegedly did not.

I apologize for not being more clear in my statement. I will try to do so in the future.

[Taylor]

After watching this thread develop, I am surprised that no one has compared this to the game we are playing this year: Basketball. More specifically, the NCAA March Madness is going on right now. Don't most spectators (who do not have an allegiance) cheer for the underdog? Isn't it cool as a spectator to watch a big upset on a "powerhouse" team?

These spectators also like to make excuses for why the powerhouse always beats the underdog. People, who do not have an allegiance, like to cheer/support/motivate the team that is not supposed to win. This also means that they are willing to slander/bad mouth/be rude to the "powerhouse" teams.

I sense that this translates to FIRST as well. By no means am I say that it is right, I am just saying that FIRST as a sport will also create sports spectators.

Rivalries can be fun, but they can also be taken too far. My hope is that the sports model stolen by FRC, infused with a dose of gracious professionalism, would allow for friendly rivalries (which in some cases it does - check out some of the (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/33629) historic (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35545) pranks (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/36876) between 148 and 118). Unfortunately, some teams forget that while we may have different numbers, we're ultimately all on the same team.
This almost exact conversation took place last year (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93564). It's a struggle, it's a battle, of education vs. ignorance.

[Akash Rastogi]

education vs. ignorance.

Pretty much the struggle everyone around the world needs to overcome about many different topics.

Over time all we can do is educate those around us about each others' teams. Its a never ending problem because new students come and go. If mentors who are the foundations of teams would start educating their students with FACTS about other teams from the start, then the problem would go down by a bit. But it will never go away.

[RogerR]

I figured I should throw my experience out there:

When I was a student on a team, the robot was mostly mentor built.

I don't just mean the mentors did the machining or dangerous work; the mentors (and one in particular) were largely responsible for the strategy, design, and fabrication. Students were able to do basic tasks* and maintenance, but it was mostly mentors making the design decisions. Most students on the team didn't even touch the robot, and many didn't even see it until it was finished.

Despite what some in the CD community might think, we were inspired. My team-mates were always excited about robotics season; the last year I was on it, we had over 80 members. The year I graduated, 100% of the seniors went to college, where the majority studied engineering (Granted, some of us have strayed from the path and become teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc...). Several of us have gone on to start our own successful teams.

I know that we all have different measures of "success", but I think that this team was successful.

[martin417]

Martin,

...If saying "no" to coopertition helps me compete against you, I will do it.

Nothing personal.

It's not an attack on your team or how it operates.

And who knows, maybe I'll be eating my own words in a few days when teams are declining my offers of coopertition. If they do, I'll chalk it up to them playing smart. Not due to hatred against us.

I Don't have a problem with refusing to cooperate if that improves your position. I am sorry if I confused the issue by mentioning the lack of cooperation. In fact, in the last match, we were the only undefeated team, playing against a team that was seeded #1 with one loss and one more coopertition balance than we had. We decided not to try a coopertition balance because it couldn't help us, but put robots at risk (if you have ever seen catastrophic balance failure, you know what I mean).

[JaneYoung]

All -

I beg a favor, please. And I mean that literally.

This is an excellent discussion with many opportunities built into it for thoughtful insights and wise experiences. Please don't let this thread degenerate into an argument when it does not have to.

I have been thinking about the thread and was mulling over some thoughts to share later this evening. I checked it on my break and was surprised to see how quickly it has grown. Take some time to read the posts and comments made. Then take some time to respond in respectful manner.

(Many of the teams at Bayou brought the respect aspect of team interactions home to me this past weekend. By doing so, it made me want to raise my level of respect and appreciation in return. We can do the same here.)

Please.

Jane

[Nick Lawrence]

I'm going to tread very very lightly with this post. But I kind of feel it needs to be said.

After SF1-1 at GTR-East in which 907's alliance won against 1114 and 2056, the entire audience roared and cheered. Not because they hate the powerhouse teams, not at all.

Because it's cool watching the underdogs win.

-Nick

[Laaba 80]

After watching this thread develop, I am surprised that no one has compared this to the game we are playing this year: Basketball. More specifically, the NCAA March Madness is going on right now. Don't most spectators (who do not have an allegiance) cheer for the underdog? Isn't it cool as a spectator to watch a big upset on a "powerhouse" team?

I sense that this translates to FIRST as well. By no means am I say that it is right, I am just saying that FIRST as a sport will also create sports spectators.

This is true. It was very clear at Duluth that the crowd wanted the other alliance to beat us in the finals. I didn't take any offense to this, I actually thought it was pretty cool and used it as motivation for our alliance. At that point, our team was undefeated, and our entire alliance had a combined record of 36-2-1.

Last year at 10k lakes, our team was on the other side. We were the underdogs against the #1 alliance led by undefeated teams 525 and 967, and the crowd loved us. They went especially crazy when we were able to win the first match. They didn't do this out of spite for the #1 alliance, everyone just likes to root for the underdog. When they ended up beating our alliance, the crowd cheered for them, and gave them the respect they deserved.

[santosh]

From speaking with Sean who joined us at 2415 and used to work with 1771, the fact is, it is pretty $@#$@#$@#$@# tough with their resources and time to be able to teach kids how to CAD. But being able to speak with them, they do play a huge role in putting their bot together, having a huge amount of input on design, and on gameplay.

I am all for teaching kids CAD. 2415 (my old team) has kids doing a vast majority of the CAD. And hey, their bad for actually reaching out to companies to get parts cut and made (and having back up plans for when the companies have to back out for paying customers).

I remember when we first started 2415, my kids were blown away at champs. They were also incredibly blown away by 1771. When all was lost, I sent kids out in pairs to talk to the big dogs.

They took every opportunity to speak with mentors of teams 118, 330, 254, and plenty of the other greats to see how they get it done. They realized that every team takes a different route and they took that off-season to learn not only how to machine better, CAD better, and think better, but also how to use, and gain resources, to help them get better.
Us mentors came back from summer to see that A) our kids were taller than we were, and B) they came back knowing a lot more and being a lot more driven to succeed.

So yeah, people's stance may be that kids should do it all on their own, but with that same thought, most people don't think that kids can pull of a sick looking (and performing) robot. But the fact is, they can - but it takes mentors to inspire.
This deviates from the discussion about the purpose of FIRST. I will admit, I like it far more when I see bots designed/built mostly by students, doing well than otherwise. The fact is that it can be done but you have to use your resources well.

p.s. I am (was) a terrible mentor and it is all about the students doing work.

[goldenglove002]

I can think back to my first memory of team 1771 back when I was sophomore. Their robot was ridiculously good. Ours had a lot of pool noodles and zip ties. Theirs won some awards, ours surely did not. Still being relatively new to FRC, I told myself that there was no way students had built that robot, it had to be the mentors doing all the work. 1771 was the one team that I never liked to see at Peachtree. I was one of the "haters".

Seeking to catch up with where their robots were, I learned how to do things. I did plenty of research on past robots and games. I sought assistance from my mentors. And over time, I learned that my original thoughts were completely wrong, students could build some awesome machines. I did it, other students on my team did it, so I'm sure that 1771's students were also doing it.

I've held conversations with plenty of 1771 team members, and there are some very nice, very smart students over there. During this years Peachtree, I spoke with some of 1311's current students over the phone telling them over and over that they needed to pick 1771 if they did indeed end up with the top seed. I applaud what they are able to do as an inspiration to other teams that don't have award winning robots yet.

There are A LOT of really young teams in Georgia. We need to work to show them how they can become an elite team, just like 1771. With the right mentoring from veteran teams, those who are currently "haters" will be converted the same way that I was.

[ebarker]

Excellent post Alex !!

edit: so how did the robot rank in Raleigh in 2010 ? haha

[Chris Hibner]

I'm going to tread very very lightly with this post. But I kind of feel it needs to be said.

After SF1-1 at GTR-East in which 907's alliance won against 1114 and 2056, the entire audience roared and cheered. Not because they hate the powerhouse teams, not at all.

Because it's cool watching the underdogs win.

-Nick

What Nick says is true, and it also goes further. There are 21 teams in the eliminations on alliances other than the 1114/2056 alliance. I would be willing to bet that all of those 21 teams would rather not have to face 1114/2056 to win the championship. Thus, if 1114/2056 were to lose in the quarter finals, you can bet there is going to be a gigantic roar from the crowd simply from those 21 teams that would be thanking their lucky stars that they don't have to get through the favorite to win.

[martin417]

Reading over this thread, I realized that I may have given the wrong impression of the Peachtree Regional. While we did receive some bad attitude, we ALL had a blast, and I know many people, both young and old were inspired. I loved it when some of the freshmen parents came up to me and said that they had no idea how cool and how much fun this was. I know that many left with a new appreciation for engineering and science in general, and FIRST robotics in particular. Most of the people with whom I spoke were very supportive, and I enjoyed every conversation I had (I talked with a lot of people). In my opinion, the best compliment our team received was not on the quality of our robot, it had nothing to do with how well our drivers drove. It was posted here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1145398#post1145398)on Chief delphi by Sunny Gupta, a mentor from 1261 (1261 is from Peachtree Ridge high school, in the same small town as North Gwinnett). Here is an excerpt from that post:

@ 1771 - Probably one of the most professional teams I've ever met. Usually teams pass around the blame but you'll never hear a bad word from 1771. Honestly, they ran an excellent event and were SOL when it came down to crunch time. Hopefully you guys can get enough funds to get to N.C and join 2415 and hopefully us at worlds.

[Brandon_L]

You bring up an interesting question. Are these the most valuable skills that students can generate through the FIRST program? Answer as you will, but I'd answer with a resounding "no."

I would much rather have my students designing parts, than building parts based on someone else's drawings. I'd rather have my parts manufactured at an outside facility, precision machined from a student's drawing, so that the students can see EXACTLY what they designed come to life. I'd rather have my students learn to prototype, design, think, and iterate. I'd rather have my students learn how to think like a software engineer, than how to punch Java code into a computer. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. It doesn't matter who drafts the robot. It matters that the students learn what it means to engineer a robot.


For the longest time, our team was made up of about 50% kids that wanted to become mechanics, and work in a garage. Is there anything wrong with this? Not at all. Our engineering kids would work with these kids through prototyping and the final design. This method stuck, and I can't imagine doing it any other way. Not a single part was ever sent to a sponsor to cut.

Did the robot always work right? Nope. Did it look professional? Never. Did we have a blast doing it? YES. Fun=inspiration.

Engineering kids learned hands-on tool working/cutting/everything from our machinist kids, and our machinists learned how to design from the engineering kids. I think this is more valuable then designing a part, and having it sent out to get made. Of course, we have mentors, but their role wasn't that huge. They were more of a "I need to sand this tiny round piece, how should I do it?" kind of mentor. Or if something was to dangerous for a student to do for whatever reason, the mentor would do it.

Like someone else said before, its a jealousy factor. I look at other bots at the regional, and I see nice & shiny paint jobs, CNC'd bots, and professional-looking machines. Of course I wish mine looked/played like that. But honestly, I wouldn't have our build season be any other way. I like the way we do things and wouldn't change it for anything. It got me into engineering, and I'm not planning on switching majors anytime soon. Each team has their own way of doing things, some produce more successful robots then others, but its how they have fun and how their students get inspired.

2c - no haterade

[ebarker]

we ALL had a blast

I want to reinforce Martin's comment.

I have been at the Peachtree 7 times, several out of town regionals, and 6 Championships.

This year that the Peachtree was one of the best events I've been to. Absolutely make no mistake about it. It is a great regional. And I hope every team in the world will consider coming to this event.

These little nit-picking small comments we are talking about, while irritating, while they happen everywhere, we are all here to discuss this, put it behind us, and figure out how to improve ourselves and our fellow teams out there.

It is important to occasionally remind ourselves what we are trying to do and how we are trying to get it done and ChiefDelphi is a good forum for doing that. And very nicely this thread is still in good shape.

"hooah!"

[familyguyfreak]

Even if a hypothetical team somewhere "buys that robot", "pays someone to build that for them", "uses how many mentors to build that robot" and "has unlimited funds to build with", and I say this with absolute seriousness,

WHO CARES?!??!!

Is the team celebrating Science and Technology?
Is the team creating Inspiration?
Is the team Recognizable?

If any or all of these answers is even a little bit "yes", then Mission Accomplished.

It's a learning process for teams and individuals to understand this. It took me about 4 years for it to sink through. I don't believe any team is 100% student built or 100% mentor built (for those that claim to be completely SB, who do you think created the KOP? It wasn't 15 year old kids!)

If I were in your shoes, I'd take those interactions - while quite unfortunate - as a compliment. Perhaps you could create a flyer outlining the different abilities of your robot, and highlight the team member who spearheaded each component. Invite the naysayers to your shop. Point out to them that students are in the pit working on the robot, not adults. Haters gonna hate; kill 'em with kindness.

Congrats on the ICA.


I agree 100% with this post. Our team was ran similar to how the OP's team was this year. Our reason behind that was because our students had no idea what FIRST was and our goal was to get them into it and experience it. We didn't go expecting to win, we just to show the kids to get them hooked so the team could grow next year. Many teams run their teams differently. As long as the message of FIRST is getting through to the kids, I say keep doing what you're doing.

[martin417]

I want to reinforce Martin's comment.

I have been at the Peachtree 7 times, several out of town regionals, and 6 Championships.

This year that the Peachtree was one of the best events I've been to. Absolutely make no mistake about it. It is a great regional. And I hope every team in the world will consider coming to this event.

These little nit-picking small comments we are talking about, while irritating, while they happen everywhere, we are all here to discuss this, put it behind us, and figure out how to improve ourselves and our fellow teams out there.

It is important to occasionally remind ourselves what we are trying to do and how we are trying to get it done and ChiefDelphi is a good forum for doing that. And very nicely this thread is still in good shape.

"hooah!"

All true, and I forgot to mention one of the coolest things that happened was that I got to sign Woodie Flowers' shirt, and he signed mine. How cool is that? Not to mention a visit by the Harlem Globetrotters.

[Andy Baker]

Martin,

This is an excellent thread. Thank you for starting it. This is an ongoing issue that we, as a community, need to continue to be diligent in addressing. I believe that we must look for opportunities to tactfully and graciously address this situation, much like Wayne did with judges at the Boilermaker Regional (let me show you how students are involved!).

I often get customers calling in to AndyMark, asking about various things. Many of the customers who call the most often are new mentors and they sometimes vent about these "professionally built robots". Although they are not asking for my opinion, I eagerly and tactfully take the opportunity to voice my opinion about this and describe the "I" in FIRST. Almost all of the time, I am able to get them to see this new (to them) side of FIRST, citing that FIRST is not a science fair project and that involving professional engineers, skilled tradesmen and business leaders is a good thing.

What we forget is that there are new FIRSTers every year. Not only are 20-25% of all of the teams new to FIRST, but there are personnel turnover on another 20-25% of the veteran teams. This adds up to approximately 40-50% of teams being led by new team mentors. Due to this, we must remain consistent and diligent in repeating this opinion of keeping the "I" in FIRST and seeking out occasions where we can tactfully take the time to explain that it is perfectly OK for adults to be involved with this wonderful program.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[smurfgirl]

At my very first robotics meeting in fall 2005, some team members explained to me what the team does, and in the process showed me the 2005 robot and explained how it worked. It was by no stretch of the imagination a "good" robot, but my reaction to seeing it was complete awe that it was possible for high school kids to build a functional machine that was as tall as me. A part of me figured that there was no way I could be a useful or successful member of the team, but I was intrigued by the concept of FIRST so I ended up sticking around. I helped build the 2006 robot, and later that season, the team was ranked last throughout most of the New England Regional. While I has learned it was indeed possible for high school students to build functional machines the same size as me, it was still pretty easy to look at the more successful teams and think "how on earth could a high school student have done that?". Later that day, our team was selected to join an alliance with two very experienced and accomplished teams. They passed on a lot of knowledge that not only explained how their teams were so successful, but also directly contributed to our team's success in subsequent years. At times in our more successful seasons, 1124 has heard similar negativity and criticism... and guess how we have responded? We also pass on our knowledge to teams in need. As an inexperienced or struggling team, it can be easy to question and criticize other teams as a defense mechanism. This will certainly continue to happen into the future. What we need to change is the way we react to this "haterade" - we have to help frustrated teams see how they can aspire to be all that the successful teams are, and give them the tools so that they can get there.

[Madison]

I am happy that the sort of behavior we're talking about here hasn't popped up here the PNW -- or, if it has, I've been completely oblivious to it. On the other hand, I've had a few teams tell me that my team and others like 1983 and 2046 and 360, to name a few, have made them want to be better. A lot of those teams are now better than mine is and that's exciting -- and a bit frustrating, too; not going to lie.

This sort of attitude seems to come from teams that are allowed to operate in a vacuum. The best in the world can be intimidating to approach, even if they really are the nicest people around, and so teams that only interact with them at competitions fill in the blanks they have about who they are and what they do with their own fears and inadequacies.

The best thing I think we can do -- even though it really is a TON of work -- is to stay engaged with other teams in our regions as much as we can. We are not very good at this on our own, but we are lucky to have a group of folks up here that are fantastic at bringing teams together and acting as a central resource for us. It is very hard to be angry with people you know and like; I know this from experience. :)

[PayneTrain]

I don't think anyone knows about this, but I may be at my last competition in April and I feel like it needs to be said.

Team 422 ran on haterade in 2009. The previous year, the fruits of mostly-student labor ended up being very sour. However, students on the team initially blamed other teams for having their mentors do all the work and conspire against them. Truthfully, the team's 2008 creation taught the team a lot of what shouldn't be done.

When Lunacy was unveiled, the seniors took it upon themselves to stick it to every team that had "wronged them" previously. It ended up that while the robot was mostly constructed out of in-house cut and welded aluminum angle and plate in addition to the KOP drive train, the greatest part of the robot was its conveyor system, designed by students, but assembled by a supplier for one of our sponsors. In fact, that conveyor was so grand, its made a modified return on this year's robot.

So what could we say now? Were we a mentor-built team? No, we were a team that busted their butts for six weeks for the first time in a few years, and got to a semifinal round in a tough away regional. Since then, the team has made it a point to mind our own business during the build season. If we work as hard as we can, there is no reason for us to not be playing on Saturday afternoon.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: why waste the effort you could be putting into making your team better with putting other teams down? Why bother wondering what powerhouse teams do behind the same closed doors you have? Why worry about how they win with what you don't have, when you should work on winning with what you built?

[tsaksa]

What we need to change is the way we react to this "haterade" - have to help frustrated teams see how they can aspire to be all that the successful teams are, and give them the tools so that they can get there.

Exactly. That is the challenge I have taken on for myself. To make sure our team never falls into the trap of looking at any other team that does better and complain in any way. The only constructive things to do when confronted with a better competitor is to congregate them and learn from them. Nothing else is worth your time.

[plnyyanks]

I helped build the 2006 robot, and later that season, the team was ranked last throughout most of the New England Regional. ... Later that day, our team was selected to join an alliance with two very experienced and accomplished teams. They passed on a lot of knowledge that not only explained how their teams were so successful, but also directly contributed to our team's success in subsequent years.

Ellen hit it right on the head - this is an extremely common story from 1124 folklore, even 6 years later. To this day, we can look back at this robot (yes, it's still intact/functional) and refresh ourselves on some of the lessons learned that year - most of which came from the veteran teams we competed with. And those lessons are still being passed around. I'm sure the lessons from veteran teams directly affected 1124's ability to be successful on a large stage in the years after that. And if I know one thing about the UberBots of yesteryear, I'm positive that they worked to continue the cycle and spread the knowledge they gained so other people could be inspired, just like they were a few years before.

It's always easy to write off other teams' successes as being all due to their mentors, sponsors, huge budgets, or what have you. But that would be wrong. Seeing powerhouse teams should inspire you to stretch the bounds of what you can do and make the best with what you have. You should know that, with lots of hard work and dedication, you can be just like them.

To draw from my team's history, I know how hard 1124 worked a few years back. I see it every day in our workshop, be it from old robots sitting around, or from little bits of prototyped metal in a scrap pile somewhere. I know how much they wanted to be at the top, and I know how much the teams already there helped pull them up. Sure, we got our share of haterade thrown at us, but I like to think that all that hard work put in paid off somewhere - in helping another team get a taste of the same inspiration. As a student leader of the next generation of the UberBots, I look up to many of the powerhouse teams, and I see what a great example they set for everyone else, and try to emulate it. I'm inspired.


...that probably came out kind of long and rambly, but my point is: don't hate on the powerhouse teams. They've work really hard, inspired tons of people, and embody what FIRST is all about.

[TD912]

A few years ago, our team went to a competition. While waiting in the queue for the next match, a person from another team on our alliance looked at a NASA sticker on the side of the robot, and said something like "Hmm, you guys are sponsored by NASA? Must be lucky to be have those guys on your team..."

I didn't think anything of it at the time, until a few days later when a teammate was watching a video on YouTube of another team and said "Look at that, this team is sponsored by (some company), they probably don't even build their own robot..."

This is when I realized there is a lot of assumptions being made, and a lot of misinformation being spread around.

No, we don't have a bunch of genius NASA engineers secretly building a robot for us. We only received some grant money from them to help keep our team alive. We do have some very helpful adult mentors that help out when the team gets stuck, though.

While our robot that year looked slick and well-built on the outside, it performed horribly on the field, and the actual wiring and software was a mess. It could barely score any points. Sure, there was fancy-looking bumper fabric embroidered with our team numbers on it, but that was donated to us. Sure, there were some sponsor logos on the side panels, but they weren't there because our sponsors made the robot for us, it's because they are helping to keep our team alive.

When I'm in the pits, I generally see the students working on their robots. If they are tinkering around, adjusting or repairing things, I would think they would know how their own robot works. Even if a bunch of "genius NASA engineers" built the robot, I wouldn't mind it as long as the students are actually learning something from it.

While I might feel disappointed (and yes, even somewhat jealous) after losing to an "elite" team with a slick-looking robot and seemingly endless resources at their disposal, I don't like jumping to conclusions and make rash assumptions about why certain teams are "better" than others.

[Anupam Goli]

When we're all new to the great varsity sport of FRC, sometimes we aren't convinced of the legitimacy of the creations of others. Even now, one of the mentors of Team 1002 still claims Ed builds 1311's robot! I know this is not true for a fact, not only from talking with students of 1311, but by observing them. This is the same with 1771 and 2415. How can one not be inspired by 1771 and 2415? The two teams have won 8 regionals in the last 4 years combined. I certainly only look up to them, and wish to be at the top with these two teams.

It's all about the inspiration, and if you mindlessly say someone's robot is "mentor built", you aren't doing what FIRST is asking you to do. Treat it like a real Varsity Sport. Work hard, learn, and do what these teams do to succeed. It's a doctrine that I've had to spread to my team after our recent failures. Ever since 2010, our team has been ranting on about mentors building others' robots and using every possible excuse to not improve themselves in the name of the sport. They even went as far as saying that it's just a high school club, not an athletic sport. How frustrated I was at this attitude. It didn't help that the team did not listen to me, one of the few individuals who treated FRC like the Varsity Sport it was, researching and practicing for the season.

I've finally convinced a few members of the vision of FRC and FIRST, and through my own feelings of guilt, I will mentor the team so they will do better. I know for a fact I don't want to look up to 1771, 1261, 1311, and 2415. I want to be up there with them.

Stay strong, the hate only makes you stronger. Continue to do what your team does best: Inspire others to reach up to you and raise the competition level.

[Karibou]

This is a slight tangent from the current discussion, but I've seen this come up in both this thread and others, and I want to address it.


I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

(emphasis mine)

I always find it a bit odd when I see the comment that I bolded above. I understand why many individuals feel that way, often because the first defense for that statement that comes to their mind is "we couldn't build as good of a robot as team XXXX because they work at a professional factory while we work in a garage. If we worked there, we could be good too". I find it odd because in industry, the person who does the CAD is not always the one who operates the waterjet. I'm not saying that operating in the same manner of current-world industry should be a priority, but students will have a major advantage if they have even a general idea of what they can expect when they get a job.

Now, don't get me wrong--being able to fabricate your own parts is an AWESOME capability for a team (if it's Saturday and I need a wheel hub turned on the lathe, I'm SOL until Monday if I have to outsource my machining). But, it is not feasible for all teams for a variety of reasons: can't afford the machinery, don't have the resources to train students/mentors, don't have the space, you name it. Great robots have been fabricated in machine shops, and great robots have been fabricated in garages, but not having machinery available is no reason why a team can't field a competitive robot. Funding is a different matter entirely, but that is not a discussion for here.


For the record, 1189's 2010 robot was sheet metal that was cut and waterjet at GM, and we were lucky to see it move more than an inch on the field.

[techtiger1]

(Steps on soapbox)

I have heard these hating comments about my own team as a mentor and about other teams in my region. Our state has many excellent teams a few of them stand out and are excellent to a championship level every year. As a student you think its unfair, as a mentor you begin to realize that the robot is just a vehicle. To quote Dr. Flowers FIRST is a microcosm of real life, it is not always fair or a level playing field. JVN once wrote on these very forums something to this effect, I don't care if a bunch of monkeys builds the robot as long as the kids are inspired that is all that matters. We need to focus on the bigger picture here and remember GP.

(Steps off soapbox)

[ebarker]

Even now, one of the mentors of Team 1002 still claims Ed builds 1311's robot! I know this is not true for a fact, not only from talking with students of 1311, but by observing them.

Funny. For those people that know me... at the competition I'm either walking around talking to people, or "in hiding". Students know that I disappear for extended periods. There are a lot of stories of students hunting for me for help with a problem. This year was the best. Virtually zero phone calls or text messages. I helped with ONE problem. We needed two rubber bands and an ethernet extension cable.

During the 'design season' we have daily design reviews and ask lots of tough questions. It is a real design process with daily scrum and continuous feedback and review. It takes me 20 minutes and I walk to the next group working on some other project to see what is going on there.

I walk around the shop like that guy on the motorcycle show, growling at people because the place isn't clean enough, or parts are not where they belong. (edit: maybe I should get a ton of fake tattoos for the competition )

If someone says "what is your opinion on ...." or " what do you think about ..." or "will you help me..... I don't know how to ....." then they will get my attention.

If someone "upward delegates" a problem to me like "where is the whatchmacallit ? " and they are supposed to know where it is I answer "I don't know or care - if putting it back where it belongs isn't important to you, it isn't important to me."

I'm not going to build a robot. I'm not putting up with lazy. I'll bust my butt to help you achieve your goals but I'm not doing it for you. That is pretty much how we roll.

A great mentor guides without giving the answers, teaches through discovery, demonstrates without lecturing, provides support from backstage, observes without hovering, and leads by example. - dlavery

"don't be hating"
.

[davidthefat]

Here's my take on this: I don't care by whom your robot is made by. As long as I put in my best, that is all that matters. Because, at the end of the day, it is about the experience and the lessons learned. It is not about whether or not if your opponent's robot is better than your's, but how much you have progressed over the years. Honestly, looking back at the code I wrote my rookie year and now, it is day and night. Just the level of dedication and attention to detail has been exponentially grown and the growth of my character has shown over the years. I feel that if a student is nitpicking whether or not a robot was student built, that student does not get the point of FIRST. FRC is not about robots, it is much more than that.



Just a quick side note: a lot of this year's robot was mentor built, more than usual. We had a pretty much all rookie team on the hardware side; the programmers had to do a lot of the electronics. It was a pretty software heavy experience team this year. The drive train was pretty much done by mentors. It was due to the fact that we lacked the equipment to safely weld the thick aluminium. However, the rest of the robot was done by students. The students did all the maintenance and construction of the robot.

[goldenglove002]

Funny. For those people that know me... at the competition I'm either walking around talking to people, or "in hiding". Students know that I disappear for extended periods. There are a lot of stories of students hunting for me for help with a problem.
.

Understatement of the day. The team motto at competitions is "Where's Ed?". :D

[Andrew Lawrence]

Wow. This just makes me sick. Here are my thoughts about this, but first, lets look over what USFIRST means:
USF.I.R.S.T: United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

Foundation-
FIRST is a foundation. A foundation is described as "non-governmental entity that is established as a nonprofit corporation or a charitable trust, with a principal purpose of making grants to unrelated organizations, institutions, or individuals for scientific, educational, cultural, religious, or other charitable purposes". FIRST fits that description perfectly.

Inspiration-
FIRST's goal is to inspire students to take on STEM careers and majors. FIRST does this through the medium of robots. As Dean Kamen says, "It's not about the robot". And he's right. Robots just happen to be a popular form of medium that attracts students into the program and inspires them to be engineers.

Recognition-
Another one of FIRST's goals is to recognize STEM, and those who excel at it. FIRST does this in two main ways (there are more than two): Through teaching and celebrating the advances of scientists and engineers, and by giving awards to teams who show great contributions to furthering science and technology. "We get what we celebrate" (Woodie Flowers), and FIRST knows how to through the right kind of celebration.

Science-
Science is one of the many important fields in FIRST. Science is also one of the vital skills needed to become a successful engineer (funny how that works, huh?). Science ranges from Biology, to Chemistry, to Physics, and everything in between. All sciences are used by successful engineers, but unfortunately like the lack of engineers in this world, there are a lack of students who enjoy the sciences. Science needs to be spread, and some teams are doing it in a great way. I learned how the human arm works last year by watching Wildstang's 200(7?) robot, and its human-like arm. It clearly shows when teams use science to their advantage.

Technology-
Technology is the driving force of the world. As humans, we as a species are constantly evolving. Adapting, changing our world to better suit us. To a point, technology is evolving faster than we are, and if we don't learn about it, this constant evolution that is bettering our world may stop. FIRST inspires students to create new technology, and use the technology available to us today. IDEs, CAD, power tools, water jetting. All these great tools are available, and many of us didn't know what they were before FIRST.


Now that we've looked over what FIRST is, and what it's goals are, let's see what matters:

-FIRST is an organization to help students: check
-FIRST inspires students to pursue STEM careers: check
-FIRST recognizes mathematics and the sciences: check


The biggest one is Inspiration. The goal of FIRST is to inspire (and recognize) math and science. How that is done is up to the team. While I don't agree with it, a team could have all the mentors build, design, and fabricate the robot, and if the students still get inspired, then mission accomplished. How the inspiration and recognition are done doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. I'm not going into morals here, what's "right" and what's "wrong", or even what's unfair. The cold, hard truth is that the only requirement for a successful FIRST team is for the students to be inspired. If you had a completely student-run team, but the students weren't inspired about math and science, then the team, as a whole, fails.


So next time you see a really good robot, instead of thinking "the mentors must have built that", think "Those students must be really inspired, and get tons of recognition from their fellow peers".


Just my $00.02 on this.

[PaigeBallsch]

I have heard ever since I joined robotics last year about teams "buying" their robot. At first I was questioning how that is even possible, but as the year went on and my team progressed into the new season (this year), I have been growing more irritated with the topic.

Not once have I seen any solid proof a team was buying their robot. The accusations are all based off of assumptions and in quite a few cases bitterness. It makes me sad seeing a post like this, it really does. A mentor has to come and defend his team since people are upset they are doing a GREAT job. Every team has their own way of building and learning, I'm sure it doesn't involve cheating.

A team should never have to listen to people accusing them of buying a robot they worked so hard on; it just isn't fair. FIRST taught me that it's more important to learn and have fun doing it than it is to win. This year with the cooperation points you gain when working with teams on opposite alliances just pushes that point even further out into the open.

Why are we wasting our time spiting each other? We should work together to make all our teams the best they can be. I've seen how teams can help each other- at the competition in CH Academy our robot was having really bad connection problems. It crashed on the field after hybrid period three matches in a row! And a team(3151) we had never spoken with previously came and helped us fix that problem.

Let's all stop hating. It makes robotics much more enjoyable. :)

[ebarker]

Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, but you might want to double check what FIRST actually stands for.

off topic but actually the legal name for FIRST is:

United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

dba (doing business as)

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

so it depends on whether you want the legal name as incorporates as a 501c3 and filed with the IRS, or the common street name.

sort of like Coke the brand name vs. The CocaCola Company the legal entity

and that is how you end up with www.USFIRST.org
.

[Karibou]

off topic but actually the legal name for FIRST is:

United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

dba (doing business as)

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

so it depends on whether you want the legal name as incorporates as a 501c3 and filed with the IRS, or the common street name.

sort of like Coke the brand name vs. The CocaCola Company the legal entity

and that is how you end up with www.USFIRST.org
.
I think that Laaba 80 was talking about how Andrew's acronym spelled out to "FIRSM".

But hey, now I know the difference between FIRST's legal and street name. The more you know...

[Andrew Lawrence]

I think that Laaba 80 was talking about how Andrew's acronym spelled out to "FIRSM".

But hey, now I know the difference between FIRST's legal and street name. The more you know...

Hey! I'm proud to be on a FIRSM Robotics Team! :p

Wow. Big mistake on my part. I'll go back and fix that...

[Patrick Chiang]

Here's the story from another point of view.

Our team started 4 years ago with the bare minimum. We had the school autoshop and $6000 to buy the starter rookie kit and a position in the Seattle competition. We had about 20 students who came in every day and night for 6-7 hours, excluding Sundays. We had 4 mentors plus our head mentor who is also our school autoshop teacher. For three years, we pulled through with the bare minimum. (To make matters worse, our autoshop has its funding trimmed every single year and bureaucratic nightmares make it a chore to donate to our team.)

We raised our own funds, we applied for all the grants there are, and we use material sparingly. We made our own omni-wheels (semi-disastrous results), we foraged wood and plexi-glass from our school woodshop, and we borrowed materials from generous teams in the area. If I recall correctly, we were the only team in the area to have a total bill of materials with <$350 for 3-4 years in a row.

Our first year (Lunacy), due to a fair bit of luck, we went undefeated in Seattle qualifications (7-0) and landed first seed. So, as any rookie team would do, we shopped around and were looking at the top "elite" teams who would win every year to see if we could pick them (while saving the other slot for the team that helped us start out team). Our team captain got up there during the pick, asked 2 of the elite teams to join our alliance, and we got rejected by both teams (this was before there was a rule where you couldn't be picked if you rejected someone).

Now, I understand that there must be a valid reason why they rejected us. (They had a deal with another alliance, they felt their robot's strategy wasn't compatible with ours...etc). Which is why there wasn't really have any animosity against them or anything.

However, what really does tick us off, is that in years to come, we would go to these elite teams and their pits, try to be friends with them, asking around what their robot does, what each part does...etc. And the thing is, none of their students actually knows how their robot works. Their robots have custom-built carbon-fibre parts, machine painted at the factory or whatever...etc. Their team is 100+ students, but only 2-3 of them are at the pits at any time, while their squad of mentors stand around their robot, explaining how stuff works to curious passerbys and judges.

Then we go onto their nicely designed website (by someone in their PR department, kudos to them), and on week two, their robot is already done, and on the blog is says something to the effect of "today, we zip-tied this component down to the frame". (actual example phrasing here)

Now, I find it hard to believe that these "elite teams" that win every year do more to inspire science/tech than the underdog teams. Few of their students do anything on their robot (which isn't their fault) and they never get to the details. They see what being an engineer is like, but what use is that if they don't get to BE the engineer. (Also, there is the issue of fairness and how money shouldn't win games, but I won't get into that.) While not every top team is like these elite teams I describe, everyone knows there are a couple of teams like that at each competition. They win largely because their school is basically an extension of whatever large corporation that sponsors them, which is why they can afford to have their beautiful custom-built bot, along with their community outreach plans funded by the school that gets them their chairman's award every other year.

End rant. I realize that the world is unfair, money is a real life issue yada yada, but can you really blame our students for not liking an elite team because of reasons I've stated? (Note: this isn't directed towards anyone, just teams in general).

[Grim Tuesday]

I don't really want to join in on the somewhat circular discussion of everyone being outraged by this behavior. Most all of this forum is in agreement that this behavior is despicable. But there remains people (quite a few) who agree and participate in it. I would know, I used to be one of them

When I joined Chief Delphi as a Freshman in 2010, my team had this attitude. Honestly, it's not much more than an excuse ("we can never be better than them because they're [filthy rich; mentor built; insert other BS reason here]). It's a bad attitude for a team to have, and certainly not gracious nor professional, especially for a team that prides themselves in being so.

When I created an account on Chief Delphi, I got pulled into the singularity that is this forum. I've been around quite a few internet communities; this forum is without a doubt the most professional and polite. If I had to wager a guess, it would be because of the varied age range (mentors and students) on the forum, and indeed, it ties directly into the FIRST values of mentors teaching. This is one of the few forums where it truly isn't acceptable to flame, speak in camelcase, or not use periods at the ends of sentences. It also represents the worldwide FIRST community. Connecting with people from other teams is an experience that many are lacking, and something that one can learn from Chief Delphi.

I noticed the problem, and have worked to change it. I get up on a soapbox and told my team about the meaning of FIRST, much as Supernerd said above. Inspiration, not education. We used to hate on successful teams because of whatever reason. We still do it a little, and I'm working to stop it.

My point is, we can't just sit around tut-tutting on Chief Delphi. There are a couple viable and positive solutions:

Talk to your team. If you're on one of the teams that does this, don't just you stop it. Make the rest of your team stop it too.

On an EWCP cast a while ago, Karthik mentioned that there were a few different worlds of FIRST. There are teams like his, 1114, that do consistently well every year and are overall awesome. Then, there teams like mine, who are huge and do OK every year. We're atleast networked into the global FIRST community through Chief and other methods.

But there are hundreds if not thousands of teams who not have a single member on Chief Delphi. I would argue that CD is one of the greatest unifying forces in all of FIRST. What can we do as forum members to increase participation by currently no participating teams?

[BenD94]

Personally for me as a student I enjoy the time I put in machining, but I understand that my school is lucky to have a nice machine shop and the classes to teach one to use it. Some schools don't have that ability and I understand it. In addition if you can get laser cut parts that's great use the resources. The thing about power house teams that always irked me the most is the multiple regionals they compete in sometimes. The teams that don't have the budget to register let alone transport the kids and robot don't get that chance. Also it gives an advantage to those teams. Then again some of those teams are fairly Inspiring. If i could change one thing though I would put a max on 2 regionals and the second has to at a regional that is in your "region" still. That's my two cents.

[Akash Rastogi]

Personally for me as a student I enjoy the time I put in machining, but I understand that my school is lucky to have a nice machine shop and the classes to teach one to use it. Some schools don't have that ability and I understand it. In addition if you can get laser cut parts that's great use the resources. The thing about power house teams that always irked me the most is the multiple regionals they compete in sometimes. The teams that don't have the budget to register let alone transport the kids and robot don't get that chance. Also it gives an advantage to those teams. Then again some of those teams are fairly Inspiring. If i could change one thing though I would put a max on 2 regionals and the second has to at a regional that is in your "region" still. That's my two cents.

Give this thread a good read http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67103&highlight=multiple+regionals

[davidthefat]

In my honest opinion, more money does not mean a better robot. We all have a maximum weight and maximum budget. You can only fit so much components into 120 lb... Sure, you can bring in the fact that some teams have access to CNC machines, 3D printers, whatever else there is to it. You also need drivers who are capable to utilize that tool. Having a great bot does not mean that you will win. You need the software to back up the hardware. It is not all about money. There are so many factors that make a team great.


It is also the mentality of the team and the members. If you choose to just pick up tools and make a robot beginning at the 6 week build season, you might just have trouble. But if your team has been prepping over the off season and getting work and experience done, you are in a better position than a lot of teams. In my honest and humble opinion, what makes a team great is not what they do during the 6 weeks, but what they do the rest of the year.

[Patrick Chiang]

In my honest opinion, more money does not mean a better robot. We all have a maximum weight and maximum budget. You can only fit so much components into 120 lb... Sure, you can bring in the fact that some teams have access to CNC machines, 3D printers, whatever else there is to it. You also need drivers who are capable to utilize that tool. Having a great bot does not mean that you will win. You need the software to back up the hardware. It is not all about money. There are so many factors that make a team great.


Yes, this reminds me of a study that concludes that "higher income does not equal more happiness, but lower income equals less happiness". At the highest level (max budget, optimal/max mentor capacity), it makes less difference, but remember that there are teams that can't shell out $3000-4000 to max their budget, and that money DOES make a difference. And it's not because we're lazy and don't spend all year fundraising for the events.

It would be more fair to lower the budget limit significantly, but I can understand why teams used to maxing their budgets would be against that too.

[davidthefat]

Our robot was a box with wheels on it. And one attachment to lower the bridge. Do you know why our robot was like that? In my opinion, it was because we never built something robot related during the offseason. The first 3 weeks of the build season was focused on educating 80% of the team. We did terrible in my book. Others on my team will disagree with my opinion, but we failed this year. We only achieved 50% of our goals, and the goals were very simple: to balance and pass balls to the other side. We only balanced. Last year, we were a bit more lucky because we had a veteran welder/mechanic join our team (He was a Senior, so he graduated).

We never maxed out our budget. Of course, 589 is not considered a powerhouse. We never were. It was because we rarely do offseason activities other than fundraising and outreach. We are a 12 year team for pete's sake, we need to step things up.

[dtengineering]

As a rookie mentor I remember commenting on the number of "balding, beer-bellied students" working on robots in the pits, and commenting that "that robot couldn't have been built by students." As a veteran mentor, inspector and judge, I see things somewhat differently. Now when I hear people talk about "student-built" robots vs. "mentor-built" robots two stories come to mind:

Story 1:

A student joined our team as a grade 10. He had an uncanny ability with the lathe, but couldn't design a part to save his life. We had to show him what to do, step by step, but he produced a quality product and enjoyed doing it.

He kept taking metal work and picked up skills on the mill and started to practice up his TIG welding. By the end of the year he didn't need step by step instructions... a good drawing would suffice.

As a grade 11 we (the mentors) would give him drawings of what we wanted and he would turn, mill and weld the part to spec. By the end of the year he would suggest changes to our drawings so that he could produce the part more easily.

In grade 12 he was our lead driver and team captain. He would bring drawings in, we would suggest changes, and he would show other students how to manufacture the parts.

The year after he graduated he would come back after work (he was doing an automotive mechanics apprenticeship... not everyone needs to go to university to be awesome) and would work with the rest of the team to design and build major components of the robot. Often his solutions to the problems were better than mine.

Story #2:

A neighbouring team used to take part in a local robotics competition. They decided to give FRC a try. After two years of FRC they went back to their local competition... using what they had seen in FRC they designed their robot in Solidworks, ordered some appropriate COTS parts, and had major components cut on a waterjet. (They negotiated time on the waterjet as part of a sponsorship package... something else they had picked up from other FRC teams.) Their machine looked awesome and blew away their competition, many of whom complained that their robot was "too professional".


The moral of the stories is that if you think that students can't build an awesome, professional-looking, competitive machine... you just haven't met the right students. (or you haven't shown them how to do it right...)

[~Cory~]

It is also the mentality of the team and the members. If you choose to just pick up tools and make a robot beginning at the 6 week build season, you might just have trouble. But if your team has been prepping over the off season and getting work and experience done, you are in a better position than a lot of teams. In my honest and humble opinion, what makes a team great is not what they do during the 6 weeks, but what they do the rest of the year.


YES! You have to know what your team is at competition for. Some schools come as with FRC as a second thought to their stem programs, and thus the robot is a second thought. Some teams come with FIRST as a class in school. Some teams come as a complete package. Some teams come a product of the manufacturing department of their school. Some come from the science department (of their school). Some teams come from marketing. The culture of the team really tends to define the end product.

Culture change is doable. During the last two years, 706 has been attempting to change our culture to be one of the "package" teams and not just pure business and manufacturing (we spend a LOT of time in the machine shop). In our area there are teams like 537 who seem to do everything (you guys are awesome!) and we look up to them. We have attempted to change that over the few years to incorporate more community involvement and such. We build great robots, but the other side is actually turning out to be more difficult! (But that is just the culture of community).


I used to take part in some of the earlier described situations (until I heard them said about us). Some of this came from our team's culture, some came from actual experiences that may trigger such thoughts. Ideas such as not building your robot can stem from having non-knowledgeable members in your pit. I distinctly remember talking to a person that did not know if his team had a 6W or 8W tank drive. You may not realize that this person that you are talking to may not actually have been on team (as in my case) or may be a very new recruit seeing what competition is like!

[tzjin]

Interestingly, this thread seems to be dominated by Alumni and Mentors.

Anyways, coming from a pretty well-funded but completely student-run team, I see the views from both sides. Every year we work hard in the fall to raise money for competition season, and we usually go to three regionals a year. We are also fortunate enough to have an in-house machine shop, and a system set up where everyone is certified to use the tools.

I can certainly see this as being an unfair advantage, but even with the beautiful paint job from our powdercoat sponsor, we rarely, if ever get any hate from other teams. I guess this is probably because we only ever have students working in our pit.

As a result of our system, it bothers us slightly when we have neighboring pits with little or no students in them, because we worked hard on our bot, and would love to see how our peers had worked on theirs. I recognize that not everyone has the same benefits of a machine shop and strong traditions as we do, and that professional guidance is often necessary, but I would hope that the students would be given a larger role to play in all FRC teams. Integrating them in the design process, and every step of building the robot will be tremendously educational and memorable for the rest of their lives.

FIRST is For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Dean Kamen founded this competition to inspire young people. Sure they can watch the competition and be inspired, but that can be equated with watching the NBA on TV. The larger role we as students can play on the team, the more ownership we feel towards the bot and the greater satisfaction we feel at competitions. Watching the fruit of our year of labor compete is truly the most inspiration I have ever felt.

I hope I have not offended anyone. This is just my opinion coming from working on a very unique team. Cheesy Poofs, our traditional rival, has a large mentor support, but their fantastic bots inspire us to be better at what we do. No hard feelings. We look forward to competing against them at SVR next week.


PS You theoretically could buy your bot from team221.com, but I have yet to see anyone do so. :rolleyes:

[JABot67]

Umm.

To say that another team's students do not have enough influence on the team or on the robot is just the generic, baseless insult in FIRST.

I've heard it applied to other teams from students on my team (3322) and I've heard it applied to my team from the students on other teams. I'm not going to go into details about how my team works but I will tell you that the students play a gigantic role in every aspect of the team and are very knowledgeable about designing, building, and programming robots, but even so the mentors definitely have their hands full of work.

The reason this insult is completely baseless is because you do not know how another team works, or how much their kids are being inspired. I've read countless posts on CD that go something like "oh, their pits are full of mentors" or "golly, I tried talking to their students and they knew nothing about the robot" because chances are there are some students on the team that know about their robot.

One of the students on my team claimed that another team was mentor built and their students didn't know anything about the robot. I then went and talked to one of that team's students who proceeded to explain many great technical things about that robot and the programming thereof.

It's almost like teams are using "that team is mentor-built and their students don't know anything" as an excuse as to why they don't perform as well as another team.

On my old team (67), if I happened to be in the pits my freshman or sophomore year and someone came up to me asking how the robot worked, I would have been one of those "students who don't know anything because the mentors do everything". If that same person came back my senior year and asked me the same thing, he/she would have been quite surprised that I had programmed the whole robot while the mentors watched.

The obvious solution to this problem is just to not judge other teams.

end rant

[Patrick Chiang]

The reason this insult is completely baseless is because you do not know how another team works, or how much their kids are being inspired. I've read countless posts on CD that go something like "oh, their pits are full of mentors" or "golly, I tried talking to their students and they knew nothing about the robot" because chances are there are some students on the team that know about their robot.

On my old team (67), if I happened to be in the pits my freshman or sophomore year and someone came up to me asking how the robot worked, I would have been one of those "students who don't know anything because the mentors do everything". If that same person came back my senior year and asked me the same thing, he/she would have been quite surprised that I had programmed the whole robot while the mentors watched.


Not going to name names, but there *are* teams out there where the students tell us that the mentors took over and built their robot. That isn't baseless. I mean, I can't be the only one whose heard the words "our mentor built that" uttered multiple times by a team.

Also, I agree that some teams might say it's okay if some of the kids don't know how the entire robot functions (heck, I would say not everyone in our team knows how everything works). But when more senior members of the team (people you've seen at competition multiple years) shrug when you ask them how their shooter works, it kind of puts a question mark on how well the team has been inspiring and educating the students.

Again, this is just personal opinion.

[Ian Curtis]

I think the saddest part about this thread is the implicit assumption that "High school students are dumb." And it isn't just FIRST people -- it happens everywhere. I think a lot of people (especially smart people) tend to base everything off of themselves. They think 'If I couldn't do that when I was 16, how is this person doing it?!' In actuality, chances are pretty good they could've done it when they were 16, but no one was around to introduce them to the lathe or computer programming.

Designing or fabricating, it doesn't really matter. My high school team was one of the ones that did essentially all of our fabrication in-house with student labor. Since we had access to such nice equipment and good mentors, it came out pretty well. We got asked a lot who did it, and had people who straight up refused to believe it was students. Many of them didn't go on to technical careers, for example our best student welder and machinist is now a commercial fisherman.

I think engineers who don't come from FIRST backgrounds are often the hardest to win over. Engineers love to tell everyone that engineering is best, but I think they most love hanging out in the ivory tower.

[JABot67]

Not going to name names, but there *are* teams out there where the students tell us that the mentors took over and built their robot. That isn't baseless. I mean, I can't be the only one whose heard the words "our mentor built that" uttered multiple times by a team.

I guess it's very probable that there are some teams out there that operate like that. I'm just tired of the accusation being thrown around, especially at teams whose robots look or perform awesomely and deserve to be commended. When you judge a team like this, it may turn out they're a team like 1771 who absolutely does not deserve it.

Also, I agree that some teams might say it's okay if some of the kids don't know how the entire robot functions (heck, I would say not everyone in our team knows how everything works). But when more senior members of the team (people you've seen at competition multiple years) shrug when you ask them how their shooter works, it kind of puts a question mark on how well the team has been inspiring and educating the students.

Again, this is just personal opinion.

Oh man, if everyone on my team needs to know how the entire robot functions, there is a WHOLE LOT of work to be done... :ahh:
Rather, there are some students who know how almost all of the robot works. Same with the mentors... I am the only mentor who knows how the programming works, but I don't know everything about the mechanical aspects of the robot. For everyone on the team to know how the entire robot functions is an impossible task, at least for my team.

[MichaelBick]

After last year, our team was extremely motivated to greatly improve. Personally, I was motivated by the build blogs of the cheesy poofs/rawc, by the accounts of 1717 in the New Cool, and the little tidbits I've heard of 973's small, but strong program. Instead of taking their programs and deciding that the robots were fully mentor built, which they are obviously not, we decided to take them as example of what we wanted to be. All of our students made the conscious decision to strive to be better, and hours of hard work later, we have the satisfaction of becoming regional finalists, a position our teams has never held. This just comes to show that hard work pays off, and that no matter what, you should find teams that you think are examples of what you want to be, and strive to be more like them.

[Madison]

Not going to name names, but there *are* teams out there where the students tell us that the mentors took over and built their robot. That isn't baseless. I mean, I can't be the only one whose heard the words "our mentor built that" uttered multiple times by a team.

Also, I agree that some teams might say it's okay if some of the kids don't know how the entire robot functions (heck, I would say not everyone in our team knows how everything works). But when more senior members of the team (people you've seen at competition multiple years) shrug when you ask them how their shooter works, it kind of puts a question mark on how well the team has been inspiring and educating the students.

Again, this is just personal opinion.

The point is that it absolutely doesn't matter - at all - who built the robot, in whole or in part. Both methods are effective.

I know the teams in this area pretty well and I can't fathom which teams you may be talking about. Maybe give us all another shot and try to learn from us this time around instead of silently judging us when we don't meet the standards you are keeping a secret from us in the first place.

[Patrick Chiang]

I guess it's very probable that there are some teams out there that operate like that. I'm just tired of the accusation being thrown around, especially at teams whose robots look or perform awesomely and deserve to be commended. When you judge a team like this, it may turn out they're a team like 1771 who absolutely does not deserve it.

I'm sure there are teams out there that get (falsely) blamed of a big budget and a mentor-ran team. But there is a grain of truth in at least some of the accusations, and some of the students can get discouraged because *that team* always wins because they have a huge autoshop, bigger budget, more mentors than kids...etc.

Of course, I sympathize with teams that legitimately worked their way to the top and get accused of above said things. Which is why the whole issue is so complex: easy to make accusations, hard to defend yourself from it, and yet some accusations are true so you can't just ignore all accusations.


Oh man, if everyone on my team needs to know how the entire robot functions, there is a WHOLE LOT of work to be done... :ahh:
Rather, there are some students who know how almost all of the robot works. Same with the mentors... I am the only mentor who knows how the programming works, but I don't know everything about the mechanical aspects of the robot. For everyone on the team to know how the entire robot functions is an impossible task, at least for my team.

Of course... What I meant was not the details, but the general gist of things. Usually, what I like to hear when I ask a student how their robot works in general is something along the lines of "so we have this mechanism that sucks balls in, the conveyor belt takes that to our magazine, and when our driver presses the button, it drops into the hotwheel mechanism which squeezes the ball out and scores". Or at least something along the lines of "well, I don't know about the electronics board, but the conveyor system is powered by this and this motor, and it squeezes balls against the backside of our robot so it moves upwards"...etc. Seems like a reasonable thing to expect from students who build the robot.

[TeamSpyder1622]

I think the reason why many teams are frustrated with teams that do so well is definitely because of the machining work. Although a lazer-cut robot doesn't mean it is gonna be any better, it does mean that it is overall lighter. 1622 builds almost our entire robot out of 1 inch aluminum tubing every year which makes it pretty heavy after awhile. We spend the entire 6 weeks fabricating parts which takes up a lot of time we could be making a better design. I see no problem with teams who do have parts lazer-cut, but I understand why people may make rude comments.

[Andrew Lawrence]

I've seen people here talk about large robots that look beautiful that are supposedly "mentor built", but what about those not-so-great bots that are truly mentor-controlled?

I'm lucky enough that I don't know such a team, but from what I'm hearing, there are teams where the mentors take control of everything, and don't let the students do things. I've heard a bit about those (heard, I can't say it's 100% accurate) teams, and how nobody expects them to be mentor-controlled because their robots don't look like those of the teams people accuse of being mentor-controlled.

It reminds me of FLL, unfortunately. I participated for about 6 years, and have been judging and mentoring every year since. I remember there being 4 types of robots: One that is student-built, and clearly student built by the simplicity of it, one that is student-built but it's clear the students are experienced in FLL, one that is clearly mentor-built, with 4th graders who have a robot programmed in NXC (C-base language) and something more complex than most robots you ever see in your lifetime, and the final type, the hardest to find, one that's mentor-built, but looks like a student did it. In this final one, it looks like the students did it, but it's not too professionally done. It's clear the mentors did it when the students not only do not know how it was built, but admit to you it was the mentors, and when the robot that seemingly is average at best gets the high score, and the students don't know what happened.

While you may not see all of those types of teams in FRC, the point is to not look at a good-looking robot across from you and say it's built by mentors, when there's a possibility the students on the team next to you aren't getting very inspired.

[Patrick Chiang]

The point is that it absolutely doesn't matter - at all - who built the robot, in whole or in part. Both methods are effective.

I know the teams in this area pretty well and I can't fathom which teams you may be talking about. Maybe give us all another shot and try to learn from us this time around instead of silently judging us when we don't meet the standards you are keeping a secret from us in the first place.

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

I don't want to offend anyone, but it's hard to ignore the fact that some teams have more resources than others simply because of geography and their school district. And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.

Do they win solely based on that fact? No. But it sure helps. If our team has money, we wouldn't spend 2 weeks * 3 core students making mecannum-wheels (instead we would buy them). If our team has money, we would get ourself nice tools instead of using our shop with no new equipment since the 80s. But we don't, despite fundraising for half a year. Can we deal with that and still make a kick-butt robot? Yes. However, can you really expect our students to say "we lost only because they were better engineers"?

[Tom Line]

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

The point of FIRST is to inspire. You can inspire with a small budget or a large. You can inspire with a mentor build machine or a student built one.

That is why the founders of FIRST have repeatedly explained that FIRST is not about student built robots and student run teams. I'm not sure why people can't seem to get it over that fact, but there it is.

Teams can 'legitimately' get to the top any way they want, be it big budget, student led or mentor led.

If they lose, they simply know that they didn't build a good enough robot or happened to get unlucky.

Perhaps next time a team gets accused of being mentor led or having a mentor built robot their response should be "Yes we are, and we're proud of it." I wonder if that would get the message across to some of the haters.

[Patrick Chiang]

The point of FIRST is to inspire. You can inspire with a small budget or a large. You can inspire with a mentor build machine or a student built one.

That is why the founders of FIRST have repeatedly explained that FIRST is not about student built robots and student run teams. I'm not sure why people can't seem to get it over that fact, but there it is.

Teams can 'legitimately' get to the top any way they want, be it big budget, student led, or mentor led.

If they lose, they simply know that they didn't build a good enough robot, or happened to get unlucky.

Perhaps next time a team gets accused of being mentor led, or having a mentor built robot, their response should be "Yes we are, and we're proud of it." I wonder if that would get the message across to some of the haters.

FIRST might not be all about student built/ran teams, but I thought there was something in there about inspiration. And the maximum way to achieve that is have students do as much as they can. (The more they do, the more they learn, the more they will want to do it. Hence, the definition of inspire.)

Maybe your team has magical methods of inspiration that is more effective when the students don't build the robot (in that case, please do share), but if your response to criticism is simply "yes we do, so what?", would that not be contrary to the values of GP in First?

[Aren_Hill]

And the maximum way to achieve that is have students do as much as they can.

This is where you go wrong, as an 8th grader i got to see 111's robot up close, and seeing what is possible at the hands of people much more skilled than myself at the time, was very inspiring.

I look at the NASA rovers and beautiful sports cars etc, and I'm very inspired as I hope to accomplish similar feats in my future.

[Akash Rastogi]

Maybe your team has magical methods of inspiration that is more effective when the students don't build the robot (in that case, please do share), but if your response to criticism is simply "yes we do, so what?", would that not be contrary to the values of GP in First?

...And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.


Why are you criticizing at all? What gives you any right to do so?

What specific advantages can you pick out?

Also, to Martin and 1771 - I have always been inspired by your team, ever since first meeting you in Atlanta in 2008. Awe inspiring robots are the best. Being able to get to know your mentors like Sean and students was even better. Thanks to your team we will also be doing a lot of fabrication using wood and composites on a laser cutter. Never underestimate how many people you have actually inspired!

[Patrick Chiang]

This is where you go wrong, as an 8th grader i got to see 111's robot up close, and seeing what is possible at the hands of people much more skilled than myself at the time, was very inspiring.

I look at the NASA rovers and beautiful sports cars etc, and I'm very inspired as I hope to accomplish similar feats in my future.

Well, let's look at this empirically. If the best way to inspire someone is to have robots be built by people much more skilled than him/her, then wouldn't it make sense to have the most skilled people build the robots? And by that extension, wouldn't it make most sense to have demonstrations of robots built by top NASA engineers instead of competitions?

A competition implies that there is some form of fairness involved. If every team is mentor-built and mentor-ran, FRC might as well be renamed First Robotics Demonstration. The best way to examine this is to apply the categorical imperative: If you think X is okay, then you should apply it universally; is X okay if everyone does it?


Why are you criticizing at all? What gives you any right to do so?

What specific advantages can you pick out?

What gives me the right to criticize? Criticism is the basis of improvement. If anyone on another team comes to me and says "your teams' mentors aren't doing enough to help your team", then I would be happy to have a conversation about it with them.

And you really don't see the advantage of having a robot completely built by people with at least 10+ more years of experience than you?

[Akash Rastogi]

Well, let's look at this empirically. If the best way to inspire someone is to have robots be built by people much more skilled than him/her, then wouldn't it make sense to have the most skilled people build the robots? And by that extension, wouldn't it make most sense to have demonstrations of robots built by top NASA engineers instead of competitions?

A competition implies that there is some form of fairness involved. If every team is mentor-built and mentor-ran, FRC might as well be renamed First Robotics Demonstration. The best way to examine this is to apply the categorical imperative: If you think X is okay, then you should apply it universally; is X okay if everyone does it?




What gives me the right to criticize? Criticism is the basis of improvement. If anyone on another team comes to me and says "your teams' mentors aren't doing enough to help your team", then I would be happy to have a conversation about it with them.

And you really don't see the advantage of having a robot completely built by people with at least 10+ more years of experience than you?

Improve what exactly?

[Hawiian Cadder]

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

I don't want to offend anyone, but it's hard to ignore the fact that some teams have more resources than others simply because of geography and their school district. And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.

Do they win solely based on that fact? No. But it sure helps. If our team has money, we wouldn't spend 2 weeks * 3 core students making mecannum-wheels (instead we would buy them). If our team has money, we would get ourself nice tools instead of using our shop with no new equipment since the 80s. But we don't, despite fundraising for half a year. Can we deal with that and still make a kick-butt robot? Yes. However, can you really expect our students to say "we lost only because they were better engineers"?

Building an excellent robot with few resources is part of the challenge of first for some teams. This year we utilized a new construction method that allowed for design, fabrication, electrical work, and programing to all occur in parallel. Our standardized design made this season one of our best, despite our teams lack of machining sponsorship. I would advise any teams with limited shop resources to design a robot with similar qualities, and make a prototype on the off season. Prototyping is absolutely possible, on any budget. We built a wood WCD prototype over the off season with 35$, 7$ for wood, 28$ for fasteners. Gearboxes, chain, sprockets, and wheels were all from the 2011 and 2010 kits of parts. The Prototype took less than 50 man hours to complete with 3 students including myself working during our communal shop class. I would be completely comfortable with this Drive base in an actual competition, and the Prototype was more controllable and lighter than our 2011 drive base. While you can choose to spend lots of time or money to build a robot, It can be done for little to no money, with almost no time.

[Patrick Chiang]

Building an excellent robot with few resources is part of the challenge of first for some teams. This year we utilized a new construction method that allowed for design, fabrication, electrical work, and programing to all occur in parallel. Our standardized design made this season one of our best, despite our teams lack of machining sponsorship. I would advise any teams with limited shop resources to design a robot with similar qualities, and make a prototype on the off season. Prototyping is absolutely possible, on any budget. We built a wood WCD prototype over the off season with 35$, 7$ for wood, 28$ for fasteners. Gearboxes, chain, sprockets, and wheels were all from the 2011 and 2010 kits of parts. The Prototype took less than 50 man hours to complete with 3 students including myself working during our communal shop class. I would be completely comfortable with this Drive base in an actual competition, and the Prototype was more controllable and lighter than our 2011 drive base. While you can choose to spend lots of time or money to build a robot, It can be done for little to no money, with almost no time.

It is an excellent challenge, I agree. Our rookie year robot was under $100 (plus kit money) and ended up top seed. That is, however, not the point. What a team with a $5000 budget can do with a $100 limit is *very* different from what a team with a $100 budget can do with that limit. The $5000 team can build 48 prototypes, 1 practice bot, and 1 actual robot. The $100 team has one chance and no practice bot. In short, my point is: Money makes a huge difference.

[Bongle]

It is an excellent challenge, I agree. Our rookie year robot was under $100 (plus kit money) and ended up top seed. That is, however, not the point. What a team with a $5000 budget can do with a $100 limit is *very* different from what a team with a $100 budget can do with that limit. The $5000 team can build 48 prototypes, 1 practice bot, and 1 actual robot. The $100 team has one chance and no practice bot. In short, my point is: Money makes a huge difference.

Part of the challenge of FIRST is designing your team's effort to acquire more money, not simply building the robot. If you've got $100 this year, maybe do some sales/demonstrations/begging letters and try to get $300 next year. The team with $5k budgets in your example probably didn't have that money fall out of the sky with no strings attached. They probably had to go around and ask for it. Even if they got lucky with a single extremely generous donor, they still had to find a way to make the extremely generous donors in their community aware of them. Maybe there's one in your community that you just haven't found yet. Every time our team does a big fundraising push we seem to come back with substantial donations from unexpected places (last year we got some money from a beauty salon).

If a team has lots of money such that they can outsource their entire robot, that's a measure of success. If your goal is to be successful in the competition and the competition permits use of outsourcing, lots of money, and professional help and you're not using them, then it is unlikely you'll be consistently successful at the competition. FIRST has permitted all these things for its entire existence, and is unlikely to change.

Background: I'm on a consistently well-performing team whose most expensive tool is a 30-year-old drill press and whose biggest tool upgrade recently has been a vice that's bolted to a table. It takes us 4 hours to make bumper brackets because someone has to hacksaw through them and we can't afford to have it taken to a machine shop.

[Phyrxes]

One of the things I've tried to instill in the students on my team is by all means go over and talk to that "dominant" team and ask them questions about how they do things. Very rarely have I run into a student or mentor that wasn't excited to tell me about their program.

[Jared Russell]

I'm sure there are teams out there that get (falsely) blamed of a big budget and a mentor-ran team.


Your choice of the word "blamed" is interesting. Should teams be ashamed if they have big budgets and a structure where mentors play a large role in the running of the team? I think that is something for which to be grateful and/or proud.


If the best way to inspire someone is to have robots be built by people much more skilled than him/her, then wouldn't it make sense to have the most skilled people build the robots? And by that extension, wouldn't it make most sense to have demonstrations of robots built by top NASA engineers instead of competitions?

Top NASA engineers are indeed involved in the building of the robots of several FIRST teams. It's a shame there aren't enough top NASA engineers to go around. The point is not to put a bunch of students in a workshop with no direction, and it's not to completely obfuscate the engineering process from the students. It's to build a bridge from what the student currently knows to what engineering is all about. To work alongside engineers to see what their life entails and realize "hey, I can do/enjoy this!" Alongside sometimes means that you are doing while they watch, but also that sometimes they do while you watch. A professional engineer with a lifetime of training can do some amazing and inspiring things that (the vast majority of) high school students cannot.


A competition implies that there is some form of fairness involved. If every team is mentor-built and mentor-ran, FRC might as well be renamed First Robotics Demonstration.

There are all sorts of measures involved with FRC to ensure that fairness is involved. Weight, budget, control system, fabrication window, allowable motors, the game rules. Limiting the participation of mentors places an artificial ceiling on inspiration for no other reason than to lower the bar of competition. Many in FRC have been inspired by incredible robots built by elite teams. Did engineers work on them? Absolutely. Does that make them less inspiring? Of course not.


FIRST might not be all about student built/ran teams, but I thought there was something in there about inspiration. And the maximum way to achieve that is have students do as much as they can. (The more they do, the more they learn, the more they will want to do it. Hence, the definition of inspire.)

Having the students take ownership and pride in their robot is an important part of FRC (in my opinion). But ownership and pride don't mean that the students have to do the entire thing themselves. Making CAD drawings that get turned into perfect parts by a CNC or water jet is taking ownership (and this is far closer to what a real world mechanical engineer does than making everything himself). Prototyping several iterations of a mechanism until it is perfect is taking ownership, even if the final version on the robot was fabricated by a sponsor (your prototypes essentially designed the final mechanism). Perfecting a game strategy that your robot executes is taking ownership.

[ebarker]

An Ed rant !!

TEAMWORK
If we ran a football team the way some people run robotics teams we would get laughed off the field. If you told your football coach they could save a lot of time and effort if they would wait to the beginning of football season to assemble and build their team……really !

Teambuilding is not valued enough with too many teams. Part of team building is doing things together, and that can be done for free. You can’t build a robot if you can’t build a team. No team, no robot, no nothing. All you have is a robot club of people hanging out building robot chaos. Clubs and Teams are different.

FOCUS
Know what you are trying to accomplish is important. Are you trying to change the culture or are you trying to build a robot ? It turns out you can do both. If you work at doing both you can build a better robot because you will have more resources !!!

COMMUNITY
It took us years to discover it but there is a ton of people out there that would help the team with material or machining or cutting or donuts or pizza or whatever.

When you engage these people you have made them a sort of team member. They see the benefits to society and their future, you get the pizza and parts, a better robot, and culture change to boot. And that is money you didn't have to spend.

Think about it. What use is there in developing an iPad if you don't bother to go find a customer ? What use is there in developing technology leaders of the future if the community doesn't know or care about it ?

Earlier in the thread there was the "grouchy old Ed walking around the shop" comment : If someone "upward delegates" a problem to me like "where is the whatchmacallit ? " and they are supposed to know where it is, I answer "I don't know or care - if putting it back where it belongs isn't important to you, it isn't important to me."

Let's for a moment pretend I run the ACME company here in town. My thought as president of ACME company could be something like:

If a team "upward delegates" a problem to me like "where is the money ? " I could answer "I don't know or care - if explaining to me the societal relevance of your team isn't important to you, your money problem isn't important to me."

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm already there. I'm trying to explain to some of these youngin's how the world works.

RESOURCES
“If only we had a ton of money” life would be great. There is a very valuable resource that students have in abundance. Intelligence, creativity, time, sweat. A HUGE part of what we do is spending time in the community rallying support for our team and area teams.

Don't allow people to waste valuable resources: intelligence, creativity, time, sweat, complaining about what doesn’t exist and and lead them toward focusing on creating solutions.

(There are teams on this thread right now that are unaware that some of their funding is a direct result of community outreach we did and grants we wrote, but I digress)

EMPLOYABILITY – YOUR FUTURE

Your future employer is not going to hire you so you can sit and play in a lab while they shove endless piles of money under the door. Hello – wake up, real world.

FIRST is real world. FIRST is a model of your future. Here you can learn how to use those free resources - resources, intelligence, creativity, time, and sweat – solving problem for your future employer.

Think about it. If they didn’t have a problem to solve they would not have hired you in the first place.

That is the definition of an engineer, or at least 'a' definition: someone that solves problems, usually but not always with some significant degree of STEM.


THE ENGINEERING PROCESS
A near constant discussion on CD is related to designing, cadding, building, machining, etc. Rarely is there a good explanation of the spectrum of STEM oriented jobs on CD.

The general public and unfortunately I think too many on CD do not discriminate or explain the difference between:

Research & development engineer, management and operations engineering, 4 year engineering technologist degrees, 2 year engineering technologist degrees, machinist, CAM operators, engineering technicians, technical skills operators, mechanics, electricians, and so forth.

This lack of career literacy clouds the discussion of “What is Best” for a team. The answer is “All of the Above”.

This year, our team most closely approximates what you would see in a typical R&D shop. (student) Engineers do lab work to test ideas, then go to CAD, then outsource the maching/waterjetting. The parts return and the robot is assembled. This is a very close real world model of an R&D lab.

Having an understanding of what ‘space’ your students need to operate in is important to how the team’s engineering design and construction process is done.


THE LONG VIEW
Ask your team some questions.

Does your team know what it wants to do the next 12 months. I’m talking designing and building some robot parts, team building exercises especially the kind that doesn’t involve robot but maybe water balloons and Frisbee. Community service, community outreach, meeting with potential sponsors partners.

Most of what we do is sweat equity. A ton of community donated stuff, a ton of student donated time and effort. And we manage to generate enough cash to build the robot.

The video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-4FA5RBWVg)


</END_RANT>

[pfreivald]

Good rant, Ed!

[Patrick Chiang]

Part of the challenge of FIRST is designing your team's effort to acquire more money, not simply building the robot. If you've got $100 this year, maybe do some sales/demonstrations/begging letters and try to get $300 next year. The team with $5k budgets in your example probably didn't have that money fall out of the sky with no strings attached. They probably had to go around and ask for it. Even if they got lucky with a single extremely generous donor, they still had to find a way to make the extremely generous donors in their community aware of them. Maybe there's one in your community that you just haven't found yet. Every time our team does a big fundraising push we seem to come back with substantial donations from unexpected places (last year we got some money from a beauty salon).

If a team has lots of money such that they can outsource their entire robot, that's a measure of success. If your goal is to be successful in the competition and the competition permits use of outsourcing, lots of money, and professional help and you're not using them, then it is unlikely you'll be consistently successful at the competition. FIRST has permitted all these things for its entire existence, and is unlikely to change.

Background: I'm on a consistently well-performing team whose most expensive tool is a 30-year-old drill press and whose biggest tool upgrade recently has been a vice that's bolted to a table. It takes us 4 hours to make bumper brackets because someone has to hacksaw through them and we can't afford to have it taken to a machine shop.

Kudos to your team for finding resources in unexpected places.

However, keep in mind some teams simply reside in geographic locations where their school district has room in their budget for robotics. It's actually fantastic that they're driving money in their area towards robotics and are helping inspire people. It just seems rather unfair to me (and un-inspiring for students not lucky enough to live those areas) that they have an instant advantage at the start.

And you're right. FIRST is unlikely to change their rules. Unfortunately, it's equally unlikely that the "hate" towards successful teams will disappear overnight. (After all, it's just an irrational overreaction to an actual issue.) All we can hope to do is change people's attitudes.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

My first year participating in high school on 195 (this was about 10 years ago, mind you), our robot was 100% mentor built. No joke, we met with the engineers on the first day of the build and they delivered a robot 6 weeks later.

Regardless of that, we went to the competitions and had tons of fun, it was great. We had some great team leaders and mentors who encouraged us to just soak in everything about the competition. We won an event that year and that got a bunch of us really pumped to try and help the next year.

Many students from that team have gone on to complete degrees in engineering and now work at places like Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Amazon, and bay area startups. I think the "Inspiration" (you know, the whole point of this program) was successful.

[sdcantrell56]

It just seems rather unfair to me (and un-inspiring for students not lucky enough to live those areas) that they have an instant advantage at the start.


Why would you assume that everything is supposed to be "fair" in this competition or life or the real world of engineering. If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering then surely it should introduce students to the concept that things are not always totally level. If you want more money or resources go find it.

[pfreivald]

Why would you assume that everything is supposed to be "fair" in this competition or life or the real world of engineering. If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering then surely it should introduce students to the concept that things are not always totally level. If you want more money or resources go find it.

"Fair is a four-letter 'F'-word. It doesn't belong in school."

But seriously, 'fair' is a fiction -- there's no such thing. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, nor is it a good thing. It's just a thing.

[Bongle]

It just seems rather unfair to me (and un-inspiring for students not lucky enough to live those areas) that they have an instant advantage at the start.

Real-world engineering example:
It's 'unfair' to many companies in the consumer electronics sector that when Apple announces mundane spec-bump revisions of their products (iPhone 3GS, 4S, iPad 2, textbook program for iPad) that it is front-page news, but when the non-Apple companies announce interesting revisions of their own products, nobody cares. However, that's how the real world works. Some people or organizations have built-in advantages that you'll have to overcome.

The teams with supportive school boards (I'm not actually aware of any powerhouse teams funded entirely from their school boards) have an advantage, and you've got to overcome it. That's bad luck, but you have to deal with it.

[Patrick Chiang]

Why would you assume that everything is supposed to be "fair" in this competition or life or the real world of engineering. If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering then surely it should introduce students to the concept that things are not always totally level. If you want more money or resources go find it.

By your logic: If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering, it would require teams to hold tryouts and interviews for team positions.

It doesn't, because its purpose is to maximize the number of people it inspires, and the best way to do that is to have a fair competition with a level playing field. It's like spectating sports: if two teams are somewhat equal in strength, both sides give their best, and the crowd is excited because the winner is a tossup.

By the way, the "life isn't fair" excuse is most often used by elites who are comfortable with their position in society (I'm not implying you guys are :) ). Pretty much every case of socio-economic injustice and discrimination in the US during the last 30 years or so are linked to the "life isn't fair, deal with it" position.

[Akash Rastogi]

However, keep in mind some teams simply reside in geographic locations where their school district has room in their budget for robotics. It's actually fantastic that they're driving money in their area towards robotics and are helping inspire people. It just seems rather unfair to me (and un-inspiring for students not lucky enough to live those areas) that they have an instant advantage at the start.

Patrick- as a mentor for a decently successful rookie team in the heart of West Philadelphia with zero, and I mean ZERO, support from a school or the Philadelphia school district, I find your statement here highly irrelevant. Teams who relied on the district in the past have all died out. We are fully independent in raising money, finding a place to work, finding mentors, finding in-kind donations, and finding machining sponsors. Our main machining sponsor is located 2 hours away from our team, so please don't give the excuse that location factors into this.

A team that blames their environment for their lack of resources is, in my honest opinion, not trying hard enough. (To a certain extent)



By the way, the "life isn't fair" excuse is most often used by elites who are comfortable with their position in society (I'm not implying you guys are :) ). Pretty much every case of socio-economic injustice and discrimination in the US during the last 30 years or so are linked to the "life isn't fair, deal with it" position.



Patrick let me ask you something - how long have you been in this program? How long have you been mentoring? Were you also ever a student on one of these teams?

Most of us saying that life isn't fair have all gone through this program as students. Some of us have been lucky enough to be on teams who have been successful from the start, and some of us from average or mediocre student run teams. We are taking what we learned from past experiences to make our current teams better. What we wish we had as high schools students- we are working our hearts out to provide for our own students.

In the end I think it boils down to the question "do you really have a problem with all these successful/resourceful teams and feel you're being cheated out of something, or do you actually have a problem with your own team and feel that you want to improve?"

[sdcantrell56]

By your logic: If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering, it would require teams to hold tryouts and interviews for team positions.


That's interesting....we hold tryouts for important field positions. Many many many successful teams do this. While we have not personally had to limit students involved in other aspects of the prgoram due to our size (only 30 kids) I am aware of plenty of programs that limit the number of students on the build team. We also limit who travels to only those who we deem necessary for success and those who have put in the effort to warrant travelling with us. Again this is not an uncommon practice.

This isn't un"fair" or wrong it just encourages students to actually put in a meaningful effort if they want all the benefits. Mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded just like teams who take the time and put in the effort to seek out sponsors shouldnt be limited so that everything is "fair".

[E. Wood]

They win largely because their school is basically an extension of whatever large corporation that sponsors them, which is why they can afford to have their beautiful custom-built bot, along with their community outreach plans funded by the school that gets them their chairman's award every other year.




Having been on two teams, both of which have won Chairman's Awards (see signature below), both of which were not "an extension of whatever large corporation that sponsors them", and both of which have competitive robots year after year, I am deeply sadden and somewhat disturbed by your comments. Many of these "Elite" teams have worked many years to get to where they are today. Don't assume they "bought" their way to the top because they have large corporate names in their sponsors list because it's simply not true.

I currently co-organize many of the outreach efforts for team 836 and I can tell you that we have two requirements before we schedule or host an outreach activity. First, there must be people to inspire at the event. Second, we must have students available to attend to work the event. Most of the costs to support these events have come directly from my pocket and those of my fellow mentors. At the actual event, we mentors back-off as much as possible and let the students do the work where they can.

As for the robot, we work as team, students and mentors side by side to build the best robot possible. When we win it is always as a team, not just as a team of students or a team of mentors, but as one team of both. I believe it is this partnership between students and mentors that FIRST is looking for as it is in their mission statement.

"Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."

If mentors and students do not work together to solve the problems FIRST presents to us I believe you are missing the point and I bet FIRST would agree with me.

[ebarker]

At the beginning of the school year the roster had 32.

From then till 1st of March we work them to death. Then they have to take an competition eligibility examination, multiple choice and essay question. Nothing technical.

Between working like crazy, the exam, and other things, they will "self select" themselves into or out of the program.

Starting with 32, self-selecting 8 out, and adding 3 rookies, we netted 27 solid members.

That was the tryout / interview / team bonding experience. If they don't own it they don't go.

It is only fair that the team members that earned the right to go to the competition are not accompanied by people that didn't earn the right. The students that didn't go had a year to learn about what is going on and become introduced to engineering. For whatever reason they didn't make the cut and yes that is a fairness issue.
.

[Patrick Chiang]

Patrick- as a mentor for a decently successful rookie team in the heart of West Philadelphia with zero, and I mean ZERO, support from a school or the Philadelphia school district, I find your statement here highly irrelevant. Teams who relied on the district in the past have all died out. We are fully independent in raising money, finding a place to work, finding mentors, finding in-kind donations, and finding machining sponsors. Our main machining sponsor is located 2 hours away from our team, so please don't give the excuse that location factors into this.

Inspiring and anecdotal.


A team that blames their environment for their lack of resources is, in my honest opinion, not trying hard enough. (To a certain extent)

In the end I think it boils down to the question "do you really have a problem with all these successful/resourceful teams and feel you're being cheated out of something, or do you actually have a problem with your own team and feel that you want to improve?"

There is a lot our team could improve on. For example, first, we need to convince the school that our existence has a purpose, and they shouldn't shut us down / lay off our only autoshop teacher in 3 years.

I don't feel cheated out of a good experience. FIRST was, without question, the best thing in my high school. I just think it would have been better if the competitions were more fair.
(Since nobody is disputing the fact that the game unfairly gives an advantage to teams that have experience, money, and mentors, I guess we can agree to disagree on the way our values work. Mine: fair -> more inspired.)

Having been on two teams, both of which have won Chairman's Awards (see signature below), both of which were not "an extension of whatever large corporation that sponsors them", and both of which have competitive robots year after year, I am deeply sadden and somewhat disturbed by your comments. Many of these "Elite" teams have worked many years to get to where they are today. Don't assume they "bought" their way to the top because they have large corporate names in their sponsors list because it's simply not true.


Never assumed anything. I think you're taking my quote out of context. I was referring to *some* top teams, and not all, and I made that clear in my post. Also, older teams have an advantage because of experience and resources. I will revise my opinion when a team with a 4 digit team number wins the overall Chairman's Award (has not happened since 1992, maybe this is the year)

At the actual event, we mentors back-off as much as possible and let the students do the work where they can.


That's great. This is how a lot of top teams work, and I have *absolutely* no problem with that. In fact, I think that the best way students can learn and be inspired by FIRST is to feel in control of the robot.


As for the robot, we work as team, students and mentors side by side to build the best robot possible. When we win it is always as a team, not just as a team of students or a team of mentors, but as one team of both. I believe it is this partnership between students and mentors that FIRST is looking for as it is in their mission statement.

Agree. Teams that don't utilize mentors well, don't do well. Unfortunately, the opposite may not be true.


That was the tryout / interview / team bonding experience. If they don't own it they don't go.

It is only fair that the team members that earned the right to go to the competition are not accompanied by people that didn't earn the right. The students that didn't go had a year to learn about what is going on and become introduced to engineering. For whatever reason they didn't make the cut and yes that is a fairness issue.


Yes, what you describe is fair. Every student has a chance to experience as much as the next student depending on how much they put into the program. On the other hand, if only the kids in my team could test/interview and get into one of the elite teams in our area...

[Kim Masi]

I don't think there is a "right way" to run a FIRST build season, as long as the students keep coming back, clearly they're getting something out of it.

Unfortunately I think we cannot avoid attitudes like this. Take professional sports, for example. You're either a Yankees fan, or a Yankee hater. I'm not saying this is something we should strive for, but its up to the individual students and their teams to rise above it.

[huberje]

That's great. This is how a lot of top teams work, and I have *absolutely* no problem with that. In fact, I think that the best way students can learn and be inspired by FIRST is to feel in control of the robot.

...

Agree. Teams that don't utilize mentors well, don't do well. Unfortunately, the opposite may not be true.

I just have two questions on this:

1) What top teams did you talk to to determine that a lot of top teams work by keeping their mentors hands-off?

2) Could you elaborate on how a team can utilize mentors well?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

By your logic: If FIRST is supposed to introduce students to real life engineering, it would require teams to hold tryouts and interviews for team positions.
Patrick,
Many teams do that because it is one way to limit the number of students that can be included for teams with limited resources.

[Patrick Chiang]

I just have two questions on this:

1) What top teams did you talk to to determine that a lot of top teams work by keeping their mentors hands-off?

2) Could you elaborate on how a team can utilize mentors well?

1. Well, a lot of top teams in my area are mentors-hands-off at competitions. You can go to the pits, and see that most people there are students. Of course, there are some teams where it's mentors-fix-everything at the pits, which I think is depriving the students the experience of actually doing things themselves under the pressure of competition.

2. This depends on the kids. In our team, mentors are resources. We teach our students how to use the tools (or how to program, in my case, though I'm passing that responsibility of teaching to the students next year) before the season. Then, when they brainstorm at the beginning of the season, we help them come up with a structure of how they should present and vote on their ideas (which they agree on). And when they build, they ask us questions like "how well do you think this will work" "what's the best way to achieve this" "I'm stuck, can you help me with this" ...etc. There's also cases where we've helped them used some power-tools, but overall, the robot belongs to the kids. In the end, they're extremely proud (and inspired) of this little monster they've created, and I think this is a big part about FIRST. A big part that you can't really get when the mentors are building the robot.

Patrick,
Many teams do that because it is one way to limit the number of students that can be included for teams with limited resources.

Yes. I realized that a while after I posted that. Read my last post on why that's not the same thing. Students can choose how much time they put into robotics. On the other hand, they can't choose which team to join.

[E. Wood]

Agree. Teams that don't utilize mentors well, don't do well. Unfortunately, the opposite may not be true.



I guess it depends on how you define "doing well" or "successful" when it comes to a FIRST team. Does it mean winning awards or positively impacting the lives of those that come in contact with the team?

I have found that chasing awards isn't always the best way to get them and I dont think any of us do this for the plastic trophies or the blue banners.

[pfreivald]

Inspiring and anecdotal.

Given the lack of hard data, anecdotal evidence is what you're going to get.

We live in the boonies (http://www.thevagabondinn.com/Photos/TheVagabondInn-aerialview3.jpg), 20 miles from either a stoplight or a Lowes (ten more for a Home Depot). The huge majority of business in our town is wine -- which won't even consider sponsoring a high school program for obvious political reasons. We have explicit restrictions on how many fundraisers we are allowed to do each year (2), and have a hard time attracting engineering mentors willing to make the drive.

Those are all reasons, but they're not excuses. Your choice, regardless of what resources you have, is to aspire to excellence or don't. (There are ancillary choices, such as "bemoan your lot or don't" and "seethe with envy or don't", too.)

We know FIRST isn't "fair", just like everything else. We don't allow that fact to do anything but push us to improve.

I just think it would have been better if the competitions were more fair.

I would absolutely hate to see parity imposed by knocking the elite teams down. FIRST is the challenge that it is specifically because you're not just trying to build a robot that can accomplish tasks, you're trying to build a robot that can accomplish tasks better than everyone else's robots.

(Since nobody is disputing the fact that the game unfairly gives an advantage to teams that have experience, money, and mentors, I guess we can agree to disagree on the way our values work. Mine: fair -> more inspired.)

I'll dispute it. "Fairness" is both arbitrary and irrelevant. You might as well complain that it's unfair that teams that know things about robots have an advantage over teams that don't. This undisputed "fact" is a "fact" only insofar as the statement "advantages are advantageous" is a fact.

There are already many rules that force some level of parity, from materials utilization to BOM cost restrictions to time restrictions. I'm willing to bet that if you tried to come up with more rules to enforce parity, in public on Chief Delphi, you'll find that it's a lot harder than it sounds -- and that many of your ideas will actually skew things even more in favor of elite teams.

tl;dr version: Elite teams aren't elite because of the inherent bias of the system, they're elite because of what they do within that system.

Never assumed anything. I think you're taking my quote out of context. I was referring to *some* top teams, and not all, and I made that clear in my post.

Which ones?

That's great. This is how a lot of top teams work, and I have *absolutely* no problem with that.

Which ones?

Take professional sports, for example. You're either a Yankees fan, or a Yankee hater. I'm not saying this is something we should strive for, but its up to the individual students and their teams to rise above it.

Yankees... Yankees... They do something with a ball and a stick, right? Some running around, too?

[Patrick Chiang]

I guess it depends on how you define "doing well" or "successful" when it comes to a FIRST team. Does it mean winning awards or positively impacting the lives of those that come in contact with the team?

I have found that chasing awards isn't always the best way to get them and I dont think any of us do this for the plastic trophies or the blue banners.

Well, it's sometimes in the back of our minds when we build the robot. It's a competition, and we're doing our best to build the best/most creative robot for that. We're human, competitive by nature. I think very few people in teams in FIRST, even mentors, can claim that they don't get excited when their team wins (or disappointed when the opposite happens).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but teams that don't utilize mentors tend not to do well in either of your definitions.

[darkMatt3r]

This thread is unnecessary.

FIRST clearly states that it is up to the teams to determine the relationship between the mentors and the students.

Yes, there are ways to benefit the kids, and there are ways to benefit the success of the team. There are also ways to do both. Everyone has their different method, and everyone has their opinion of what other teams do.

Use your time to help your team out, not judge others.

-Matt

[Madison]

On the other hand, they can't choose which team to join.

You should talk to the students we have on our team that have teams at their own schools, but are a member of our team instead.

This year, there are at least three that spring to mind. Last year, there were an additional two. There are several kids that are members of our team that attend private schools that don't have teams, but the public schools they would have otherwise attended do. They're members of our team because they value the experience we can provide due to, in no small part, our experience, strong relationship with our sponsors, and tremendous mentor involvement and support.

[Patrick Chiang]

I would absolutely hate to see parity imposed by knocking the elite teams down. FIRST is the challenge that it is specifically because you're not just trying to build a robot that can accomplish tasks, you're trying to build a robot that can accomplish tasks better than everyone else's robots.


I like to think that the robotic aspect of FIRST is about students building robots accomplishing tasks better than everyone else's robots. Parity does not imply knocking the elite teams down.


I'll dispute it. "Fairness" is both arbitrary and irrelevant. You might as well complain that it's unfair that teams that know things about robots have an advantage over teams that don't. This undisputed "fact" is a "fact" only insofar as the statement "advantages are advantageous" is a fact.


Student knowledge is much more easily accessible than cash. And the point of FIRST is so that students can gain knowledge. Most people here agree that robots built entirely by mentors give their team a strong advantage (though they dispute whether or not FIRST should be fair). Fairness is arbitrary, but not irrelevant.


There are already many rules that force some level of parity, from materials utilization to BOM cost restrictions to time restrictions. I'm willing to bet that if you tried to come up with more rules to enforce parity, in public on Chief Delphi, you'll find that it's a lot harder than it sounds -- and that many of your ideas will actually skew things even more in favor of elite teams.


To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.


tl;dr version: Elite teams aren't elite because of the inherent bias of the system, they're elite because of what they do within that system.


Plenty of non-elite teams do similar things as elite teams, yet aren't elite teams. This further illustrates that "being elite" is dependent on factors other than how well they do things within the system.

[EricH]

Engineering is, at least partially, about producing an optimum product, based on resources available.

This leads to a number of design choices and tradeoffs. Maybe an "inferior" material is used because it's cheaper/more readily available than the preferred material. Maybe time is extended to reduce cost slightly. Maybe you can produce a part at 0.0001" every time... but you produce it at 0.001" every time because that's "good enough" and besides the machine that normally does the 0.0001" is busy on some other project. Maybe you throw 5 engineers at a problem, or maybe you throw 2 interns at the same problem. Maybe you use a thickness that isn't going to work because that's available--but you can design another part to take up the extra stress.

I don't really care whether you've got 60+ students, 30+ engineering mentors, 30+ NEMs, a full CNC shop, and a $300,000 budget, or you have 5 students, one teacher who keeps the shop open, hand tools, and a shoestring budget. It's all about how you use those resources to produce the best design you can. If you want to use those engineering mentors to produce your entire robot, that's your choice. If you want to have those engineering mentors sit around drinking coffee, that's your choice, but they may have some good input anyway. If those 5 students with minimal mentor support beat you, it ain't luck. It's them using their limited resources to the optimal level.

[E. Wood]

Well, it's sometimes in the back of our minds when we build the robot. It's a competition, and we're doing our best to build the best/most creative robot for that. We're human, competitive by nature. I think very few people in teams in FIRST, even mentors, can claim that they don't get excited when their team wins (or disappointed when the opposite happens).

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but teams that don't utilize mentors tend not to do well in either of your definitions.

O, I get excited whenever we when a match or a trophy but I would still mentor even if we didn't.

Yes I agree with you that teams that don't untilize mentors correctly don't tend to do well while teams that do use them well will most likely succeded by some measure.

[Bongle]

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.
I disagree - since there is already animosity between student-run teams and teams that they perceive to be (but may not actually be) helped "too much" by their mentors, then actually having a rule or proclamation against mentor-run teams would make the animosity even worse, since these accusers would be able to claim the elite teams (who they know nothing more than hearsay about) are "too" mentor-run.

Having an ambiguous ruling would be like the post-Oshawa coopertition team update - it would officially change nothing and change nobody's opinion, but both sides of the issue would use it as ammo. Also, having the ruling enforced entirely by social pressure would be pretty brutal on the teams that get on the wrong side of the mentor witchhunt.

[Taylor]

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.

VRC does exactly that. Is there/has there been a raging battle on the VEX forums about the have/have not teams there?

This thread has degenerated into another mentor-built vs. student-built thread, we've got piles of them, and of the dozens of events I've been to over the years, I have yet to see any 100% student-built or 100% mentor-built robots. Let's keep the OP in mind moving forward and make this a constructive discussion - if it needs to be discussed further at all.

tl;dr [the entire thread]: We love 1771, 1311, 234, 1114, 2056, et. al. We also are jealous of them. Whaddya gonna do.

[EricH]

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.
Which they very clearly do NOT announce, and probably never will!

I'm honestly very surprised that the following haven't been posted yet:

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."
Dean Kamen, Founder

Mission
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership. (emphasis mine)

How "mentor-based" your team is is up to you. But bear in mind, these are FIRST's vision and mission statements. I don't think they'll ever tell any mentor-built teams to not be mentor-built.

Also, that statement, even if it was issued, won't help. Let's look at 1114. For multiple years now, I've heard of teams saying they are being mentor-built. They aren't. (Ditto for 254 and 968 and some of the other teams out there.) That statement, even if FIRST issued it, would simply lead to more complaints like that, with accusations of cheating thrown in. It's human nature.

A statement from on high won't change minds and hearts. It's up to those on the ground to do it, one person/team at a time.

[Patrick Chiang]

I disagree - since there is already animosity between student-run teams and teams that they perceive to be (but may not actually be) helped "too much" by their mentors, then actually having a rule or proclamation against mentor-run teams would make the animosity even worse, since these accusers would be able to claim the elite teams (who they know nothing more than hearsay about) are "too" mentor-run.

Having an ambiguous ruling would be like the post-Oshawa coopertition team update - it would officially change nothing and change nobody's opinion, but both sides of the issue would use it as ammo. Also, having the ruling enforced entirely by social pressure would be pretty brutal on the teams that get on the wrong side of the mentor witchhunt.

I doubt it. FIRST produces a pretty good atmosphere at the competition in general, and most people follow the rules to the letter. If teams are truly mentor-ran and the order to change came, they would change. With less to complain about, accusations would decrease, and the whole issue would disappear.

How else do you suggest to fix it? Changing people's deep-rooted beliefs on fairness taught since birth is very, very hard.

If there's one thing FIRST taught me, it's that all problems have elegant solutions.

[Patrick Chiang]

of the dozens of events I've been to over the years, I have yet to see any 100% student-built or 100% mentor-built robots.

Really? Well, our robot is 100% student-built (by that I mean every part of the robot has a student's fingerprints on it). And last year, at a competition, our students helped another team build their kitbot (they had issues) at the competition. So, that makes at least 2 I can personally verify. I know quite a few teams in the area that also claim 100% student-built bots.

[pathew100]

Re: Fairness. I can't remember which year it was but 5-6 years ago this was discussed at the kickoff.

I clearly remember Dean and/or Woody saying, (I'm paraphrasing here) "Yes, we know it's not an even playing field. It's not fair. But it's not designed to be. This is real life". (I'm sure someone will remember the year, and/or come up with the video).

Forget about who built someone else's robot. Have fun and celebrate in the success your team had and challenges that were overcome. That's what the competitions are about. All competitor's are to be valued equally regardless of their position in the rankings and who built what.

[EricH]

Really? Well, our robot is 100% student-built (by that I mean every part of the robot has a student's fingerprints on it). And last year, at a competition, our students helped another team build their kitbot (they had issues) at the competition. So, that makes at least 2 I can personally verify. I know quite a few teams in the area that also claim 100% student-built bots.
Did you use the Kitbot transmission? How about motors from the KOP? Control system?

If you used any one of those, and you claim to be 100% student-built, you're exaggerating. 100% student-assembled, I can accept. But that cRIO was designed by professional engineers, and built by people who build them for a living. Ditto for the motors. The Kitbot transmission was designed by an FRC mentor. (Actually, any AndyMark transmissions would have been designed by one or more FRC mentors/heavily mentored former students who are now mentors.)

Y'all want to claim 100% student-built, at least go back to the raw materials--resistors and board material and extruded aluminum and the like. I won't make you go back to ore; that's also extracted and processed by professionals.:D

Something you said earlier, about all problems have elegant solutions: Not always. Though if you find yourself with a non-elegant solution, you either solved the wrong problem, made assumptions that were wrong, or solved a problem that wasn't a problem. I've seen a few nasty solutions in my college coursework.

[huberje]

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them".

Such a statement would take the emphasis of the program away from inspiration and put it on to competition.

If students are more inspired and have a better experience having mentors design and build the robot, that is their prerogative, not anyone else's.

Being told how you're supposed to be inspired isn't very inspiring. I learned that in high school.

[Bongle]

How else do you suggest to fix it? Changing people's deep-rooted beliefs on fairness taught since birth is very, very hard.

Let's take an axiom:
1) Making a rule that bans or reduces mentor involvement in FIRST is never, ever going to happen. Mentor involvement is what makes FIRST FIRST. The powers that be often make the exact opposite proclamation that you are requesting, where they actually say "100% student-built robots are not what FIRST is about"

So therefore, how could we reduce the snyde comments?
Idea 1: An education campaign, pointing out perennially high-performing teams that do so without any in-built advantages like a single massive sponsor to let teams with less support know that they can do it two
Idea 2: An official "most from the least" award, given to highlight teams that persevere through money/mentor/support shortages and still create excellent robots. Given many of the "we're low budget and we're good" comments in this thread, this award may end up going to regional winners or top seeds, and might make people realize that the "sponsor-built" robot they had been demeaning was actually built by people very much like them using resources not much beyond their own.
Idea 3: Publicize team budgets. This would have a good and a bad effect: since there are high-performing teams with enormous budgets, they'd get put in the spotlight. But since there are also high-performance teams without enormous budgets, it'd give the other low-budget teams hope that they could do the same.
Idea 4: Maybe you could publicize a team's minimum budget in the last 5 years. Since many teams will have dry years, this would allow everyone to say "oh hey, they had a dry year like ours, and they still became very strong later"

I don't really like idea 3 or 4, but you don't toss out brainstorm ideas because you initially don't like them. My favourite is the most from the least award.

Or you could change your definition of fairness - it doesn't actually take that long. You can find lots of posts by me where I'm making almost identical arguments to you now (look back in 2006, around the Niagara triplets), and I've changed almost 180 degrees in 6 years. Clearly it's not that ingrained. Our kids, despite us being a very low-budget team, appear to actually like and admire 1114/2056, our local powerhouses. They said they sat with them when they went to go watch GTR-east.

Being 100% student-built in FIRST is like an NBA team deciding to play a game with only their left hands. They may do well and it's very impressive if they can do well consistently, but they aren't using all the resources the rules allow them, and so they probably won't consistently do well.

[Ryan Dognaux]

If our team has money, we wouldn't spend 2 weeks * 3 core students making mecannum-wheels (instead we would buy them).

Protip: If you're tight on funds and are worried about your limited resources (which time is one of them), don't spend time making homebrewed mecanum wheels. You're given nearly enough resources in your kit to make a reliable six wheel drive. Spend your limited money and time elsewhere! Part of being a team with low resources is picking and choosing your battles.

I know times are tough in terms of funding, but there are some very large local sponsors (i.e. Boeing) in the Seattle area that are 100% on board with FIRST. Find a mentor that works for one of these companies and you'll be eligible for grants. Help solve your team's funding issues by recruiting additional adult mentors that have ties to industry. No one can improve your team's situation but your team.

[sdcantrell56]

Protip: If you're tight on funds and are worried about your limited resources (which time is one of them), don't spend time making homebrewed mecanum wheels. You're given nearly enough resources in your kit to make a reliable six wheel drive. Spend your limited money and time elsewhere! Part of being a team with low resources is picking and choosing your battles.


Patrick,

We're not limited by resources, machining or money, and we have never considered mechanum in the first place. This year particularly would be perfect to run a wide oriented 4wd or a 6wd with a single speed transmission. Sounds like you guys would benefit from following this suggestion.

[Patrick Chiang]

So therefore, how could we reduce the snyde comments?
Idea 1: An education campaign, pointing out perennially high-performing teams that do so without any in-built advantages like a single massive sponsor to let teams with less support know that they can do it two
Idea 2: An official "most from the least" award, given to highlight teams that persevere through money/mentor/support shortages and still create excellent robots. Given many of the "we're low budget and we're good" comments in this thread, this award may end up going to regional winners or top seeds, and might make people realize that the "sponsor-built" robot they had been demeaning was actually built by people very much like them using resources not much beyond their own.
Idea 3: Publicize team budgets. This would have a good and a bad effect: since there are high-performing teams with enormous budgets, they'd get put in the spotlight. But since there are also high-performance teams without enormous budgets, it'd give the other low-budget teams hope that they could do the same.
Idea 4: Maybe you could publicize a team's minimum budget in the last 5 years. Since many teams will have dry years, this would allow everyone to say "oh hey, they had a dry year like ours, and they still became very strong later"


Great ideas. I like 2~4. Re-education against human nature is ineffective. On the other hand, cold hard facts are certainly welcome in a pool of irrationality.


Patrick,
We're not limited by resources, machining or money, and we have never considered mechanum in the first place. This year particularly would be perfect to run a wide oriented 4wd or a 6wd with a single speed transmission. Sounds like you guys would benefit from following this suggestion.

We went with tracks this year. Our students literally machined tracks out of scrap from last year. When I said mecannum, I thought I made it clear we machined those 2 years ago, for the soccer + rail hanging game.

[wireties]

Really? Well, our robot is 100% student-built (by that I mean every part of the robot has a student's fingerprints on it). And last year, at a competition, our students helped another team build their kitbot (they had issues) at the competition. So, that makes at least 2 I can personally verify. I know quite a few teams in the area that also claim 100% student-built bots.

I don't want to come down strong on one side or the other. Take my experience and factor it into your evaluation. I have run the QuickBuild Electronics session at the Dallas Regional since it started. The talent and ingenuity of the students amazes me but they cannot build the robot by themselves, not even the kitbot! Now these are mostly rookie teams but the awesome students that you refer to above are not rookies, they have the benefit of 1-3 years under your tutelage. So with all due respect I think you should not map your picture-in-time on to all FIRST teams.

[wireties]

Patrick,

We're not limited by resources, machining or money, and we have never considered mechanum in the first place. This year particularly would be perfect to run a wide oriented 4wd or a 6wd with a single speed transmission. Sounds like you guys would benefit from following this suggestion.


We are using mecanum this year (AndyMark HDs), simply because it is fun to drive. And we can balance on the ramp and go over the bump if necessary. We can drive up on the ramp and pivot into a wide configuration in seconds. Our bot pulls balls in from all 4 sides and we just toy with all the 6WD behemoths. If you get the alignment perfect, the weight distribution perfect and the software right mecanum is viable - period.

[sdcantrell56]

We are using mecanum this year (AndyMark HDs), simply because it is fun to drive. And we can balance on the ramp and go over bump if necessary. We can drive up on the ramp and pivot into a wide configurations in seconds. Our bot pulls balls in from all 4 sides and we just toy with all the 6WD behemoths. If you get the alignment perfect, the weight distribution perfect and the software right mecanum is viable - period.

"Viable" yes but seldom the best choice. For your particular strategy this year it seems to fit but you would have a hard time convincing me that mechanum is ever the optimum drivetrain. This is clearly not the point of this thread though so I'll leave it at that.

[Cory]

I like to think that the robotic aspect of FIRST is about students building robots accomplishing tasks better than everyone else's robots. Parity does not imply knocking the elite teams down.

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce "FIRST is primary about students. Mentors, remember you're only here to help, not do it for them". If they emphasize that philosophy (which would be great), mentor-ran teams would not disappear overnight, but their legitimacy would decline, and teams will change; the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.

Patrick,

This is quite simply not how FIRST works, or ever was intended to work. Go look up comments from Dave/Woodie/Dean/etc to this effect over the years.

How would it be fair to bring down teams who worked hard to get the resources they've acquired? We spend a LOT of time developing relationships with local machine shops and others who can donate services like powdercoating, anodizing, welding, etc.

This is how the real world works. When our students get mechanical engineering degrees there's probably a 90% chance they will never touch a machine tool during their professional career. That doesn't mean we don't teach them how to machine parts, because we believe that it's critical for engineers to know how things are made.

I could say a lot more about your claims of fairness and equality and mentor vs student, but as Andy Baker is fond of saying, arguing on the internet is like wrestling with a pig. You get dragged down in the mud and get dirty and the pig enjoys it. You're clearly not going to change your opinion.

[pfreivald]

Parity does not imply knocking the elite teams down.

I'm not looking at implications, I'm looking at specific implementation ideas from you on how you would achieve parity without "knocking elite teams down"...

And the point of FIRST is so that students can gain knowledge.

Please re-read their mission statement. Student knowledge is an inevitable byproduct of inspiration about science and technology, but...

Seriously, which gives you more knowledge: reinventing the wheel from scratch, or working with specialists in a particular field?

Most people here agree that robots built entirely by mentors give their team a strong advantage (though they dispute whether or not FIRST should be fair).

Which people are you presuming to speak for? Also, which teams have robots built entirely by mentors? (Especially given the "have student fingerprints on it" metric you created above.)

Fairness is arbitrary, but not irrelevant.

Of course it's irrelevant. Anything unachievable by its very nature is irrelevant to any discussion of reality. Equality in funding, geography, mentorship, experience, and work ethic cannot be achieved, and thus discussion thereof is in fact irrelevant.

To enforce more parity, all they would have to do is announce

I'm sorry, but that's not true. "Enforce" and a vague announcement do not logically mesh to any reasonable degree.

the competition would become a much less hostile atmosphere between alleged elite teams and normal teams.

Elite teams are normal teams -- they're just normal teams that do or have done more to get where they are. Inherent advantages play a part, sure, but that doesn't mean they play a part in which any of us should concern ourselves in the slightest.

Plenty of non-elite teams do similar things as elite teams, yet aren't elite teams.

Which, and what things?

tl;dr [the entire thread]: We love 1771, 1311, 234, 1114, 2056, et. al. We also are jealous of them. Whaddya gonna do.

Jealousy and envy should be purged from your mind and soul, and replaced with admiration and pride -- drive yourself and your team to be like those teams, and count yourself lucky to be in an organization with such incredible role models.

Idea 2: An official "most from the least" award, given to highlight teams that persevere through money/mentor/support shortages and still create excellent robots.

We've thrice won judges's awards of the "wow, they're tiny and rural but look what they've done!" variety. They're never enough -- not because we don't appreciate them, but because we want to play with the big boys and turn peoples's heads in a "wow, where did they come from?!?" manner. We're not there yet, but we strive to get there.

"Viable" yes but seldom the best choice. For your particular strategy this year it seems to fit but you would have a hard time convincing me that mechanum is ever the optimum drivetrain.

We love our octocanum for Rebound Rumble... Just love it!

[ratdude747]

I'll post my take.

** this is only my opinion**

To the OP:

It is poor taste and not GP to make comments as you described. Shame on those who said those things.

On the topic of student involvement:

While I agree that there is no "e" in FIRST and mentor-driven programs do inspire students, I disagree that mentor driven programs are equally good for students. As a veteran of 2 student-driven teams (1747 9-11th grade, 2783 12th grade), I preferred doing things to watching things. Most students who I knew agreed. If I had been on a mentor driven team, I probably would have been bored during build season.

In addition, I belive it is critical to team spirit and morale for students to feel a sense of "ownership; students need to be able to have something on the robot or team that that they can say "that's MY work" or "I built/designed that". I know first hand that that feeling is among the best I ever felt, perhaps on par with when my team won a regional (Buckeye 2009) or when I was nominated for dean's list.

Student's are not stupid by default either. Given the correct initial training and a little Inspiration, students are very capable of building robots and running a team.

Last, I believe that mentors do have a role. I often refer back to my experiences on 1747 as a model of good balance; both mentors and students are involved, but students make all final decisions and do the majority of the actual work and mentors would help out as needed, supervise, and train students when needed.

On a side note, I will comment that good looking bots can be student-built to any degree; likewise, "less pretty" robots can also be mentor built to any degree (I have seen both). Please do not judge a robot's build history solely on its looks.

[Gardner C]

I am troubled that you students were subjected to verbal abuse at Peachtree. Peachtree has always had the reputation of being one of the friendly regionals and I hope it always stays that way. I understand the frustration of “the have verse the have not’s” and struggling teams competing against obviously adult build robot but that’s another topic.

Your robot this year and last year were not beautiful but they border on engineering elegance, which is a lot better. I know, I inspected both of them. But that not the important part. When I ask your students how it worked they knew, and could describe it in great detail and answered all questions. Believe me, that was not always the case.

The other aspect is beautiful robot don’t win matches, good strategy and good driving does. We competed against you in finals last year and the semifinals this year and you beat us both years. No complaint, you had better machines, better driving and a more effective strategy. You deserve to win. They were great matches, great learning experience and lots of fun.

[wireties]

"Viable" yes but seldom the best choice. For your particular strategy this year it seems to fit but you would have a hard time convincing me that mechanum is ever the optimum drivetrain. This is clearly not the point of this thread though so I'll leave it at that.

... and yet you felt the need to comment - hehehe. Well, I bow to your vast experience (oh wait, that is actually me). The students like to drive it, nothing else is more important to me.

[ebarker]

When the Championship was in Atlanta I was always there from 2005 to 2010.

In 2008 when 1114 was winning and eventually won on Einstein I strolled by their pit a few times and checked things out.

Two things struck me every time I walked by. 1) the students were doing all the work, and 2) that is a robot that was within reach of a lot if not all teams.

A team with a proper design process and a good disciplined work ethic can get this done. It isn't magic, nor a genie in a bottle......

In 2010 we were working on a video project and I was walking around looking for people to interview. Several times I walked by 234's pit and I saw a flurry of activity. The students were working very busily on their robot and I didn't want to interrupt. We were getting some interview footage with girls on teams and there was they girl intently working on the robot, she had robot up to her elbows and armpits.

I never did interrupt them. The students were too busy working. We never did get to interview that girl.

bottom line: those students owned those programs..
.

[sdcantrell56]

... and yet you felt the need to comment - hehehe. Well, I bow to your vast experience (oh wait, that is actually me). The students like to drive it, nothing else is more important to me.

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

[santosh]

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

Dont forget the kids - its all about the kiddies. "Trick loves the kids"

[thefro526]

I was a hater once... A long time ago.

When I was first introduced to FRC, it was at Duel on the Delaware 2005 with 816. We didn't have the best robot that year (or one that could turn) so many of the older members of the team spent their time belittling better teams when they bested us. I remember walking through the pits with a junior and being shown the 'Engineer Built Robots' and being told that 'If we were handed a robot we'd win too'. I believed them for a bit.

Fast Forward to the 2006 build season - we built an crap on top of crap robot that year. No plan, no CAD, just design as you go. At that years CMP we were ranked 86th in our division out of 86 teams. I heard the same sob stories from the upperclassmen as I did at DOTD. As I watched the Newton Eliminations and Einstein* with some of my teammates who were also freshmen, we came to a conclusion - 'We need to learn how to build robots on the same level as those teams if we want to win'.

From then on, our class (Class of 2009) worked harder and harder each year to build better robots. When we took over the team in 2008 our robots improved substantially thanks in part to what we learned from the few elite teams we spoke with. We were the undefeated #2 seed going into alliance selections in NJ that year when we finally realized that it was/is possible for students to build a 'good' robot with minimal mentor intervention.

The reason I shared that story was to illustrate two points:

1) More often than not, students who are haters are taught to be haters by others - I've even seen entire teams where there was an underlying 'hate those who win' culture.

2) It is possible for Students to build a robot with minimal mentor involvement, have it look 'professional' and compete with and/or be an Elite-Tier team. (Not saying that Elite Tier teams are mentor built)

IMO, if we're ever going to 'fix' the problem of haters it's going to be through educating them. A simple 5 minute talk with a student might be all it takes to change their opinion.

* Newton and Einstein 2006 were host to some of the most spectator friendly matches in the History of FRC.

[wireties]

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

[huberje]

2) It is possible for a Student Built robot to compete with the big boys.

I liked your story and found it interesting, but this just struck me because it seems like you're implying that "big boy" teams' robots are built by mentors.

[thefro526]

I liked your story and found it interesting, but this just struck me because it seems like you're implying that "big boy" teams' robots are built by mentors.

My apologies, I should go back and clarify that point.

[sdcantrell56]

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

In the future I'll try to add a couple "hehehe" instances into my posts. Thanks for all the advice.

[santosh]

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

The kids on 2415 win because they want to and they work hard at it. And I find that to be a personal accomplishment. Why? because the kids are learning a ton and doing a ton. It is a professional accomplishment for me as it is for Sean. It is a credit to how we (mostly him and the others) are great mentors and can accomplish things when we as a team set our minds to it (and have a little luck).

And I see nothing wrong with his tone or choice of language.

Also, I am not sure why winning isn't important. "You play to win the game." With the caveat that once your students aren't learning and you aren't accomplishing the goals of FIRST, you have issues IMO.

Regardless Martin, I am really sorry that people were making those comments. But I know if they got to know either of our teams, they would quickly change their state of mind. Hell, I even thought that about yall but didn't make a statement till I got to know your team and understand it and see the error in my ideas - because that is childish and immature (both which i am but in a professional sense).
Like Dustin, my kids got demolished their first year but they learned enough and worked hard enough to get to yalls level and finally beat 1771 in 08 (and then win with yall the same year at palmetto!).
Regardless, I looked up to yall and still do.

[wireties]

In the future I'll try to add a couple "hehehe" instances into my posts. Thanks for all the advice.

Good luck to 2145 in St Louis! If I make it there perhaps we should meet and talk. I'm buying!

[wireties]

The kids on 2415 win because they want to and they work hard at it. And I find that to be a personal accomplishment. Why? because the kids are learning a ton and doing a ton. It is a professional accomplishment for me as it is for Sean. It is a credit to how we (mostly him and the others) are great mentors and can accomplish things when we as a team set our minds to it (and have a little luck).


I never said anything about 2415 - I am sure you guys are awesome. If you look back, my first post in this thread is very positive and about a great team local to us (148-RoboWranglers).


And I see nothing wrong with his tone or choice of language.


Clearly I got under his skin somehow and I regret doing so. Best of luck in St Louis!

[Ian Curtis]

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

I know at least one of the Dow 30 treats it as much more of a professional accomplishment than philanthropy. As always I'm sure your mileage may vary though.

[PayneTrain]

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

[Weinberger]

Martin

Our team strategically denied your invite to coopertition bridge balance in the late quali rounds at P'tree Regional this year. This round was frought with great excitement because we were allied with 1311 against your bot and we played some great defense against you.

The team's strategy was that by playing defense against your scoring and balancing (we'd win the match) and not upset the standings between you and 1311, which was down to coopertition points.

This would harm our overall standing (ending up in 10th rank with 0 CP vs. 4th or 5th had we earned CP) but would make us more likely to be chosen by a top seed. Like a 1771 or 1311 or 2415.

The strategy was clearly marred and left us unsuccessful in the elimination matches I would agree with several threads here at CD, that MORE coopertition balancing is the one KEY to advancing in this year's game.

Our team does share a healthy jealousy of the top's team's (team #'s listed above) success at the local regional. It makes us work that much harder to be competitive against/with you. In, 2010 for instance you helped take us to Regional winner. But any haterade toward you is definately cut with a dose of respect for the engineering solutions that you consistently show up with year after year.

I wish you and your team continued success and good luck with that fundraising. We'll see you at the competition!!

[JaneYoung]

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

Aw shucks.. I have to 'spread more rep around'.

Thank you for this post!

Jane

[Garret]

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.


I honestly thought you were doing fine up until you said this. If you believe that not having a regional victory or awards discredits someone you need to get your priorities straight. It doesn't matter who has more awards (it doesn't in my mind), you should at least remain civil and respectful; I have said a couple times now, even if you are offended you should always show GP.

About this thread though. Its disappointing that your team would have to deal with that type ungracious hating.

My team used to be and to an extent still, is one of those "hater" teams; we have fixed that at the tournaments as far as I know. Our team has really improved over the past couple seasons going from almost last seed to being a reasonable competitive team. However when you lose repeatably to the same team it can be very frustrating and can make some students begin to try to justify in their minds why they lost. Its not like our students are any less intelligent or don't work as hard, its just that they don't have access to the wealth of knowledge (mentors) that those teams do.

I will also say that my experience with the good teams have been less than positive, we could call it reverse-hating. I have found several of the mentors on the "super" teams at our regional to be outright rude; some of them have made comments to my team members that were quite hurtful (essentially making fun of some of the athletes on the team). Other mentors have come up to our team and talked about how bad a particular drivetrain is (mecanum) when we were using that drivetrain. My problem with some of those teams is not the students (I will never hold anything against the students), my problem is with mentors from certain teams. I don't know if this is the norm, maybe my team just has really bad luck (wouldn't be surprising), but we have not had positive experiences with many of the "super" teams we have interacted with.

This whole thing made me remember something that my team has been talking about recently. Our issue is how there is literally no recognition from FIRST for teams that do not win. FIRST used to give out medals to all teams now all we get is a pin. For a team member who has put in countless hours of work this pin is in my opinion a joke. When team members were given medals they could always show them off at school and get some recognition from their peers and feel good about what they did. This is just something I have been thinking about, I don't know if it makes sense.

I apologize if my post is offensive, inflammatory, or doesn't make sense. I do not mean it to be offensive, I just thought I would play the devil's advocate to an extent by giving my teams experience. These opinions are mine and should not be held against my team.

[ebarker]

My problem with some of those teams is not the students (I will never hold anything against the students), my problem is with mentors from certain teams.

The fish rots from the head down. It does seem like a lot of negative behavior is initiated / driven / supported by the adults whether they be mentors, or parents just dragging in attitude like you might see at a SEC conference game. It is up to the adults and student leaders to set the standard, set the tone, and create the culture inside the team where trash talk isn't tolerated. What happens is teams allow a negative culture to thrive in their shop 51 weeks of the year and there is no quenching it during competition week, no matter how hard they try. The students are just following the adult / student leaders example.

For a team member who has put in countless hours of work this pin is in my opinion a joke. When team members were given medals they could always show them off at school and get some recognition from their peers and feel good about what they did.

Rule #1 of volunteerism : never do anything seeking gratitude, you will surely be disappointed. Find your own intrinsic reasons, follow your internal compass, and be satisfied. If someone else recognizes what you are up to, then all the better.

[Garret]

Rule #1 of volunteerism : never do anything seeking gratitude, you will surely be disappointed. Find your own intrinsic reasons, follow your internal compass, and be satisfied. If someone else recognizes what you are up to, then all the better.

That is definitely true. My statement was about the students deserving some sort of "official" recognition, like in FLL where all teams get medals. I don't need recognition nor do I care if I get it. I didn't intend for it to come off like I wanted recognition if that's what you interpreted it as.

[ebarker]

I don't need recognition nor do I care if I get it. I didn't intend for it to come off like I wanted recognition if that's what you interpreted it as.

I was just throwing the comment out there. I'm with you. I understood what you said.

I'm in a good place personally. I don't need the recognition and just as happy being invisible.

[Kevin Ray]

I too have to admit that long ago (13 years) I was somewhat of a hater--though I never gave voice to these thoughts. I remember being at the Championships in Epcot and wondering, "How in the world can they expect us to be able to compete with teams like 47 and the like, with their multi-million dollar 5 axis milling machines (naive, I know) while we only had jig saws and cordless drills. I felt that were competing on an uneven playing field. These teams had real engineers helping them--obviously.

Well, it took about one full season of losses and a re-evaluation of the goals of FIRST for me to realize what the problem was--it was my failure to understand the INSPIRATION component of FIRST. After looking at the WOW bots and seeing what they had done with the same KOP that we had received I suddenly realized that Inspiration took on a whole new meaning. Besides the obvious, it now meant that we could be inspired by other teams who did, in fact, have engineers. By seeing what could be acccomplished we would be inspired to build better bots. In sports we don't want our children to only play kids on their level or lower, they'll never grow. We want them to be challenged. We want them to see the professional athletes so that they can have higher loftier goals to shoot for.

If all of the robots looked like our first two years' bots and we had nothing to model after, we would all have suffered. Now, many years later, after being driven to find a major corporate sponsor and to fundraise to buy milling machines, we are competitive. And, we are thankful for having the free expertise of the many great teams who willingly shared much of their knowledge on CD and at competitions. Though we are clearly not amongst the elite teams, we are finally able to give back to the rookie teams and they actually say that they wish that they had the backing that we do.

And incidently...some of our greatest victories in those early years came in the matches in which we beat opponents with the WOW bots on their alliance. A well made robot doesn't always make for a well designed robot (strategically speaking).

[elemental]

The fish rots from the head down. It does seem like a lot of negative behavior is initiated / driven / supported by the adults whether they be mentors, or parents just dragging in attitude like you might see at a SEC conference game.

This is unfortunately true. At a regional I volunteered at, some students related an experience about an adult affiliate of a well-respected, "elite" team repeatedly telling them that his team would "kick their butts".
Whenever I hear of or experience this type of behavior it makes me sad as students, when left to themselves, are usually cooperative and ready to make friends. I suppose one just has to try to not only be role models for students, but for parents, etc.

[Madison]

Clearly I got under his skin somehow and I regret doing so. Best of luck in St Louis!

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

[wireties]

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

Much of what you say it true and I apologize. I'll endeavor to be more careful in the future.

Kind Regards

[JaneYoung]

Realizing that the haterade focus in this thread is on the winning teams, I think there continues to be a lot of areas in teams that require some edumacation.

For one, what is a "big boys" team?

I've recently had a young team approach me and talk to me about different regionals and how the impact of individuals makes a huge difference in the attitudes of teams. How sexism in teams in one competition is dealt with swiftly and professionally, whereas sexism and remarks in another competition is never dealt with.

This is a team that is very successful in recruiting and retaining young women on their team. Travel to events creates a lot of opportunity for discussions and, in the end, they are glad that they don't have to deal with that type of haterade, locally.

So - sip away and while you're sipping - be aware of the different flavors and if your own cup is half empty or half full when thinking in terms of team built.

Jane

[ebarker]

.... how the impact of individuals makes a huge difference in the atittudes of teams

The fish rots from the head down. - The impact of adult and student leadership cannot be understated.

[JaneYoung]

The fish rots from the head down. - The impact of adult and student leadership cannot be understated.

The impact of the adults on the students, the events, and the program, results in the development of the students and the program and what that becomes.

Jane

[ebarker]

Absolutely.

[ttldomination]

Martin

Our team strategically denied your invite to coopertition bridge balance in the late quali rounds at P'tree Regional this year. This round was frought with great excitement because we were allied with 1311 against your bot and we played some great defense against you.

I have seen some great defense, and dished out some of my own, and to this day, the stand that 1683 made against the alliance has to be the best.

For those that do not know, it was the 2nd to last match of the day and the logic was simply. 1311 had to win to remain in first place and break up a spectacular 2415/1771 alliance.

Not only did 1311 sink almost all of their shots, but in the last 30-45 seconds of the match, 1683 played some hellish defense to prevent 1771 and alliance from balancing.

Absolutely inspirational,
- Sunny G.

[M_Bergman]

The # 1 seed had a c-channel kitbot base.
If I'm not mistaken, the #2 seed had a plywood frame, but Martin can correct me if I'm wrong.

Similar story: Our alliance won the Sacramento regional (Thank you teams 1678 and 971!), and our frame is the C-channel kit base. Our electronics are mounted on plywood backing,our ball elevator is made of a $1.00 drawer-slide and some scrap metal, and our superstructure is cobbled together out of whatever metal we could find. Even non-professional (VERY non-professional) 'bots can excel! :cool:

[dpc131]

So, I too was bitter the first few years about some of the robots that were totally built in a machine shop, even as a mentor. I even heard rumors of engineers paid to sit in the classroom. It took a couple years of hearing the same story of "it's not about the robots" and then seeing it first hand.

I started as a mentor right out of college having never been exposed to FIRST. Now 11 years later with two kids under three, I'm taking a break from mentoring for a few years. In my place, three of the mentors on the team this year were students on our team 5 years ago, now teaching systems engineering to the team. They have graduated and are working as engineers in the area. Another formal student told us when she was a freshman that she liked that 'mechanical stuff,' but she was a girl so didn't want to do it. Now, she's a mechanical engineer working on my project at work.

So the 'mentors' in these cases are a product of FIRST and embody why the robots are built, not because of awards but because of inspiring young people to pursue engineering. It's been a joy seeing this over the last year or two and that's what FIRST is all about, not the robots.

[FRC4ME]

Every team takes a slightly different approach to inspiring and recognizing science and technology. I don't think we should assume that anyone's approach must be wrong just because their robot looks too good.

[SteveGPage]

So, I too was bitter the first few years about some of the robots that were totally built in a machine shop, even as a mentor. I even heard rumors of engineers paid to sit in the classroom. It took a couple years of hearing the same story of "it's not about the robots" and then seeing it first hand.

I started as a mentor right out of college having never been exposed to FIRST. Now 11 years later with two kids under three, I'm taking a break from mentoring for a few years. In my place, three of the mentors on the team this year were students on our team 5 years ago, now teaching systems engineering to the team. They have graduated and are working as engineers in the area. Another formal student told us when she was a freshman that she liked that 'mechanical stuff,' but she was a girl so didn't want to do it. Now, she's a mechanical engineer working on my project at work.

So the 'mentors' in these cases are a product of FIRST and embody why the robots are built, not because of awards but because of inspiring young people to pursue engineering. It's been a joy seeing this over the last year or two and that's what FIRST is all about, not the robots.

It is mentors like you that make FIRST what it is. There is an I in FIRST, and it really does mean Inspiration! I remember those days, when we talked about "those teams" and that it was so hard to compete with what they had. I guess we could have just continued to complain about the fairness of it all, and that a school, in a semi-rural community couldn't match what they had. Instead, when you began to teach the kids the basics of System Engineering (and we got the Judge's award for that program!), we started to believe - and more importantly, the kids started to believe, too! - that we could start to build a program that could compete with anyone. Now, as we say, the STEM Cycle has come full circle. Almost half the Mentors on the team this year are former students from FIRST teams - Robobees, GaCo, MOE, Cybersonics, etc... And due to this, the vision is growing, year after year. We went from a team that started at Kick-off, and ended at the regional, to one that works year-round. We had about 10 kids and 4 mentors - who had no clue what we were doing, to a team of 50 kids, and 15 - 20 mentors. We went from meeting in a shop class, with old tools and equipment, to one that, oh wait, we're still in that same room, with the same equipment - but we now have the vision and the passion to truly make a difference in our area - and that's what has brought us to where we are now, but isn't where we will stop!

Dan - You will always be a Bee! Come back from your hiatus, soon! You should come to DC and see this year's "on-board, automated weapons system"! :) It is a sight to see!

[Seth Mallory]

Every team takes a slightly different approach to inspiring and recognizing science and technology. I don't think we should assume that anyone's approach must be wrong just because their robot looks too good.

Or their approch is wrong because their robot looks or performs bad.