Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies [Archive]

View Full Version : Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

ZackAlfakir

10-02-2015, 19:53

Who cares who truthfully does the work? Are the students inspired? Are they motivated to be just like their mentors?

If yes, mission accomplished. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. What matters is what the students get out of it. You don't have to turn a wrench or write software to be inspired to do so.

-Nick

:ahh: This is the exact opposite of our programming team. We not only have Mentors teaching students, but we have experienced students teaching students. The kids that are in our programming team are much greatly inspired and even all of the freshman have been able to make a significant contribution to the code without any prior experience!

The goal is not to have a working robot, it is to have the STUDENTS build a working robot and a Mentor is one of the tools that they use to get to that goal.

scottandme

10-02-2015, 21:27

:ahh: This is the exact opposite of our programming team. We not only have Mentors teaching students, but we have experienced students teaching students. The kids that are in our programming team are much greatly inspired and even all of the freshman have been able to make a significant contribution to the code without any prior experience!

The goal is not to have a working robot, it is to have the STUDENTS build a working robot and a Mentor is one of the tools that they use to get to that goal.

I'm glad your team chooses to operate in a way that works for your team. Don't conflate what is best for your team with what is best for every team.

Feel free to search the archives for thousands of posts on the subject matter. It's been discussed to death.

Joseph Smith

10-02-2015, 21:35

:deadhorse:

ZackAlfakir

10-02-2015, 21:53

Whippet

10-02-2015, 21:57

(Trust me, I used to be in the same camp as you, being upset about mentor "over-involvement." Then, I actually talked to a few people from "powerhouse" teams and saw the impact they have on the students. You should try it. It really is eye-opening, and this is coming from a student who's never been on a team with an annual budget over $7,000.)

Once again, this topic has been discussed to death, but the prevailing argument is typically this: what works for your team is a unique solution that is not fully duplicated by any other teams. Other teams have found different solutions that all achieve the goal of inspiring students, all by varying levels of mentor involvement. However, the common goal is almost always achieved: The students are inspired. If the students are being inspired, who are we to be telling them they're being inspired wrong?

magnets

10-02-2015, 22:00

I think it is important to point out that FRC is not a competition about it is not about which mentor team can build a better bot.

FRC: FIRST Robotics Competition.

It's a competition. There is no rule that says we cannot have a team of 300 of the brightest engineers build our robot for us. Team 254 inspires students by winning and being better than 99% of everybody else. That's their call to make, and not ours to discuss or criticize.

EricH

10-02-2015, 22:08

I think it is important to point out that FRC is not a competition about it is not about which mentor team can build a better bot. The mission statement of FIRST is: "Our mission is to show students of every age that science, technology, and problem-solving are not only fun and rewarding, but are proven paths to successful careers and a bright future for us all." - www.usfirst.org

Please read the actual mission statement, located at http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision, and then refocus your statement. I'll spare you the trouble of going to the link. (Hint: You should have clicked the link at the end of that statement on the front page that you quoted.)

[Vision]"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.

Now that we've established that FIRST's mission is accomplished by mentor-based programs, we can show that this is not necessarily a competition of high school students, but a competition of partnerships between high school students and adult (college/professional) mentors, and therefore your entire premise falls apart, save for one thing: the whole "engineer bot beats up on student bot" premise, which has already been taken care of on the field by the beatings going the other way as well as the mentioned way.

Andrew Schreiber

10-02-2015, 22:28

mrnoble

11-02-2015, 00:01

I knew we'd find a way to squeeze this issue into the build season this year. Good job!

Fauge7

11-02-2015, 10:16

Just because a team has 300 engineers doesn't mean they are the best robot. Sometimes simplicity is the best.

Libby K

11-02-2015, 10:39

I think it is important to point out that FRC is not a competition about it is not about which mentor team can build a better bot. The mission statement of FIRST is: "Our mission is to show students of every age that science, technology, and problem-solving are not only fun and rewarding, but are proven paths to successful careers and a bright future for us all." - www.usfirst.org

Keyword: students

Not only that, but this is a competition for High School students. If mentors do a majority of the building, then what is the point of the competition? One could hire NASA engineers to build them a better robot and they would crush the group of high school kids that built their bot themselves. While it is important for Mentors to help, they SHOULD only be there for teaching purposes, no matter the skill of your team.

"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." - The actual mission statement. (http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision)

FIRST was founded on the basis of a partnership between mentors, students, and sponsors. How each team chooses to integrate those groups is their prerogative, and as long as they're inspiring students and letting those kids see in themselves something they hadn't before? It is nobody else's business how they choose to run.

Done, done, and done. :deadhorse:

Thromgord

11-02-2015, 10:58

*sigh*

Let me first say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

That being said, I do think that the goal of FIRST is not to win at Nationals or even build really good robots. Rather, it is to educate students about STEM, give them some hands-on practice, and encourage cooperation and good sportsmanship.

This goal can be achieved with mentors. It can also be achieved without mentors.

Mentors seem to make a team more likely to win. But that isn't the goal of FIRST! If mentors are capable of helping students learn, though, then they may be invaluable in achieving the real goal of FIRST. This is the true value of mentors.

Just as long as the mentors don't do all the work while the students play Ping-Pong in the corner, which is defeating the whole purpose of FIRST. But I don't see that happen very often.

Dang. We're still beating this dead horse?

:deadhorse:

JesseK

11-02-2015, 11:02

If tech firms were 100% run by teenagers, 99% of them would fail within their first 6 weeks. The world markets are too competitive and unforgiving.

:deadhorse:

Here I thought this thread was revived to discuss possible merits of Cheesy Vision for this year's game. There seem to be a couple...

Rapture'sFinest

11-02-2015, 12:43

Can a mod just delete this thread? It has gone completely off track of the original intent.

I've been out of the FRC game for awhile. I didn't even know this website existed until a week ago through an old friend.

Anyways. Mentor involvement is crucial for learning in general. Very few student are capable of teaching themselves everything. That being said, it irks me that a mentor of 254 made this post, and not a student. Take a look at other code releases. Having looked through the threads, I found another code release that was posted by a student whose first year in FRC was last year, and that code could honestly have a paper written about it and publish it in a peer review journal. It's not anything to look into, it just gets under my skin coming from a team that had 2 mentors, both of which were teachers and not engineers, and less than 10 students.

The only way to explicitely prove if a team has there mentors do everything would be to do a build season without mentors, and each team given the same budget. But that is never going to happen, mostly for liability reasons I'd assume.

That being said, CheesyVision was an innovative, but extremely elementary, solution to a problem. Anyone with a basic understanding of computer vision could sit down and write it.

Thad House

11-02-2015, 12:51

I agree with either locking this thread, or moving all of this discussion to a new thread and deleting the posts that have been added in the past day. This thread is about Cheesy Vision, not a place to argue about mentors vs students.

artK

11-02-2015, 13:04

This thread should be locked. The discussion about mentors v students should be maintained just as a point of reference for the inevitable future discussions.

Jared Russell

11-02-2015, 13:40

http://media.giphy.com/media/11gC4odpiRKuha/giphy.gif

Navid Shafa

11-02-2015, 13:54

[Image]

http://i.imgur.com/9deJNMS.png

marshall

11-02-2015, 14:02

http://media.giphy.com/media/11gC4odpiRKuha/giphy.gif

QFT.

Karthik

11-02-2015, 14:03

This thread has been split from the CheesyVision thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=128639).

Jon Stratis

11-02-2015, 14:22

This discussion has been beaten to death over the years, but I think it's still a good thing to bring it up occasionally, and for everyone to take a few moments of introspection to understand how it is they work with their team, and how it could be better.

Personally, I don't care how other teams are run, so long as one thing happens: the students are inspired. The only success that matters out there, in my mind, is the percentage of students from a team that go on to major in something relevant and related to their job on the team. If a team has this happening at near 100%, then they don't need to change a thing. If, on the other hand, they find they are driving away kids, then something needs to change.

I can't count the number of students I've seen who have left our team when they graduate and are on a completely different career path than they imagined when they started high school. That's all the success you need.

Andrew Schreiber

11-02-2015, 14:39

The only success that matters out there, in my mind, is the percentage of students from a team that go on to major in something relevant and related to their job on the team. If a team has this happening at near 100%, then they don't need to change a thing. If, on the other hand, they find they are driving away kids, then something needs to change.

I'm going to disagree again If a student designs parts all their years on the team and decides they don't like it and instead go into theatre arts I don't consider this a failing. In fact, I consider this a success. Yeah, we need engineers and it's a great profession for some folks. But if the only thing a student gets out of 4 years on the team is a list of things they don't want to do I'm happy with that. Mission Accomplished, they still have a better understanding of what it takes to be an engineer and hopefully some better problem solving skills.

Nate Laverdure

11-02-2015, 14:43

BenjaminWard

11-02-2015, 14:43

If tech firms were 100% run by teenagers, 99% of them would fail within their first 6 weeks. The world markets are too competitive and unforgiving.

This isn't a tech firm, it's a non-profit robotics competition. Many of these teams have low to minimal mentor involvement, and they do perfectly fine. There's a certain extent of mentor involvement that both works well and allows the students to enjoy themselves and be inspired. There's a difference between helping a struggling team and taking over from the students.

Zebra_Fact_Man

11-02-2015, 14:47

Hey look! Another one of these threads. Is this like an annual gag or something?

In all seriousness though, you run your team how you want to, and we'll run our team how we want to. If you want to imitate our processes, we'd be glad to have a friendly discussion of how/what we do, but I am SO sick and tired of the "Mentor Build Robot" threads. My team doesn't do it, and I don't care if your team does.

Jon Stratis

11-02-2015, 14:52

I'm going to disagree again If a student designs parts all their years on the team and decides they don't like it and instead go into theatre arts I don't consider this a failing. In fact, I consider this a success. Yeah, we need engineers and it's a great profession for some folks. But if the only thing a student gets out of 4 years on the team is a list of things they don't want to do I'm happy with that. Mission Accomplished, they still have a better understanding of what it takes to be an engineer and hopefully some better problem solving skills.

I would think a student like this would have found a different path or position on the team... Why would they keep doing something they don't like for 4 years?. Someone who goes on to major in theatre arts may have spent their time in the team preparing the chairman's presentation (which is basically a short skit acted out by 2-3 people in front of judges), doing pit presentations to judges (similar in some respects to improv), or working on things like the Safety animation, chairman's video, or a season release video (directing, editing footage, writing scripts, etc). There is certainly room on an FRC team for someone who wants to go into theatre arts. This isn't all about the robot, the robot is just the vehicle you use to create the inspiration and environment to help the kids succeed.

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student. It's not my job to turn every student into an engineer. Rather, it's my job to show them the options and nurture their interests so they can be successful in their career path. Honestly, there are very few career paths out there that can't have a start with a well organised FIRST team.

notmattlythgoe

11-02-2015, 14:56

marshall

11-02-2015, 14:59

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student.

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to feel but I don't think you should feel that way. Part of being a complete person is having a multifaceted personality and many passions. Some of the students I work with are not driven to become engineers. They join our team because the passion of other students and our passions as mentors is infectious and that is what drives them. Talented and driven people like to work with other talented and driven people. I'm just as proud of the liberal arts majors as I am of the material science majors that I've helped to inspire.

JesseK

11-02-2015, 15:03

This isn't a tech firm, it's a non-profit robotics competition. Many of these teams have low to minimal mentor involvement, and they do perfectly fine. There's a certain extent of mentor involvement that both works well and allows the students to enjoy themselves and be inspired. There's a difference between helping a struggling team and taking over from the students.

The point was that for sustainability reasons each individual team should be run like a small tech firm. I agree that the philosophy doesn't mean the mentors make all decisions and do all of the work*. Mentors are definitely needed at the critical decisions in order to prevent a single group of students from dictating or ruining every other students' experience in a season. Sometimes this has to happen forcefully, depending on the culture of the community & the students in a given season.

The level of how much involvement is an art - we certainly have been overly-involved in the past - but as a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves.

*Except leading the fundraising team ... I have yet to meet a student who successfully solicits a large business for fundraising without significant mentor involvement...

Andrew Schreiber

11-02-2015, 15:11

I would think a student like this would have found a different path or position on the team... Why would they keep doing something they don't like for 4 years?. Someone who goes on to major in theatre arts may have spent their time in the team preparing the chairman's presentation (which is basically a short skit acted out by 2-3 people in front of judges), doing pit presentations to judges (similar in some respects to improv), or working on things like the Safety animation, chairman's video, or a season release video (directing, editing footage, writing scripts, etc). There is certainly room on an FRC team for someone who wants to go into theatre arts. This isn't all about the robot, the robot is just the vehicle you use to create the inspiration and environment to help the kids succeed.

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student. It's not my job to turn every student into an engineer. Rather, it's my job to show them the options and nurture their interests so they can be successful in their career path. Honestly, there are very few career paths out there that can't have a start with a well organised FIRST team.

Who said they didn't like it? Or maybe they liked doing it because they connected with a mentor or another student there. Or because they were there because the alternative was being at home that was bad for them. If they were happy and learning something about engineering or about themselves I'd view this as a success. Could they have gotten more out of the program? Maybe. But maybe what they needed out of it was just social interaction.

This isn't a hypothetical situation, I've had multiple students over the years who were at robotics because it was either there or be at home alone while their parents worked. One that sticks out in my mind clearly had 0 interest in building robots. He thought they were cool, but he just wanted somewhere to interact with people. He'd help build or wire if we asked him to. But you could tell his heart just wasn't in it. But he was the first to every meeting and one of the last to leave every meeting. He WANTED to be there. But it wasn't the robot he was interested in. I don't feel like I failed him at all. I don't know where he ended up (I moved across the country the next year). But I at least hope he got something out of the program, and I know that being there made him happier. Definitely not a failure.

MrJohnston

11-02-2015, 15:36

This is such a tough subject because there isn't really any "right" answer... It is very true that each team has to have its own way of operating due to the personalities, capabilities, needs, etc. of its own students and mentors.... It is also true that team that attempt to really maximize the amount of decision-making power and construction hours their kids have are at a major competitive disadvantage when facing teams where the mentors hold the balance of power.
Philosophically, I do believe that it is ideal for each team to find it's own balance. However, in many ways, that undermines the spirit of competition. Really: who is competing against whom?

I suspect that, if FIRST wants to continue to hold "Championships" and if the community keeps hailing "elite" teams, FIRST is going to have to give some guidance as to an appropriate balance.

However, there will always need to be a some freedom for teams to do things for themselves. Our team is a great example: Last year, we were loaded with upper-classmen - students with three years of FRC under their belts. This year, we have very few upper-classmen and our leadership team is dominated by sophomores. Last year, our mentors stepped back a lot more and let the upper-classmen have much more "say" in the process. We let them make the mistakes they needed to make, etc. This year, the kids require much more direct guidance.

I do believe that, in order to inspire the kids, they really do need to be involved in the building and design process. They can't be spectators. AT the same time, mentors are important because they bring education, experience and specific expertise to the table to which the students would not otherwise have access. The mentors must also play a major role in the process.

I have been to Championships once... While wandering about the pits of all the "elite" teams and those often accused of having "mentor-built" robots, I noticed one thing very consistently: There were always students working on the robots. Sometimes they were working hand-in-hand with mentors. Sometimes mentors were simply supervising. Sometimes the kids were working, basically, on their own. I see nothing but good in all of these models. I would be concerned if, I were to wander into a pit and see three or four mentors actively working - and no students to be found. I just haven't seen this.

bEdhEd

11-02-2015, 15:37

I started similar thread before defending powerhouse teams, and it got out of hand, but here's my input before this thread gets closed:

I personally believe that a sign of a strong team with fewer resources than powerhouse teams is one that gets encouraged by being outperformed at a competition. I see that as motivation for a team to do more fundraising, more projects, more outreach (if we're also talking chairman's), and more involvement overall, from students, parents, mentors, and sponsors.

In the six years I've been in FRC, I see powerhouse teams as something to emulate, rather than feel inferior to. And all these six years have been on 701, and by being encouraged by defeat instead of discouraged, I've seen my team become better and better.The team didn't get its first blue banner until its 13th year, and in that same season we followed that first banner with two more. Plus, in that same season, we were accused of being mentor built when the reality was that our robot was built by students only. I think that shows how far inspiration can go if you define and implement your priorities, and improve little by little. None of that would have happened if we had any doubts about ourselves as a team.

Powerhouse teams don't happen overnight. They had to work to that level too, regardless of who is involved.

This reminds me of a Confucius quote: "By three ways we may learn wisdom: first is by reflection, which is noblest; second by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience , which is the bitterest."

Sam_Mills

11-02-2015, 15:43

The goal is not to have a working robot, it is to have the STUDENTS build a working robot and a Mentor is one of the tools that they use to get to that goal.

No, your goal is to have the students build a working robot. The goal of FIRST is to inspire students. I say this having spent 4 years (as a student) on a team well known for being almost entirely student driven. It worked well for us, and I got a lot out of the program, but if other teams find that they can maximize inspiration in other ways, then more power to them. If you have mentors on your team capable of teaching programming to the level that your students can do all of it, you're very lucky.

A side note, of the teams you would consider "mentor built," competitive ones are extremely rare. Yes there are the perennial powerhouses, whose philosophies you may not agree with, but they are a tiny fraction of "mentor built" teams. Not only that, but the students do far more than you would expect on most of them. When I think mentor robot, I don't think powerhouse. I think dad-robot built by under-qualified adults unwilling to give students the reins, and unable to teach new skills.

Nobody complains about them because they don't often win. If you're truly looking to rescue students from the terrors of mentorship, don't try to rescue them from engineers from whom they may learn something.

xXhunter47Xx

11-02-2015, 15:47

BenjaminWard

11-02-2015, 16:03

The point was that for sustainability reasons each individual team should be run like a small tech firm. I agree that the philosophy doesn't mean the mentors make all decisions and do all of the work*. Mentors are definitely needed at the critical decisions in order to prevent a single group of students from dictating or ruining every other students' experience in a season. Sometimes this has to happen forcefully, depending on the culture of the community & the students in a given season.

The level of how much involvement is an art - we certainly have been overly-involved in the past - but as a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves.

I agree that mentors are needed to be present at some of the major decisions, but not all. We at programming have a single mentor, and he does only a little more than we need him to. We do all of our own programming, and even teach the freshman programmers what they need to know before the season starts, based on the last year's code and WPILib API. However, they do not need to be "forceful" in any way. The students should be allowed to make their own mistakes to the extent possible, as in a tech firm, to continue the analogy. Even if one group is in charge of the others, this is not as much of a problem as you make it out to be in most situations. As long as nothing that would horribly harm the team is prevented, the students should have as much free reign as possible.

"As a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves" rubs me the wrong way. If the team is largely mentor-run, the students will not be able to make the decision about what balance they want. That just seems.... wrong...

*Except leading the fundraising team ... I have yet to meet a student who successfully solicits a large business for fundraising without significant mentor involvement...

Our team actually has almost zero mentor involvement in regards to fundraising, etc. We have a large "marketing" team that is competent enough to make their own decisions to benefit the team appropriately. They have successfully funded the majority of the team's cash needs for the past few years, with little mentor involvement.

Ian Curtis

11-02-2015, 16:17

When I was a younger I used to get really defensive when people said, "There's no way high school kids built that robot by themselves."

Now I say, "That's the point!!!"

Thank you to all those mentors that taught me how to robot. I can only hope to pay it forward. And thank you, to the other mentors (adult and student) that pay it forward too.

JamesCH95

11-02-2015, 16:17

Don't you students forget that us mentors might actually *like* building robots. Most of us are also volunteers. It's easy to keep volunteer mentors around when they get to do things that they enjoy. I pencil-whip problems and model things in CAD all freakin' day, and I really enjoy going to robotics and making parts, it's a great change of pace. Coaching would hold less appeal for me if I couldn't work with my students in the hands-on part of FRC (as well as designing).

Alternatively, it is in-arguably inspiring to watch someone do what they're really good at. One of 95's coaches is a guy who owns his own CNC machining company. Our students are always enthralled watching him program, setup, and run our CNC mill. Suddenly their creativity spikes because they can see what is possible.

Our team actually has almost zero mentor involvement in regards to fundraising, etc. We have a large "marketing" team that is competent enough to make their own decisions to benefit the team appropriately. They have successfully funded the majority of the team's cash needs for the past few years, with little mentor involvement.

Was that sub-team setup by students or mentors or both?

Often times successful efforts that are now student-run were initiated by a group of students AND mentors.

s_forbes

11-02-2015, 16:18

Doesn't seem to look like many people have had this thought so Ill just throw it here.

You may be inspiring your students by building a robot for them and winning every regional/district you go to. (I would hope you could beat a bunch of kids with all your engineering degrees)

But what about all the students from other teams who hand built their robots that only get to see disappointment because they know that they can't compete with you?

If you look at the big picture instead of putting your horse blinders on and only thinking about your team and winning all the time you might realize you impact every team around you. And that impact may not necessarily be a positive one.

I understand this issue, but I don't know a fix for it. I've tried reaching out to a few other teams in my area to spread around more knowledge, but a lot of the time it goes unanswered.

The teams with the attitude of "Hey! Help us build a robot!" tend to attract more mentors than those that stay silent, and those of us (mentors) who are looking to teach kids about designing/building/testing are going to find the vocal teams first. I'm in Phoenix AZ. If anyone in the area wants input or help with their design just send me a message! I like helping teams make competitive robots, but I can't help if I don't know who/where you are.

It's not a factor of winning/losing for me; I just want to pass on knowledge to students and build neat things. Naturally, I'll be working the most with a team that is looking for that kind of support.

Rachel Lim

11-02-2015, 16:43

I normally stay far away from these threads, but I thought I'd say this once:

FIRST is about inspiration. There are many ways to be inspired. Inspiration means different things to different people. Consider these situations:

Students build a robot by themselves, or with limited mentor guidance. Their success (by their definition) and the knowledge of what they were able to achieve (personally able to achieve, due to limited mentor involvement), inspires them to go into STEM.

Students build a robot with some mentor guidance. Their success (by their definition) and the knowledge of what they were able to achieve (and possibly the knowledge of what they could be able to achieve, by seeing what their mentors know), inspires them to go into STEM.

Students build a robot with mentor guidance. Their success (by their definition) and the knowledge of what they were able to achieve (and possibly the knowledge of what they could be able to achieve, by seeing what their mentors know), inspires them to go into STEM.

Students on any type of team go to competition and see other teams compete, some with more mentor involvement that may have great success. They return with the knowledge of what is possible (and possibly try to use it to change their team), and are inspired to go into STEM.

Students on any type of team go to competition and see other teams compete, some with less mentor involvement. They return with the knowledge of what is possible (and possibly try to use it to change their team), and are inspired to go into STEM.

As a student, I find all of these scenarios inspiring in their own way, and personally do not see how any of these scenarios could be considered the "wrong" way to inspire. Some people will find one scenario more inspiring to them than another, and other vice versa.

To me, if a team inspires their students, they are successful. How they decide to achieve their inspiration depends on the team, and could range from very little to a lot of mentor involvement.

Until one method has been shown to not inspire students to pursue STEM, I believe that teams with a high level of mentor involvement are just as relevant to the mission of FIRST as those with little or no mentor involvement. Which direction a team chooses to go is completely their own decision, and should not be pushed as the one "right" way to do FRC.

Jon Stratis

11-02-2015, 16:56

Who said they didn't like it? Or maybe they liked doing it because they connected with a mentor or another student there. Or because they were there because the alternative was being at home that was bad for them. If they were happy and learning something about engineering or about themselves I'd view this as a success. Could they have gotten more out of the program? Maybe. But maybe what they needed out of it was just social interaction.

This isn't a hypothetical situation, I've had multiple students over the years who were at robotics because it was either there or be at home alone while their parents worked. One that sticks out in my mind clearly had 0 interest in building robots. He thought they were cool, but he just wanted somewhere to interact with people. He'd help build or wire if we asked him to. But you could tell his heart just wasn't in it. But he was the first to every meeting and one of the last to leave every meeting. He WANTED to be there. But it wasn't the robot he was interested in. I don't feel like I failed him at all. I don't know where he ended up (I moved across the country the next year). But I at least hope he got something out of the program, and I know that being there made him happier. Definitely not a failure.

Frankly, I'm there to try to inspire the students, not babysit someone who just doesn't want to go home. If someone's on the team but has no interest in the robot, then I put in the effort to find out what interests them, then figure out what they can do with the team that both fulfills their interests and shows them potential career opportunities they may not have been aware of. As I said before, it's not all about the robot. There are a hundred things students can be doing with a team other than working on the robot, and they can lead to true inspiration and life-long career paths. It just takes more effort to make that a reality for ALL of the students on a team.

Koko Ed

11-02-2015, 17:00

This thread has been split from the CheesyVision thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=128639).

I was wondering what was up with the cold opening.

Abhishek R

11-02-2015, 17:14

Powerhouse teams don't happen overnight. They had to work to that level too, regardless of who is involved.

QFT. Our team was started in 2001 as a partnership with BP, and it was 8 years before we won a regional. 8 years! That's when the 3000's teams were entering the fray. I see a lot of rookie teams getting discouraged, but sometimes all it takes is dedication, and years of experience to know what works and what doesn't.

I've been following this thread for a while, and thought I might give a student's perspective - especially meant for those who think that a good robot can't be built by students. Competitive robot =/= mentor built.

On my team, I have first-hand experience that the robot is fabricated by students. That does not, by any means mean our mentors are not involved. It's a joint effort to brainstorm, innovate, and design this vehicle. It's not designed by a sponsor or anything either; we cut every part and drill every hole by hand in our shop.

A lot of what makes teams good is a passion to improve and prove yourself. Our programming subteam doesn't have a mentor who is actually a programmer, let alone in LabView. We have some build mentors who help guide the functions and logic necessary, but when it comes to actually coding the robot, it's all on the students - thankfully, they are very self-motivated, working on code all the time, pretty much for fun. (One decided to make our current team website from scratch over the summer a year ago, and another programmer made an FRC statistics site, http://bbqfrc.x10host.com.) We've managed to win 5 Innovation in Control awards in the past three years, and really all I can attribute that to is the persistence of our programming team.

When we go to competition, we see teams with other robots, often times better than ours, but we never think - "Man, I wish ____ built or robot for us too." We take that and challenge ourselves to build a robot that can compete at the same level as those powerhouse teams, and we're getting there, thanks to the hard work of generations of mentors and students on our team. As a side note, I have worked personally with students from teams that routinely get accused of the "50+ mentor built robot syndrome" - they are just as knowledgeable, and I'm sure they were "inspired," since it seems we like to throw that word around a lot when talking about this subject.

In the end, I think that if a team wants to get better, they'll find a way to bring themselves up, rather than complain about what other teams have and don't have. It might take time, but it's worth the wait to build this program. Besides that, every student and on every team may be "inspired" in a different way from the other. There isn't much one can do about the teams whose programs you may not necessarily agree with, but the fact is you will have to live with it and move on.

Andrew Schreiber

11-02-2015, 18:21

Frankly, I'm there to try to inspire the students, not babysit someone who just doesn't want to go home. If someone's on the team but has no interest in the robot, then I put in the effort to find out what interests them, then figure out what they can do with the team that both fulfills their interests and shows them potential career opportunities they may not have been aware of. As I said before, it's not all about the robot. There are a hundred things students can be doing with a team other than working on the robot, and they can lead to true inspiration and life-long career paths. It just takes more effort to make that a reality for ALL of the students on a team.

Must be nice... I had to be there to babysit because I wasn't going to send them to homes where they'd gotten robbed at gun point the night before*. If they wanted to be there I'd try to find things that interested them. If I couldn't find anything I'd let them do what they wanted as long as it didn't disturb anyone else. Besides, you never know what's going to spark an interest. I had way too many students and not enough mentors to sit and focus on each one, if you've got enough mentors to focus on each student then count your blessings. But don't preach at those who aren't lucky enough to be in that situation.

Remember that not all kids are capable of telling you what they want to do. No matter how much you ask it sometimes boils down to finding just being lucky enough to find it. This was a student who we could BARELY get to talk, let alone tell us what he wanted to be doing.

*I wish this was an exaggeration. It happened... multiple times.

Link07

11-02-2015, 18:33

Ah, here's the Chief Delphi that I know and love. Oh how I have missed you.

Rangel(kf7fdb)

11-02-2015, 18:45

I would think a student like this would have found a different path or position on the team... Why would they keep doing something they don't like for 4 years?. Someone who goes on to major in theatre arts may have spent their time in the team preparing the chairman's presentation (which is basically a short skit acted out by 2-3 people in front of judges), doing pit presentations to judges (similar in some respects to improv), or working on things like the Safety animation, chairman's video, or a season release video (directing, editing footage, writing scripts, etc). There is certainly room on an FRC team for someone who wants to go into theatre arts. This isn't all about the robot, the robot is just the vehicle you use to create the inspiration and environment to help the kids succeed.

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student. It's not my job to turn every student into an engineer. Rather, it's my job to show them the options and nurture their interests so they can be successful in their career path. Honestly, there are very few career paths out there that can't have a start with a well organised FIRST team.

My experience as a student could be somewhat similar. I was a freshmen on the team and our only programmer a senior was graduating. By the end of my freshmen year I knew someone had to take over as the programmer but it didn't take long to realize that no one really wanted to do it because they had other interests. I decided to fill the role as the programmer and began to work on different projects learning to code and I hated it. It was so confusing to me but I knew that we needed it and that our robots both land and underwater would perform a far deal lower than if I didn't do it so I stuck with it. So I continued to do programming and hated it for about 2 years. However most of my hate was the result of not understanding it and not having a solid background of the basics. Once it started coming more naturally, I love programming now. I love all the things you can do with it and can't imagine not doing it. Had I just begun it my senior year, I probably would have hated it still and not went into a computer science major.

Mike Schreiber

11-02-2015, 21:13

On a rather unrelated note I would like to remind some of the senior CD users of a quote from the FAQ section here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/faq.php?faq=reputation_faq):

Negative reputation should be given if the person is posting something that detracts from the conversation. If the post is rude, inappropriate, breaks forum rules, is not gracious, etc; these are all good reasons to give negative reputation....Giving negative reputation because you don't agree with what was said is not an appropriate use of the reputation system.

Emphasis Mine.

I don't believe anything offensive was said in this thread. I know they're just dots, but sometimes I feel as though this forum is not accepting enough to newcomers with questions or opinions on previously discussed topics.

faust1706

11-02-2015, 21:47

Oh no! My magic internet points!

PayneTrain

11-02-2015, 22:42

Oh no! My magic internet points!

When members of the self appointed senior brain-trust neg rep bomb a new member, they heavily discourage the person from trying to understand the community and potentially grow because of future interactions with the community. I'm sure needlessly being a knob over a discussion topic just to get one's jollies off may seem harmless to some, but it's really unnecessary, damaging, and pathetic.

EricH

11-02-2015, 22:48

When members of the self appointed senior brain-trust neg rep bomb a new member, they heavily discourage the person from trying to understand the community and potentially grow because of future interactions with the community. I'm sure needlessly being a knob over a discussion topic just to get one's jollies off may seem harmless to some, but it's really unnecessary, damaging, and pathetic.

Just as an aside: If a new member is being a prick, then are we sure they're even trying to understand the community?

Yes, there's a reason I'm asking. No, I won't go any further into the matter.

And, for the record, I have never given out a single neg rep. Neutral, yes, on a couple of occasions. Negative, nope (not that I haven't wanted to... but usually by the time I get around to going for it 47 other people have done so already).

PayneTrain

11-02-2015, 22:57

Just as an aside: If a new member is being a prick, then are we sure they're even trying to understand the community?

Yes, there's a reason I'm asking. No, I won't go any further into the matter.

And, for the record, I have never given out a single neg rep. Neutral, yes, on a couple of occasions. Negative, nope (not that I haven't wanted to... but usually by the time I get around to going for it 47 other people have done so already).

I'd agree with you if this was an open and shut case of a troll screwing around. As far as I know this is someone who has been in the program for a fraction of the time compared to a likely member of the rep-bombing cabal (or you or myself) and lacks perspective on what this program means. I learn something new about FIRST or get a new perspective on the programs almost every single day. I have not always had this perspective and at one time held opinions similar to ZackAlfakir.

I really don't understand why people with their actual name and team number attached to them choose to troll the board, and I find it even more bizarre that more senior members of the board take time out of their day to passively or actively dish back any level of vitriol to an opinion they disagree with.

I really don't want to touch this anymore either, since a) it's not necessarily on-topic and b) no one is really going to take any of this into account after we all break out the Competition Season Controversy Bingo cards in a couple weeks and any perceived slight that gets broadcasted onto the forums receives the predictable responses.

JamesTerm

11-02-2015, 23:03

http://www.termstech.com/images/WhichLeader.jpg

Abhishek R

11-02-2015, 23:05

The funny thing is there was a thread recently about why we don't use reddit more. The use of negative reputation in this thread is similar to the qualms many people have about the downvote feature on reddit.

philso

12-02-2015, 02:55

Don't you students forget that us mentors might actually *like* building robots. Most of us are also volunteers. It's easy to keep volunteer mentors around when they get to do things that they enjoy. I pencil-whip problems and model things in CAD all freakin' day, and I really enjoy going to robotics and making parts, it's a great change of pace. Coaching would hold less appeal for me if I couldn't work with my students in the hands-on part of FRC (as well as designing).

In the past, I mentored a team where the teacher leading the team didn't want the mentors to do anything other than ensure the students didn't hurt themselves with the power tools. We were admonished for telling some of the students that they needed to read the rules after they suggested strategies or mechanisms that we knew would be ruled illegal. It was okay with her that many of the student leaders spent half their time at the build meetings sleeping or playing computer games. I don't think that the students learned very much, nor were they inspired. We were basically babysitters. That was no fun so I moved on to another team where the students actually listen when given advice. It is gratifying to see a student using some tool technique that I taught them the previous week. It is now worth it to me to drive about 18-20 miles one way (3 times as far as for the other team).

http://www.termstech.com/images/WhichLeader.jpg

It is very tempting to leave a copy of this picture on my Boss' desk.

Chinske4296

12-02-2015, 09:04

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 09:14

In my opinion, I find it really frustrating to walk by a pit and see students standing there while the mentors do all the work. It is also frustrating to see teams videos of them working and you see more mentors working on the robot than students, or a Chairmans video with 1 student shown the whole time and about 15-20 different mentors.

Why is it frustrating?
Is it because you think in this "mentor-based competition" that maybe someone with mentors is at an advantage?

Oh wow...sounds like maybe they want you to use mentors?

Also, I've seen plenty of terrible "mentor built" robots, and plenty of awesome "student built" robots...whatever those even mean to you.

BenjaminWard

12-02-2015, 09:16

In my opinion, I find it really frustrating to walk by a pit and see students standing there while the mentors do all the work. It is also frustrating to see teams videos of them working and you see more mentors working on the robot than students, or a Chairmans video with 1 student shown the whole time and about 15-20 different mentors.

Exactly, this is what ZackAlfakir and I were talking about. It is all well and good if the students are being "inspired" by the success of the mentors, but it is important that they learn what they are doing, which they can only do by actually doing it. As in a Chairman's video with only one student shown vs a large amount of mentors, the achievements recorded there should not reflect the work of the mentors but rather what the students have achieved.

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 09:21

Exactly, this is what ZackAlfakir and I were talking about. It is all well and good if the students are being "inspired" by the success of the mentors, but it is important that they learn what they are doing, which they can only do by actually doing it. As in a Chairman's video with only one student shown vs a large amount of mentors, the achievements recorded there should not reflect the work of the mentors but rather what the students have achieved.

This mission of this program is to inspire students to pursue an education or career in STEM, it is not to teach them. Teaching already happens in school; teaching happens during the process of inspiration; it is a byproduct of this program, but it is not one of the goals.

Libby K

12-02-2015, 09:47

Just a real-quick note on the red dots thing - it's not just the 'senior brain trust' handing out the red dots here. I got some for my post in this thread with just the caption 'No' or 'Wrong' from people who apparently disagree with me.

Considering this is an opinion discussion, that's basically the equivalent of reaching across the table and slapping the person you're debating, instead of actually responding to their point.

FWIW, I use red very sparingly - people outright breaking forum rules, rudeness, trolling hard, or just generally being the antithesis of the community. If I don't agree with a post, I'll neutral it with some sort of comment/question as a way to take my individual thought to a PM with them if they so choose.

That said, I'll speak again to the initial point of this thread:

The following is actually from the 'Quest for Einstein' thread, but I think it works here.

I have never been to Einstein myself so I cannot really speak from experience but there are a few things I think it takes to compete consistently at an elite level. The first thing is good mentors that come back every year. You need mentors who understand FIRST and who are able to devote their time each year to the team. Alongside this you need the full support of your school/community. You cannot constantly be dealing with roadblocks set by your school administration concerning things like fundraising or the number of days of school a student can miss.

When I was a student, 1923 did not have consistent mentors. At all. Some of us were proud of that. (I'll chalk that up to being young and stupid - I was administrating our rookie FRC team at 14 without any help.) We spent every build season in varying states of 'oh god we're lost', and never fielded competitive robots.

Not only were we terrible, but it was absolutely exhausting as a student leader, to have to teach my fellow students everything and then also have to work with the school's roadblocks, and advocate for us to the community and our sponsors. I don't recommend complete student leadership to absolutely anyone, not even my worst enemy. I'd end build season sick, exhausted, and usually alienated from my teammates since I so frequently had to be the 'bad guy' (I could take a tangent on to why this also applies to first-year university students coming back to mentor their old team, but I'm sure a thread will come up on that later.)

We finally fielded a consistent mentor who not only taught us the basics of FRC, but brought in connections from other industries who could teach us about the things even they didn't know. Some of the students from the original few years were upset that we even had an adult working with the team. They were mad. Why is this adult taking our work away from us? How come we don't get to run everything anymore?

It took one of the kickoff speeches many years ago (I think it was Dave?) to remind them why this was a good thing. I couldn't tell you what year it was, or even find a transcript, but the line that hit me was something like this. "There are teams who are proud they don't have engineers on your team. Guess what? You've failed. That's not the point of this." He went on, but he was completely right.

Having someone to teach, to advocate, to bring legitimacy to your organization is not a bad thing. Without mentors, are you really doing FIRST? For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology?

How are you, a student with basically the same knowledge base, inspiring someone to go into the career path they choose - are you lending them your industry experience? No. Giving them advice on university & internships? I sure hope not, you haven't been through it. You need some sort of partnership, even if it's just a little bit. Mentors are more than just Wiring101 teachers. There should be a connection there, helping foster something new in the students throughout the FIRST process.

1923 has reached a really comfortable balance now, where a team of several mentors works alongside our co-captains to get things done. It's brought us greater success in all the goals we set, and it's made for a really great relationship between mentors and students.

As an example, let's say we want to approach a new company for sponsorship.

Our Finance Co-Captain comes up with the idea and starts to write a presentation.
Our advisor reaches out to the company with the initial communication, to set up a time to meet. (The letter she sends is one that was collaborated on by students and mentors to make sure it's attention-getting and effective.)
I take a look through the presentation to make sure that it's all correct, that our branding is consistent, and spend the time practicing with the student(s) that will be meeting.
Students who are interested will join our Finance Co-Captain on that presentation to demo the robot, answer questions, and represent the team
At least one or two mentors accompanies them, to lend credibility to the organization.

It's about a partnership. The balance is something the team decides on as a whole, to make sure we run efficiently and meet our goals. There are some roles that are a better fit for adults than students, and that's okay.

Another example we're working through right now - we're having a programming problem, and I want it fixed yesterday so our drivers can practice. One of our mentors knows how to fix it, so am I just going to let the students flounder around the issue and waste precious build season time? Of course not - that doesn't help anyone. We fix the issue immediately, and then the mentor who knew the solution spends the time to teach the students how he got around it (after the robot's functional, because ain't nobody got time for that right now).

If that doesn't work for your team, then that's fine. I can speak to the fact that it works for our team because I know that the next time an issue like that comes around, I'll have at least 5 programming students who can go "Oh! I know! Mr. P taught me how to fix that".

It's about balance. My team's balance is not your team's balance, and that's okay.
Our team decided on how we run things as a group, and everyone agrees to it. We're all happy with it. It works for us.

Above all, teams should do what works for them, and not worry about what other teams are doing.

TLDR: 1) 1923's philosophy, which works pretty well for us. 2) How another team inspires their students is not anyone else's business.

Libby K

12-02-2015, 09:59

As in a Chairman's video with only one student shown vs a large amount of mentors, the achievements recorded there should not reflect the work of the mentors but rather what the students have achieved.

How is it that you know what the students did vs. what the mentors did on that team? If you're not on the team, you don't know them or what they do. Maybe interviews with their mentors were the point of the video, to show how proud those people were of what their students could accomplish. Then again, I'm only guessing, because it's not my team and I don't know the answer.

My best advice on this topic, as always, is to stay in your own lane & worry about your own team. You can't possibly have everything figured out to the point where you have free time to pick apart other teams.

James1902

12-02-2015, 10:01

Exactly, this is what ZackAlfakir and I were talking about. It is all well and good if the students are being "inspired" by the success of the mentors, but it is important that they learn what they are doing, which they can only do by actually doing it. As in a Chairman's video with only one student shown vs a large amount of mentors, the achievements recorded there should not reflect the work of the mentors but rather what the students have achieved.

This interview with Dean Kamen (http://youtu.be/5DGE1NSe3CQ?t=3m29s) might help make a point that some have brought up in this thread: FIRST is not in the business of education.

If your team values the educational aspect of the program (as i'm sure most teams do) that's great! But whether or not other teams, in your opinion, value it as much as you do is not something that FIRST seems to be concerned with.

It's not just well and good that students are being inspired, it's the whole dang point.

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 10:08

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student. It's not my job to turn every student into an engineer. Rather, it's my job to show them the options and nurture their interests so they can be successful in their career path. Honestly, there are very few career paths out there that can't have a start with a well organised FIRST team.

This is one of the silliest posts I've read on here. Just because a student pursues something outside of STEM doesn't mean a mentor didn't inspire them. Also, you make it sounds like a student going into what they are passionate about is a bad thing. I'd rather have a kid go into what they love and learn from robotics that engineering isn't what they want rather than go in, try, fail, be miserable, and quit.

Not all of us go into engineering, but we recognize the role of STEM in society and earn a greater level of respect for it through this program.

Signed - a former captain, mentor, team founder, Econ/Prelaw major. :P

notmattlythgoe

12-02-2015, 10:11

BrendanB

12-02-2015, 10:14

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student.

This is a very dangerous line especially for someone like me who didn't pursue a degree in STEM but was active on a team for three years and has helped run a team from the ground up for the past five years all primarily in the mechanical portions of the robot.

Every student can benefit from being in FIRST in more ways than just getting them into a STEM major. Even just being an outlet to gain confidence, make friends, and learn what team work is really about is more than enough reasons for me to stay involved with students. For some students just being there and showing an interest in them leaves more of an impact than sending them off to college for a degree in STEM.

notmattlythgoe

12-02-2015, 10:18

This is a very dangerous line especially for someone like me who didn't pursue a degree in STEM but was active on a team for three years and has helped run a team from the ground up for the past five years all primarily in the mechanical portions of the robot.

Every student can benefit from being in FIRST in more ways than just getting them into a STEM major. Even just being an outlet to gain confidence, make friends, and learn what team work is really about is more than enough reasons for me to stay involved with students. For some students just being there and showing an interest in them leaves more of an impact than sending them off to college for a degree in STEM.

Please read my above post. Jon's statement is being taken way out of context.

BrendanB

12-02-2015, 10:19

Please read my above post. Jon's statement is being taken way out of context.

But why does that student have to be shown the door to awards?

Jon Stratis

12-02-2015, 10:20

Another example we're working through right now - we're having a programming problem, and I want it fixed yesterday so our drivers can practice. One of our mentors knows how to fix it, so am I just going to let the students flounder around the issue and waste precious build season time? Of course not - that doesn't help anyone. We fix the issue immediately, and then the mentor who knew the solution spends the time to teach the students how he got around it (after the robot's functional, because ain't nobody got time for that right now).

We've done something similar with our coding this year. In order to get driver practice going as early as possible, we had a compiled "mentor code" jar and an associated script on the roboRIO that would let us swap in code one of the mentors wrote for driver practice, then go back to the student written code while the programming team was working. This way, we could easily drive the robot when needed so the drive team could be successful, while still allowing the programming team to tackle and overcome the challenge of doing the work themselves (with mentor assistance, of course).

In another incident, we were having a horrible time two years ago getting the built in PID controller to control our arm and stop oscillating. After several hours of banging our heads against the wall, I stepped in and wrote a quick controller we could use instead, and that would be much more intuitive for the students to tune. Then when the programming team had to be hands off the robot for a bit, I spent a solid half hour teaching them with a white board how the controller works and how I came up with it. Like you said, sometimes you just need to get things working, as a team, and worry about the education portion of things a little later.

notmattlythgoe

12-02-2015, 10:23

But why does that student have to be shown the door to awards?

They don't. But he is not saying that a student not majoring in STEM is a failure. He's saying that he feels that if a student spent their time doing something on the team instead of doing something that could have benefited them more because that's what they were planning on doing after high school e feels he has failed that student.

MrForbes

12-02-2015, 10:24

Like you said, sometimes you just need to get things working, as a team, and worry about the education portion of things a little later.

OK, I admit it, last night I commandeered the band saw and the cordless drill for a few minutes.

I'm lucky, the students let me work on the robot every now and then. So I keep coming back year after year.

Jon Stratis

12-02-2015, 10:36

This is one of the silliest posts I've read on here. Just because a student pursues something outside of STEM doesn't mean a mentor didn't inspire them. Also, you make it sounds like a student going into what they are passionate about is a bad thing. I'd rather have a kid go into what they love and learn from robotics that engineering isn't what they want rather than go in, try, fail, be miserable, and quit.

Not all of us go into engineering, but we recognize the role of STEM in society and earn a greater level of respect for it through this program.

Signed - a former captain, mentor, team founder, Econ/Prelaw major. :P

This is a very dangerous line especially for someone like me who didn't pursue a degree in STEM but was active on a team for three years and has helped run a team from the ground up for the past five years all primarily in the mechanical portions of the robot.

Every student can benefit from being in FIRST in more ways than just getting them into a STEM major. Even just being an outlet to gain confidence, make friends, and learn what team work is really about is more than enough reasons for me to stay involved with students. For some students just being there and showing an interest in them leaves more of an impact than sending them off to college for a degree in STEM.

Missed the entire point of my post. I'm not saying that students who leave a team to pursue non-STEM careers are bad. I'm not saying that STEM is for everyone. I'm not saying that the only inspiration that can happen on a team is STEM related. I'm not saying that non-technical individuals can only help with awards.

What I'm saying is that FIRST teams are about more than just the robot. As mentors, it's not our job to try to railroad students into STEM careers or focus solely on the build aspects of the team. You need to take the time to get to know your students, recognize what their passions are and what they enjoy, and then spend your effort to try to tailor the program for each and every one of them.

The whole point of FIRST is that we have a culture where kids are bombarded with actors, athletes, and music stars. That's what they see, that's what they know about the adult world, and thus that's what many of them aspire to. A FIRST team has the ability to show them something else. We can show them professional engineers solving problems. We can show them a finance master running the books for an annual budget worth more than the cost of the first car they'll drive. We can show them a marketing genius that reveals a whole world of calculated branding that has been right in front of them their entire lives. And a whole lot more.

If a kid joins the team, great. If they want to work on the robot, great. But if they find it's not really what they want to do, help them do something else that they can be passionate about, and help them understand where that activity can lead them in the future. With everything a team can do and work on, it's so much more than just the robot.

Nate Laverdure

12-02-2015, 10:45

Like Akash, I'm probably in the minority in that I'm one of those alumni whose FIRST experience had no impact on their career choice-- I've always known I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. (Actually that's not quite true; at six I wanted to be a bus driver and at seven I wanted to be a great white shark.) I didn't fully realize until college, however, that mechanical engineering is a huge field. It's been called the "liberal arts of engineering" because of the variety of subjects it contains beneath its umbrella. I'll admit to a little bit of panic when my university asked me to pick between a couple different specialties.

I was able to look back on my my experience working alongside my FRC mentors to figure out what kind of mechanical engineer I want to be. It was easy to figure out: I want to be a mechanical engineer that does the kinds of things that my mentors could do. I want to be a mechanical engineer that:
-- does work that makes a positive impact on the world
-- can communicate technical and nontechnical ideas to a diverse team of people who all think in a different way than I do
-- can have working relationships with people outside my peer group
-- can also lead a team of my peers

This is how FIRST's inspiration mechanism worked in my life. It was a process that moved so slowly, I couldn't see it happening until I reached a point where I could look retrospectively back at it. Maybe it's happening in the background of your life, too-- but it requires you to make decisions that allow it to happen.

Using choice-of-major as a success metric for inspiration is short-sighted. Real life is much more nuanced and interesting than that.

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 11:00

They don't. But he is not saying that a student not majoring in STEM is a failure.

I didn't imply this is what he said. I said that it doesn't make the mentor a failure.

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 11:13

Caleb Sykes

12-02-2015, 11:13

It is also frustrating to see teams videos of them working and you see more mentors working on the robot than students, or a Chairmans video with 1 student shown the whole time and about 15-20 different mentors.

If you know a team that has a 20:1 mentor-to-student ratio, you should give me their contact information right now. Recruiting mentors is one of the hardest things for teams to do well. Right now, my team is at about 1:4 mentor-to-student ratio, and we are the envy of many nearby teams. I even know teams that have a 1:20 ratio. So if there is a team out there that is 400 times better at recruiting mentors, they are clearly doing a much better job at running their program than any team I know, and I would like to learn everything I can about why they are so successful.

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 11:38

The_ShamWOW88

12-02-2015, 11:42

Is this :deadhorse: happening again?

What works for your team works for you.

Karthik

12-02-2015, 11:45

mrnoble

12-02-2015, 11:50

There's always BEST Robotics for those who want zero mentor involvement and a level budget of $0 for all teams. It's a fun enough competition for the kids and they can learn from their mistakes rather than from mentor guidance.

Let me recommend that those who think that robotics competitions should be run that way check out BEST, and stop suggesting that FRC should be run that way.

JamesCH95

12-02-2015, 11:57

JamesBrown

12-02-2015, 12:49

. I have not always had this perspective and at one time held opinions similar to ZackAlfakir.

I distinctly remember when you were new to the boards, and the perspective you had. After being away for a couple of years I was very happy to see you are now a regular and productive poster. It was interesting to see the evolution there. Now that we are in the same region please introduce yourself at the Virginia Regional.

Exactly, this is what ZackAlfakir and I were talking about. It is all well and good if the students are being "inspired" by the success of the mentors, but it is important that they learn what they are doing, which they can only do by actually doing it.

The issue is you cannot learn engineering through FRC, and the goal is not to learn to be an engineer, or to learn to solder, or to program, or any of these other skill. The goal is to inspire students. Along the way every one, mentors included will learn new skills, and new tricks, but that is a small benefit tacked on to the inspiration. The inspiration is the key, I have worked on teams that built their entire robot out of home depot parts, and on teams with more than 1 mentor per student. I have been on teams with no funding, and on teams with 6 figure annual budgets. I have worked in a build area with access to tens of millions of dollars worth of machining equipment, and in a garden shed. At this point I have seen the full range of team styles in FRC, and I can't say that any style is better than any other. As long as the students are enjoying themselves, and they are inspired then the team is doing it right.

I don't have a problem with mentors helping students. You could bring every NASA engineer as far as I'm concerned. My problem is with NASA or other large corporations supplying the manufacturing time and materials for some of these robots. I wrote a letter last year to First expressing my thoughts about these $1,000,000 robots. If the rules were changed so that all materials and manufacturing time were included in the cost of the robot, that would level the playing field for all teams. Time to eliminate the free ride from major sponsors.

I don't understand this. The ability for teams to receive in kind donations from sponsors is one of the highlights of the program. We could set the budget for actual cost of all items to $X,XXX but all that would do is limit teams, and stifle creativity. There are a dozen other competitions out there with this type of model. FRC is different because of the big corporate sponsorships they are what makes the competition what it is.

My first FRC exposure was 2004, and my first season was 2005. I after seeing championships those two years, I was incredibly jealous of 254. They were a NASA team, in Silicon Valley, their robots look incredibly professional. They were powder coated, and they had a spare at home to practice with. How could we ever compete with a team like that? It took a couple of years before I really understood that there is nothing that special about their robots, or their fabrication process. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. They are simple, they just work. I cannot recall ever seeing a feature on one of their bots that would not have been fabricated anywhere else in the country. There was no reason other teams couldn't build the same level of machine in the same time frame with resources available in their area. This is the case for 99% of the top robots in FRC.

There is (or rather was) a secret sauce to being one of the top teams in FRC, but it has nothing to do with specific sponsors donating time or materials. However Karthik presents every year at championships on how you do it, and 1114 (and other teams) have posted it right on their website. Timelines, how to analyze a game, its all there.

On a slight tangent, when did NASA teams become a negative thing? There are a ton of NASA teams, covering the full range of competitive levels, and budgets. I recently ran into this with local mentors, and have seen it on here.

Wayne TenBrink

12-02-2015, 12:51

If there is a single competition out there with a level playing field I'd love to see it.

I think I would prefer to rearrange my sock drawer than watch a "competition" with a "level playing field" imposed on it. Mediocrity is boring.

(PS: I am pretty sure you meant that in a "I'll believe it when I see it" sense and not in the "Let me get my popcorn" sense)

JamesCH95

12-02-2015, 13:02

I think I would prefer to rearrange my sock drawer than watch a "competition" with a "level playing field" imposed on it. Mediocrity is boring.

(PS: I am pretty sure you meant that in a "I'll believe it when I see it" sense and not in the "Let me get my popcorn" sense)

Indeed! I hope my intent is clear given the context and tone of my post.

IronicDeadBird

12-02-2015, 13:07

If you don't like peanut butter don't eat it, don't try and stop everyone else from eating it.
If you don't like First don't do it. Also don't eat First.

Lil' Lavery

12-02-2015, 13:25

Can we please stop with the "dead horse" emoticons and generally cynicism towards these topics? I'm please most of this thread has been productive and insightful, and I fully realize that this topic has been discussed ad naseum before. However, just because its something that has been discussed before doesn't mean that all FRC participants have had a chance to engage in the discussion, or even absorb previous ones. If you're going to dead horse, at least reference some particular discussions from the past (and preferably, highlight particularly insightful posts), rather than simply being dismissive of the concerns presented by those you don't agree with. Regardless of the consensus on Chief Delphi, this is still a contentious issue for many FRC participants. Being dismissive towards a minority opinion is not the proper way to handle it (on or off of Chief Delphi).

MrJohnston

12-02-2015, 13:53

I don't have a problem with mentors helping students. You could bring every NASA engineer as far as I'm concerned. My problem is with NASA or other large corporations supplying the manufacturing time and materials for some of these robots. I wrote a letter last year to First expressing my thoughts about these $1,000,000 robots. If the rules were changed so that all materials and manufacturing time were included in the cost of the robot, that would level the playing field for all teams. Time to eliminate the free ride from major sponsors.

Five years ago, our club started the fall out in debt about $4,000, no shop and only a couple of sponsors. The leadership of the club (I arrived the following year) realized that the long term sustainability of the club was in grave jeopardy. Some folks looked at the "privileged" clubs with jealously/disdain. However, most of our leaders instead looked at them as examples. What do we need to do in order to replicate their successes? How can we get what they've got?

This started a fundamental change in how our club operates. Outreach became a vital part of our club's activities. We'll show off our robot to pretty much anybody at pretty much any time. We march in parades. We visit local tech companies. We go to elementary schools. We talk to the Chamber of Commerce and School Board. We know just how important our FIRST program is in our community and we make it our mission to make sure that the rest of the community knows it, too! We then ask for help. Sometimes we get help. Sometimes we don't. We always offer to come back, though.... We write letters to friends, community leaders, family members and so on. We make sure that everybody knows just how expensive it is to run a good club... And it is amazing how generous the community can be.

We now operate on a budget of well over $100K. We serve over 100 kids (but only charge $50 to participate for the year)... We have plenty of money for training materials, extra robots, etc. We have the monetary capacity to do anything we want to do in order to compete at the highest levels. It wasn't that hard: it just took patience, a little time and a little work.

Instead of being envious of teams that benefit from generous sponsors, go out and get them yourself. We look at our team as a small business. If our business is going to thrive, we need to maintain a strong and steady cash flow. That money is not just going to come to us. Rather, we need to actively seek it out.

philso

12-02-2015, 14:27

How are you, a student with basically the same knowledge base, inspiring someone to go into the career path they choose - are you lending them your industry experience? No. Giving them advice on university & internships? I sure hope not, you haven't been through it. You need some sort of partnership, even if it's just a little bit. Mentors are more than just Wiring101 teachers. There should be a connection there, helping foster something new in the students throughout the FIRST process.

I feel that one of the duties of a mentors is to provide perspective for the students while making their career choices. One of our students was saying last week that she wanted to go work for Google or Apple so she could "do cool things" and be able to have her own patents. I asked if she had considered entrepreneurship and described two friends who's startups (different companies) were purchased by a large competitor and would several Mega$ make up for working for a company no one has ever hear of. I also set her straight about who gets most of the financial benefits from a patent one is awarded when working as an employee. She still wants to go into the STEM field but now has a different and more accurate perspective. Can you students do this for each other?

How is it that you know what the students did vs. what the mentors did on that team? If you're not on the team, you don't know them or what they do.

Every time that I have personally heard someone say the phrase "the mentors built their robot" about one of our local powerhouse teams, the people saying it were jealous that they did not have the same resources yet they were not willing to work to get those resources. They were also wrong. I have spoken to all of our local powerhouse teams and in every case there were students who knew details that only the person doing the work could know.

I don't have a problem with mentors helping students. You could bring every NASA engineer as far as I'm concerned. My problem is with NASA or other large corporations supplying the manufacturing time and materials for some of these robots. I wrote a letter last year to First expressing my thoughts about these $1,000,000 robots. If the rules were changed so that all materials and manufacturing time were included in the cost of the robot, that would level the playing field for all teams. Time to eliminate the free ride from major sponsors.

Life is not fair. What is wrong with the students learning to deal with unfairness in a creative and constructive way?

JesseK

12-02-2015, 14:47

It's a competition. Level playing fields only exist literally, not metaphorically.

Except this year, there are bumps and noodles. Metaphorically, and literally.:ahh:

Sorry, I know, not helpful - but we need a little comic relief in here. There are some great insights so far though.

JamesCH95

12-02-2015, 15:01

Except this year, there are bumps and noodles. Metaphorically, and literally.:ahh:

Sorry, I know, not helpful - but we need a little comic relief in here. There are some great insights so far though.

Metaphorical noodle might be a good band name... :D

Monochron

12-02-2015, 15:26

It wasn't that hard: it just took patience, a little time and a little work.

Instead of being envious of teams that benefit from generous sponsors, go out and get them yourself.

I totally agree with your post. It is the same path that we think we are currently on.

I will say that this last sentiment though, isn't one that I am particularly fond of. My first year on the team I was very frustrated at how suggestions like "just go out and get sponsorship" and "it only takes a little time and a little work" were not at all helpful. The specifics of the 'how' and the 'what' it takes to secure multi-thousands dollar sponsorships are often very challenging. Some people are in much better positions to get in touch with generous corporations than others.

For us anyway, it took a lot of time and a lot of work. And "just going out to get sponsors" failed for a long time until we refined our approach, and we are no where near 100K, but are still comfortable financially.
For instance, all my high school team needed to do to get a couple thousand was to roll up to the school board and give a full presentation, robot demo, Q&A, and student testimonial. If it were that easy for my current team last year we would still be swimming in green :D

All of that said, there are currently tons of companies that make getting money as simple as filling out a grant application and maybe giving a presentation or two. And I cannot express how truly grateful I am to those organizations. Opening your doors to all teams is magnificently generous.

Sorry, that's probably a long rant to basically say that I agree with absolutely everything else in your post. I don't mean to derail the conversation!

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 16:00

Libby K

12-02-2015, 16:06

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment?

My team doesn't.

Guess what? We get by without it, and we keep on pushing for machining sponsors around us throughout the year. So far, no luck - but that doesn't mean we don't push really dang hard every year.

Life's not fair. Good things come to those who bust their butts and work for it. Does that always get you what you want? Certainly not, but at least you're better for having tried. I'd rather see continuous effort towards improvement (with minimal results) than keyboard-warrior complaints about what others have.

It's the same-old we see in this community every time a discussion like this comes up - raise the floor, don't lower the ceiling.

connor.worley

12-02-2015, 16:09

This was posted in one of the previous threads on the subject of handicapping teams: https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt

Abhishek R

12-02-2015, 16:11

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment? Consider yourself lucky. And I'm willing to make a large wager most teams don't. We had one once. But with the economy as it is, they couldn't support us any longer. So we adapted to what we have. And then there is the lack of machine shops. Kansas City use to have shops scattered throughout the city. Not any more. Most of that work has moved to Mexico or China. I started working in a machine shop back in 1974. I have seen and experienced the change. And I don't see NASA building a shop here anytime soon.

Getting back to the rules, for the Robot:

4.4 Budget Constraints
R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:
A. individual COTS items that are less than $1 USD each and
B. KOP items

R11 The BOM cost of each non-KOP item must be calculated based on the unit fair market value for the material and/or labor,
except for labor provided by Team members (including sponsor employees who are members of the team), members of other
Teams, event provided Machine Shops and shipping.

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

So there you have it. Life is either the 'haves' or the 'have nots'. The 'haves' never want to change the rules because they would lose their advantage. Seems to work out the same in First.

I wish we had a CNC machine or sponsor. But we don't. In fact, we don't really have any machining sponsors to whom we send our parts - we really just cut everything out in our own shop in order to build our robot. And it's not even an actual machine shop - it's a space we rent out of a strip mall in which we've moved all our equipment into that we've gathered over the history of our team. And that's completely fine with us.

I understand your point, but I'd rather not see a rule change because without a doubt, those robots that do look absolutely beautiful, whether they were made by 50+ engineers or not, are like works of art and I'd hate to see them disappear because they're so inspiring to me.

AdamHeard

12-02-2015, 16:18

Jon Stratis

12-02-2015, 16:20

I'd love to get to a point where the robot was designed fully in CAD and a sponsor made all the parts. As it is, almost all of our parts are made in-house by the team. We did some CNC in our second and third years, but moved away from it because it was an all-mentor effort. We felt the team got more out of the program doing the work themselves, and none of us were really up to the task of teaching CAD so they could do it themselves. We've since been gradually increasing our student CAD capabilities, mostly through our 3D printer's. We might start having students sending designs to be CNC'd next year it so.

Karthik

12-02-2015, 16:22

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment?

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.

Our group of "squawkers" won a World Championship in 2008 (http://www.simbotics.org/first/2008) without access to a sponsor with CNC equipment.

Since then we've gone out and acquired a fantastic sheet metal sponsor (http://www.innovationfirst.com/). The performance of our robots hasn't changed, just the process that we go through to build them.

JamesCH95

12-02-2015, 16:25

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment? Consider yourself lucky. And I'm willing to make a large wager most teams don't. We had one once. But with the economy as it is, they couldn't support us any longer. So we adapted to what we have. And then there is the lack of machine shops. Kansas City use to have shops scattered throughout the city. Not any more. Most of that work has moved to Mexico or China. I started working in a machine shop back in 1974. I have seen and experienced the change.

Getting back to the rules, for the Robot:

4.4 Budget Constraints
R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:
A. individual COTS items that are less than $1 USD each and
B. KOP items

R11 The BOM cost of each non-KOP item must be calculated based on the unit fair market value for the material and/or labor,
except for labor provided by Team members (including sponsor employees who are members of the team), members of other
Teams, event provided Machine Shops and shipping.

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

So there you have it. Life is either the 'haves' or the 'have nots'. The 'haves' never want to change the rules because they would lose their advantage. Seems to work out the same in First.

Well, apparently I'm a squawker, and my team makes virtually all of our parts in-house. Occasionally I'll make a part in my garage. We have no in-kind machining sponsors, CNC or otherwise. We never have, and we probably never will.

5 years ago we worked out of a classroom. Currently we are working in a high school vocational shop with manual and CNC mills and lathes, a CNC plasma cutter, numerous shop tools, TIG and MIG welding, and a supply section of fasteners, pneumatic parts, sheet metal, extrusions, and so on. We have built a strong relationship with the vocational school that's been years in the making.

And you are correct in that many sports have rules to keep certain aspects even enough to be interesting. However, there are still many ways in which those sports are very un-even. There are still power-houses in every sort of competition I can think of. Does it stop the underdogs from winning? Absolutely not. Should the best be cut down so that others may rise? Absolutely not. Should the best teams follow the rules? Absolutely yes.

The rules say a "fair market value" not a "fair one-off prototyping value." The intent of the rule is to account for the cost of an item as if it were mass-produced. This, actually, helps level the playing field! For example, my team has use of a CNC plasma cutter, other teams' sponsors have CNC waterjet tables. These machines can be used to make VERY similar parts, but the water jet is MUCH more expensive to run. Does that mean that the water jet team has to account for 10x the cost of a part that is nearly the same as what we made with a CNC plasma cutter because their sponsor only has a waterjet? No. They bill a 'fair market value' for their parts, as do we.

MrJohnston

12-02-2015, 16:26

mentorDon:

Have you:
Had students make presentations to the school board?
Had students make presentations at your local rotary?
Had students make presentations at your chamber of commerce?
Call these guys: http://www.kcnext.com/
Is there a local community or technical college with a machine shop?
Have you tried your school's PTA?
Made presentations to potential incoming freshman?
Reached out to your students' parents for support?

These things are generally easy to set up - and adults in tech fields *love* to listen to high school kids who are excited about building robots.
A tax-deductible give of $2000 is generally nothing to a business, but a huge boost to a robotics team. Just call them and make a presentation. Yes, request monetary help, but do the presentation whether help is promised or not - you are more than likely going to make contacts who can help through their work. I'm not saying its easy, but there are opportunities in Kansas City. You just have to make your team known to the right people.

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 16:33

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment? Consider yourself lucky. And I'm willing to make a large wager most teams don't. We had one once. But with the economy as it is, they couldn't support us any longer. So we adapted to what we have. And then there is the lack of machine shops. Kansas City use to have shops scattered throughout the city. Not any more. Most of that work has moved to Mexico or China. I started working in a machine shop back in 1974. I have seen and experienced the change. And I don't see NASA building a shop here anytime soon.

Getting back to the rules, for the Robot:

4.4 Budget Constraints
R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:
A. individual COTS items that are less than $1 USD each and
B. KOP items

R11 The BOM cost of each non-KOP item must be calculated based on the unit fair market value for the material and/or labor,
except for labor provided by Team members (including sponsor employees who are members of the team), members of other
Teams, event provided Machine Shops and shipping.

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

So there you have it. Life is either the 'haves' or the 'have nots'. The 'haves' never want to change the rules because they would lose their advantage. Seems to work out the same in First.

When I was starting out in FRC I had a conversation with a couple very well known mentors. The discussion focused around gaining resources and how resources can make a difference. The biggest surprise for me at the time came from one of these mentors telling me that no matter how hard some teams work, they simply cannot attain the same resources as others. This is simply true in many areas of the US, as you have stated. However, machining resources don't make good robots. They make the process easier, and the designs perhaps a little more complex, but the fundamental strategies and robot designs don't have to be. There are plenty of teams whose biggest resource is the PEOPLE. Good people, motivated people, and people who want to learn are the ones who make good robots. You can have a small budget and minimal resources, and still build a very competitive machine. You don't have to have the same machining resources at your disposal, or the engineering experience (although it helps more than machines), but you can still learn as much as possible from the best out there and become great yourself.

Word of advice though, when you do want people to hear you out on a very valid point, try not calling them squawkers or other names. With a more subtle tone in your posts, your point would have come across much better. Like I said, your point of view is very valid in the sense that not all teams can achieve the same level of resources because of their area and whatnot. I don't think cutting others off from their resources works either though.

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 16:39

Our group of "squawkers" won a World Championship in 2008 (http://www.simbotics.org/first/2008) without access to a sponsor with CNC equipment.

Since then we've gone out and acquired a fantastic sheet metal sponsor (http://www.innovationfirst.com/). The performance of our robots hasn't changed, just the process that we go through to build them.

I'm looking at pictures of your 2008 robot on your teams website. Did you make those nice angle cuts in the main arm with a file? Or perhaps you used a CNC waterjet or a CNC plasma cutter? Nice try.

http://www.simbotics.org/media/photos/2008-greater-toronto-regional/2166

Mike Marandola

12-02-2015, 16:44

Akash Rastogi

12-02-2015, 16:44

I'm looking at pictures of your 2008 robot on your teams website. Did you make those nice angle cuts in the main arm with a file? Or perhaps you used a CNC waterjet or a CNC plasma cutter? Nice try.

http://www.simbotics.org/media/photos/2008-greater-toronto-regional/2166

He said without a sponsor.

Also, that robot would have won a championship even without pretty lightening patterns. They could have handed a kid a hole saw and still won in 2008. At this point you're just not even trying to look at the bigger picture.

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 16:46

Well, apparently I'm a squawker, and my team makes virtually all of our parts in-house. Occasionally I'll make a part in my garage. We have no in-kind machining sponsors, CNC or otherwise. We never have, and we probably never will.

5 years ago we worked out of a classroom. Currently we are working in a high school vocational shop with manual and CNC mills and lathes, a CNC plasma cutter, numerous shop tools, TIG and MIG welding, and a supply section of fasteners, pneumatic parts, sheet metal, extrusions, and so on. We have built a strong relationship with the vocational school that's been years in the making.

And you are correct in that many sports have rules to keep certain aspects even enough to be interesting. However, there are still many ways in which those sports are very un-even. There are still power-houses in every sort of competition I can think of. Does it stop the underdogs from winning? Absolutely not. Should the best be cut down so that others may rise? Absolutely not. Should the best teams follow the rules? Absolutely yes.

The rules say a "fair market value" not a "fair one-off prototyping value." The intent of the rule is to account for the cost of an item as if it were mass-produced. This, actually, helps level the playing field! For example, my team has use of a CNC plasma cutter, other teams' sponsors have CNC waterjet tables. These machines can be used to make VERY similar parts, but the water jet is MUCH more expensive to run. Does that mean that the water jet team has to account for 10x the cost of a part that is nearly the same as what we made with a CNC plasma cutter because their sponsor only has a waterjet? No. They bill a 'fair market value' for their parts, as do we.

The current rule is if a sponsor makes it, you don't have to account for the cost in your $4000 budget.

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 16:48

He said without a sponsor.

Also, that robot would have won a championship even without pretty lightening patterns. At this point you're just not even trying to look at the bigger picture.

So I'm assuming that the 'school' had a really nice metal shop?

xXhunter47Xx

12-02-2015, 16:48

I'm looking at pictures of your 2008 robot on your teams website. Did you make those nice angle cuts in the main arm with a file? Or perhaps you used a CNC waterjet or a CNC plasma cutter? Nice try.

http://www.simbotics.org/media/photos/2008-greater-toronto-regional/2166

Maybe the piece was a COTS part, or someone with a steady hand used a dremel and a cutoff wheel. They might even have in house CNC stuff. There's a saying about assuming and something something.

mentorDon

12-02-2015, 16:49

Many teams have in house CNC equipment.

Most don't

Pat Fairbank

12-02-2015, 16:49

So I'm assuming that the 'school' had a really nice metal shop?
I've met the student who CAM-ed and ran that part on the school's rather unimpressive CNC mill. He was also their operator that year. Please stop with the libel.

JeffersonMartin

12-02-2015, 16:50

Most don't
I would assume that's why he said many, instead of most.

Cory

12-02-2015, 17:05

I'm going to close this thread for a few hours to let people cool down and stop personally attacking other teams.

If they cannot refrain from doing so at that time, this discussion is no longer productive and the thread can stay closed.

Karthik

12-02-2015, 17:25

I'm looking at pictures of your 2008 robot on your teams website. Did you make those nice angle cuts in the main arm with a file? Or perhaps you used a CNC waterjet or a CNC plasma cutter? Nice try.

http://www.simbotics.org/media/photos/2008-greater-toronto-regional/2166

It was a nice try, because it's the truth. Those parts were made on our in house CNC. If you can't accept that, that's your own issue.

Cory

12-02-2015, 21:19

Thread is now open again. Keep it civil please.

Ryan Dognaux

12-02-2015, 21:29

Last year we acquired a waterjet sponsor and most of our robot was created by that sponsor from CAD files we generated. This year that sponsor could not support us, but I honestly feel like our robot is actually going to be more competitive. It's all about planning to your design / build resources. All of our robot is being made with a bandsaw and a drill press and I feel great about it. Either way, our students are inspired by the end product.

The best thing your team can do is plan. Download CAD, layout your design, get everyone on the same page. You'll learn a lot building your robot virtually before you ever cut metal in the shop.

Complaining about what others have is a waste of time. Step up and make your team better.

DaRealSlimShady

12-02-2015, 21:44

Having a Cnc machine is probably a great experience and helps teams greatly. That being said.

It is one of the sweetest feelings in all of creation to beat one of those teams.
Not because of the "underdog affect"
Because you worked harder
Because you innovated harder
Because you gave harder

I'm not saying this to attack teams that may have above average resources. To the contrary, more power to them because they more than likely went out and earned them. As said before having access to more equipment is just another tool to help teams win. But it's not the only one. If you want it enough no other teams will be able to stop you from winning. The only team that can stop you from succeeding is your own.

Siri

12-02-2015, 22:04

asid61

12-02-2015, 22:10

The point was that for sustainability reasons each individual team should be run like a small tech firm. I agree that the philosophy doesn't mean the mentors make all decisions and do all of the work*. Mentors are definitely needed at the critical decisions in order to prevent a single group of students from dictating or ruining every other students' experience in a season. Sometimes this has to happen forcefully, depending on the culture of the community & the students in a given season.

The level of how much involvement is an art - we certainly have been overly-involved in the past - but as a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves.

*Except leading the fundraising team ... I have yet to meet a student who successfully solicits a large business for fundraising without significant mentor involvement...
Actually, our finance team, to my knowledge, is pretty much entirely students. We have enough money each year to go to multiple competitions and buy things almost willy-nilly (although I try not to buy anything we don't need).
Dead horse thread though. Most people like more mentor involvement, and only a few people like completely student-run teams. We are the latter and do okay. Mostly it's because our programmers tend to be really good (as we come from a computer-heavy area) and don't need help, and there is a severe lack of mechanical adults (as we come from a computer-heavy area) so we can't even get mentors. I am looking for some during the summer though.

That being said, being able to design a robot and actually build it has played a huge role in my decision to become an engineer. Having more mentors would be nice to point out mistakes or suggest things would be fantastic, but I am more inspired by a robot that I know I had a say in actually moving around than one that I knew would work anyway. I never liked building from the Lego kits more than once.

Mr. Van

12-02-2015, 23:24

I can understand the frustration here. FIRST Robotics is unlike any other sort of competition that high schoolers participate in. It can be very difficult for many to understand the disparity that they see on the field at an event.

Funding and resources play a huge part in our chosen sport - much more so than many other sports where rules work to even the playing field. ("Inflategate" aside, a regulation football is a regulation football wether it costs $25 or $500.)

The disparity between what teams can actually fabricate and then practice with varies extremely wildly. Budgets range at least two orders of magnitude and while some teams have full time access to a complete official competition field, many have a "practice field" consisting of a linoleum floor math classroom with the desks shoved to one side or a parking lot.

For teams working with hacksaws and hand drills, hearing other teams report that "parts are starting to come in" can be a bit frustrating.

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not a dead horse. This is a real issue that teams do face when they have to justify their existence to whomever might be influential enough to require it.

I'm sure we can continue this discussion in a thoughtful, gracious and professional manner.

Just some thoughts.

Have a great last weekend!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Anupam Goli

12-02-2015, 23:44

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not the same thing. Take a look at example 1 in the blue box under R11:
EXAMPLE 1: A Team orders a custom bracket made by a company to the Team’s specification. The company’s material cost and normally
charged labor rate apply.

This means if you send your parts to be made outside, whether by a sponsor or a paid service, if the employee of the company is not a member of the team, then the labor costs need to be included on the BoM.

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

Mr. Van

12-02-2015, 23:54

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Monochron

12-02-2015, 23:58

PayneTrain

12-02-2015, 23:58

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I would say they would qualify as a team member if they are registered in TIMS and manufacture the parts without being paid for labor.

Anupam Goli

13-02-2015, 00:21

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.

philso

13-02-2015, 00:22

bduddy

13-02-2015, 01:02

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the
Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be
$10 USD.
It is in the best interests of the Teams and FIRST to form relationships with as many organizations as possible. Teams are encouraged to
be expansive in recruiting and including organizations in their team, as that exposes more people and organizations to FIRST. Recognizing
supporting companies as Sponsors of, and members in, the Team is encouraged, even if the involvement of the Sponsor is solely through the
donation of fabrication labor.Whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

Anupam Goli

13-02-2015, 01:10

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

Whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

You're correct, I should've read further in the examples.

I guess the point that such a duality can exist still stands, and I suppose it's up to the team to consider whether their sponsors are members or not.

Tristan Lall

13-02-2015, 04:32

Getting back to the rules, for the Robot:

4.4 Budget Constraints
R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:
A. individual COTS items that are less than $1 USD each and
B. KOP items

R11 The BOM cost of each non-KOP item must be calculated based on the unit fair market value for the material and/or labor,
except for labor provided by Team members (including sponsor employees who are members of the team), members of other
Teams, event provided Machine Shops and shipping.

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.
Nothing wrong with proposing that team/sponsor labour be accounted for in the robot cost—as long as you're also willing to consider what the appropriate rates would be for all reasonable circumstances, and also evaluate whether the robot cost limit needs to be changed. So how, specifically, would you construct a more equitable cost model?

Taylor

13-02-2015, 08:12

Every year, 1529 has had access to several machine shops. Plasma cutters, laser cutters, CNC lathes and mills, waterjet, you name it, they can fab it.

Current blue banner count: Zero.

It's not about the equipment, it's about the program.

edit: I'm not complaining. At all.
Nobody is claiming that UK is running roughshod over the NCAA MBB landscape because the rims on its practice court are shinier. They just have fantastic recruiting, a proven system, and effective mentoring strategies.

Justin Montois

13-02-2015, 08:46

Our group of "squawkers" won a [URL="http://www.simbotics.org/first/2008"]... The performance of our robots hasn't changed, just the process that we go through to build them.

This x 1000.

So many teams blame their poor performance on not having money, equipment, time, you name the resource. Yet nobody looks at their process as the key to a successful output.

Change your process to change your product.

Andrew Schreiber

13-02-2015, 08:48

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.

I'm not in TIMS for my team. Guess I'm not really a member. Though I don't recall seeing a strict definition of Team Member in the rule book so I question the validity of your statement.

The_ShamWOW88

13-02-2015, 08:58

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

Ever heard of Baseball? There is no salary cap....

NASCAR? I seem to recall some dude named Hendrick and how he always seems to have faster equipment....Pretty sure they all use their own engine builders and the teams with the most money have access to the best engineers, drivers, and technicians, so I don't see your point.

Besides, to answer your question, our team doesn't have a CNC machine. A couple drill presses, a table-top mini-mill and a assortment of other things. It's called making due with what you have and if you don't have something that you want, start looking for help. ASK the teams in your area that YOU seem to think "have it all". I'm willing to bet, MORE than willing to bet, they would help by either getting you in contact with a sponsor or let you use their equipment. There's a host of great teams in your area you could reach out to. Of course, I'd be wary of how you do so now that you've come on a public forum and insulted many of them.

FIRST is about competition but it's also about helping the competition, that's what separates our program from the "Major Sports". You don't see the Red Sox and Yankees swapping coaching secrets.

Anupam Goli

13-02-2015, 09:02

I'm not in TIMS for my team. Guess I'm not really a member. Though I don't recall seeing a strict definition of Team Member in the rule book so I question the validity of your statement.

I correct myself in a later post. FIRST doesn't have a set definition of "Team Member" in the manual, and instead uses the blue box under R11 to give a general sense of what is acceptable to put on the BoM vs what shouldn't need to be with regards to sponsors and external machining.

Andrew Schreiber

13-02-2015, 09:31

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials?

Ok, I'll bite. I'd be willing to bet you that I could build a robot that effectively plays this game for under $2000 (+KoP) with a chop saw, a drill press, and hand tools. And that robot should be within the capabilities of every single team in FRC.

But first I have to define what I mean by effectively. Would I be an Einstein contender? Nope. But I'd reliably move every match and I'd play in the afternoon at my events.

It's not about the tools, it's about the process. I have no doubt that 254 would build a 80th percentile robot using nothing but some 2x4's, a bandsaw, and a KoP chassis. But their machined stuff is more inspiring.

JesseK

13-02-2015, 09:34

Last night a tough mentor-driven decision made last Fall came full circle, and it's paid dividends for our season.

Determining when to sacrifice some space for additional equipment is a very tough call. We did it this year after some grumbling and anxiety, and it's turned out to be a blessing. We lost an entire assembly bench to an in-house CNC, but wow - turning around a precision part in an hour is insane. The CNC was a DIY mentor project (with a waterjet sponsor doing some really nice plates...), sponsored by funds raised by students & mentors alike. The mentor who built the CNC learned a ton about a subject he didn't know, and in the process he himself grew to a new understanding of design process as it relates to precision parts.

Let's pause for a second.
While it isn't in FIRST's mission statement, IMO any adult who grows in their careers as a result of FIRST is a success for a team as much as an inspired student is. The nation is going through an educational re-structuring in some regions, and there are plenty of adults who need inspiring too.

Continuing:
Another adult heard of the CNC through that esoteric old-school 'Grape Vine', and he just so happened to know some CAM and how to drive a CNC. Now we have students going through the CAD/CAM/CNC design process on a regular basis (so long as we can find a USB thumb drive...). Without the original mentor to drive it, we would still have the same thought processes as we did last season and we would also lack another mentor with a whole new set of knowledge to bestow upon unsuspecting teenagers. On top of that, I have new late-season CAD students this year! More CAD students than ever :ahh:! The kids understand they can't use the shiny new toy without some pre-requisites, and that by itself is inspiring (to me).

Other musings...
The premium of all FRC luxuries, I think, is a dedicated space for practice that includes enough room for a good portion of the field and high ceilings. Teams with this get to see kinetic objects interact as if it were a real game. Teams who don't have access to enough practice space only shoot themselves in the foot when they blindly go after the trickiest of objectives in a game (1885, 2013-auto, cough cough).

This year's game doesn't require so much space. Get a patch of carpet, build the cheapest field piece I've ever seen (the bump) and some totes - voila! (Build a chute door if you're into that kind of thing)

Joe G.

13-02-2015, 10:19

Contrary to what some people think, having access to CNC capabilities is not all rainbows and unicorns. The teams that have such capabilities either earned the trust and respect of a sponsoring company or they earned the cash to go buy the equipment themselves.

Hearing that "the parts are coming in" is nice but there is always risk that the parts don't come in when expected or they are made wrong. One of our local powerhouse teams received their parts the day before bag & tag. I recall them installing wheels and motors on the Practice Day of their first regional. The same sort of thing happens to my co-workers quite regularly but our total development time is much greater than 6 weeks so a few days late is not usually a disaster.

There is a lot of truth to this statement. MentorDon, since it sounds like you are unfamiliar with the exact way that having access to this kind of equipment affects a build season, let me share some insight into my team, and how having access to some advanced fabrication equipment has impacted us.

Team 5400 is a rookie team. We are building our robot out of my garage. We are a community team, and have no direct affiliation with a school. We have about a dozen active students, and three technical mentors, only one of whom is able to be at our shop for about 80% of our meeting time. Our robot budget for the year is about $1000. A quick look at your team's website indicates that you have roughly twice as many sponsors as us.

By every metric, we should be a bottom-tier team, building a bottom-tier robot. You should be better at this than us.

But our team's culture refuses to accept mediocrity as a way of doing business, and we've done a number of things to change the quality of robot our team is capable of putting out.

We have three incredibly passionate students from a team which folded last year, who bring an incredible amount of knowledge and dedication to the team.
We meet for a ridiculous number of hours.
Our garage has a 6" lathe, a 12" lathe, and a full size bridgeport series 1 clone. All of these tools are on loan from two of our mentors running a start-up business, also out of the garage we build our robot in. Our students also worked incredibly hard to install a full shop air system with ceiling drops, made from pneumatic components from the KOP, FIRST Choice, and a compressor, again on loan from one of our mentors.
These tools go a long way towards making a quality robot. But we also have a precision sheet metal sponsor, with a 2500 watt laser cutter and 144 ton, 6 axis CNC press brake.

Why did we pursue this partnership with a sheet metal sponsor? We recognized that we would not be able to deliver the quality of experience to our students that we desired without one (more on this in a bit). How did we get them? We worked until we did.

Precision sheet metal companies are more common than you might think, and machine shops with CNC capabilities are even more common. How do I know this? Because I have on my hard drive a comprehensive spreadsheet of over 200 sheet metal companies and machine shops within a 40 mile radius of our shop, with contact information, capabilities, and various red/green flags we've observed as indicators for a likely company to sponsor a high school robotics team. We spent lots of time collecting this information, and lots of time approaching companies until we found one excited to work with us. It's really not that hard, no harder than any other type of sponsorship, and you certainly don't need to be a NASA house team to do it. A quick search shows that these guys (http://www.standardsheetmetal.com/) may be a great partner for 1764. Or perhaps this company. (http://www.ajmfg.com/) This place (http://www.ronsonmfg.com/) looks promising as well. That's just a small sampling of what a couple minutes of googling got me.

Now, onto some of the things sheet metal does and does not do for us.

It does not auto-win events. Even though we're a rookie team, this is actually my 3rd year working with a team with a sheet metal sponsor, having previously worked with FRC 1687. Never heard of them? Neither has most anyone outside New England -- 1687 has never made it past the semifinals in an official event, never been to champs, and certainly never made a robot of particular note on the world level. Their 2012 robot, which was not sheet metal, could be argued as being a better machine then either of their sheet metal efforts.

It does not cost an inordinate amount of money. Even though we are not required to by FRC rules, we ask our sponsor to provide us with a quote each season, in order to determine sponsorship tiers. 1687's 2014 and 2013 robots were quoted at $1000 and $2000 respectively, with both robots having a majority of major structural components, and a few internal components, composed of sheet metal. The $1000 robot was dramatically more successful, in large part because we used our resources more efficiently. I expect 5400's 2015 robot to fall roughly in between these numbers. In all three cases, each of these robots would be legal under FRC budget rules even if we had to put all sheet metal labor costs on the BOM. It is not an option for us at the moment, but for a number of teams more fortunate in soliciting direct financial donations than ourselves, that's not an unreasonable amount to pay a company for work during the season, and certaintly not a "$1,000,000 robot."

It does not necessarily improve your robot's level of functionality. Of the 47 unique parts we sent to our sheet metal sponsor this year, I cannot think of a single one which couldn't conceivably be functionally reproduced if one of the following sets of circumstances were true for our team: 50 students, 10 mentors, and triple the amount of manual machine tools in our shop, or 50 students, a $4000 robot budget, and a sizable stockplie of VexPro/Andymark COTS components like versaframe. Sure, there’s plenty of things which were made easier/faster by it, but I’m certain that we’re going to loose plenty of matches this year to teams without the kinds of resources we have.

It ABSOLUTELY does not improve the quality of engineering on your robot. So many times, I hear people say "Company X builds team Y's robots," with the implication being that the team sends the company the game on kickoff, and picks up a functional robot on bag day. Couldn't be further from the case. Advanced fabrication techniques require people who know how to take full advantage of them in order for a team to be successful, and frankly, I’m not sure if my team is there yet. Our sheet metal sponsor takes our prints as they are. If there are mistakes on them, we get those mistakes back, and it’s on us. If the parts break, it’s our fault because we didn’t design them well enough. Generally by that time in build, it’s too late to do another sheet metal run, and we have to scramble to put together a replacement inhouse. This, again, is where mentorship is crucial. More than is normal, we really have one shot to get the vast majority of our robot right, and we have to have the engineering chops to back that up. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, and it affects how we design our robots in a big way. This year, for example, for all components of our robot which directly interact with gamepieces, we made a conscious choice to go zero sheet metal, because we knew the probability of needing to iterate these components several times as part of our withholding allowance was very high, and we wanted to make these parts in a way that lends itself to fast turnarounds.

It does not necessarily result in you having a robot done in 4 weeks. Sheet metal makes CADding of every part of your robot a necessity, which takes a lot of time and effort. It builds a lead time period into your build season, something which is easy to waste sitting around twiddling your thumbs if you don’t plan it out (we make all our milled/turned parts during this period). This lead time can be unpredictable. This year, due to the snow that New England has received, our sheet metal was delayed. We were hoping to pick it up Friday of week 4. I am driving out to pick up the majority of it TODAY. Our robot right now is a series of shafts, spacers, and funky shaped plastic blocks sitting on a shelf, along with a couple of mostly-together mechanisms missing a few crucial structural members. We have complete confidence that it will go together real fast, since we have a dedicated core of students who basically plan to live at the shop until bag time, every single non sheet metal part machined, approved, sorted, and ready to go, have had the time to put together detailed assembly packets and instructions, and are confident in the absurd level of detail and engineering that was put into our robot CAD this year. That being said, it’s going to be a herculean effort to get it done, we’re going to have minimal practice time, and we’re all really, really hoping not a lot goes wrong. Trust me, although we’re still quietly confident over here, none of us are feeling like we have it easy right now.

So, why do we do it?

It revolutionizes what our team is capable of building. As I said above, a team with 50 students and more manual machines or budget than us could absolutely build the robot we’re making. But we don’t have those things. We have 12 students, and a garage shop. With 12 students, prototyping all our concepts is not a short process, because mechanisms have to be prototyped sequentially rather than in parallel. With one mill, there’s no way we could crank out a majority of our robot with the precision we demand of it in six weeks. Sheet metal speeds up our fabrication process immensely, and allows us to focus on the parts that really matter, brainstorming, prototyping, detail engineering, and iteration, rather than having the bulk of our build season become a glorified shop class. It even allows us to focus on non-technical aspects that we probably couldn’t do otherwise, because we don’t have all of our students locked down drilling hole patterns all day long.

It forces sound engineering. Again, with a manufacturing sponsor of any sort, what you send them is what you get. And I love it. Students come into our program with the mentality of building as you go along, and will leave understanding the value of sitting down and detailing a part out to the last corner fillet. If you’re making all your parts yourself, it’s easy to make changes as you realize that you “forgot” something. Designing the whole robot on CAD forces you to think everything through, and using sheet metal erases any thoughts of “do we have to do this?” from our student’s minds, a thought process which was pervasive in my former team prior to getting a sheet metal sponsor.

It exposes students to the way parts are made in the real world. Related, an engineer’s job is not fabrication. Typically, they’re pretty far removed from the people actually making the parts. Why? Because for most companies, the way we make our parts is EXACTLY the way they make their parts. The engineer prototypes and designs, and sends the parts out for manufacture by a company that specializes in it. Often, the engineer isn’t even involved in the assembly process. If this program is supposed to inspire students to understand and respect engineering and technology, shouldn’t we try our best to make the way we design and build our robots reflect the real world?

It gives our students pride in their work, that they made the robot happen. Wait, isn’t this usually an argument against external fabrication? Yes, but again, it stems from what I feel is a grave misunderstanding of engineering, which says that the part the “matters” is the actual fabrication. Of course, it’s good when your students are able to say things like “We made every part of this robot. We are experts in using files, hack saws, and cordless drills,” and even better when they are able to say things like “we learned how to read dimensioned drawings, and hold tolerances down to the thousandth of an inch on a mill and lathe,” or "I picked the perfect ratio for this versaplanetary" But, because so much of our fabrication was done externally, this freed up our students to work through several iterations of prototypes, and for the robot to be CADded for two weeks straight, to an absurd level of detail, with every single student on the team at least contributing to the process. And I’m downright thrilled that my students can say things like “I did the finite element analysis for this part. I can tell you what every single hole on this plate (http://i.imgur.com/72BS5Rs.png) is for, and how it has changed over time. I took the time to read a junior level college textbook on cam design, and learned the math required to create a cycloidal profile for our cam driven elevator brake. I designed this gearbox from scratch, and optimized it to fit in the tight space we had for it, instead of just picking up the closest off the shelf part.” If not getting to drill a few holes is the sacrifice they have to make to get this experience, I'm okay with that.

It does make our robot look nicer. We like it because we put a lot of work into our robot, and we want it to look like something to be proud of. We also do it because we believe in FRC as a spectator sport, and believe that professional looking machines are inspiring to other teams, sponsors, and spectators, and by building one, we are doing our part to further FIRST's goals to become a mainstream sport. But it doesn’t affect our performance in a more than trivial way. By my estimation, across our entire robot, our use of triangular lightening patterns, like the ones that allegedly won 1114 their 2008 world championship, are saving us three tenths of a pound compared to a kid with a hole saw. We’re probably loosing that and more by choosing to paint parts of our robot – is that an unfair advantage as well?

And it sounds weird, but we’re not doing the fancy lightening patterns instead of swiss cheese for those three tenths of a pound. We’re doing it because, with a small team that keeps everyone busy, a 2500 watt laser cutter is a more readily available resource to us than a kid, a hole saw, and several hours. We build our robots to our resources, even when writing those resources down seems very, very weird.

Sheet metal allows us to give our students a better experience. Not because we will win, but because the process is more valuable for them. And isn’t that what this program is about?

Monochron

13-02-2015, 10:23

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the
Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be
$10 USD.
It is in the best interests of the Teams and FIRST to form relationships with as many organizations as possible. Teams are encouraged to
be expansive in recruiting and including organizations in their team, as that exposes more people and organizations to FIRST. Recognizing
supporting companies as Sponsors of, and members in, the Team is encouraged, even if the involvement of the Sponsor is solely through the
donation of fabrication labor.
Wow, I had no idea this was the case, thanks for posting that rule. I'm kind of surprised by that. I was assuming that all sponsor time had to be accounted for in the BOM. We have accounted for all time spent machining parts by 'sponsors' in the past (only two parts, but still).

Can we stop including that cost if we refer to the machinists as "members of our team" to avoid this headache? That doesn't seem like the intent of the rule, but I get the impression that this is what larger/powerhouse teams do. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)

c.shu

13-02-2015, 10:35

Our team uses close to zero sheet metal parts. We don't have anything water jetted or CNC'd. Almost all of our parts are made from box or flat stock aluminum. Everything we build is made on our machines in the school's engineering room by students including almost all of the welding on the robot. (With the exception of some very difficult welds)

We don't struggle with being competitive with the "elite" teams. You don't need all of the fancy equipment to do well. Yes, of course it helps but you can get by without it. All you need is a solid plan going into the build season and to build within your constraints. Using a little out of the box thinking doesn't hurt either.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/2137/2014

BrendanB

13-02-2015, 10:37

There are teams with more machining resources in their shops and out of their shops) who do better than us.

There are teams with more machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do worse than us.

There are teams with less machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do better than us.

There are teams with less machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do worse than us.

You can easily exchange the word "machining" in any of the above statements for: students, mentors, engineers, money, time, etc. and it still remains true.

Its not about what you have its about what you do with it.

For every team that someone points a finger saying "They have more money" "They have a sheetmetal sponsor" "They have a company CNC everything for them" "They......" I can show you more who have those resources but don't know how to use them effectively.

Cory

13-02-2015, 11:24

Can we stop including that cost if we refer to the machinists as "members of our team" to avoid this headache? That doesn't seem like the intent of the rule, but I get the impression that this is what larger/powerhouse teams do. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

FrankJ

13-02-2015, 12:05

If I had one, I would give an CNC of your choice for a top notch CAD mentor. With good CAD the need for high end machining is less. Without good CAD, high end machining is difficult.

With Solidworks & Autodesk donating their products, the ability to model the robot is there for teams with the will to do it. Our team isn't there yet, but we are working on it. [sarcastic irony] BTW one of my favorite things to do is to walk around and say "The Mentors obviously cadded your robot" [/sarcastic irony]

With 80/20, modular gear boxes, plywood & VEX stuff you can build a competitive robot without a mill or a lathe.

A complete practice field is a huge advantage. That is why we actively encourage teams to come use ours. (https://sites.google.com/a/waltonrobotics.org/de/home)

philso

13-02-2015, 13:26

But our team's culture refuses to accept mediocrity as a way of doing business, and we've done a number of things to change the quality of robot our team is capable of putting out.

We have three incredibly passionate students from a team which folded last year, who bring an incredible amount of knowledge and dedication to the team.
We meet for a ridiculous number of hours.

This is really what the powerhouse teams others find inspiring have in common. Having extensive resources is a result of their attitude, culture and work ethic, not the other way around.

Now, onto some of the things sheet metal does and does not do for us.

It does not auto-win events.

It does not cost an inordinate amount of money.

It does not necessarily improve your robot's level of functionality.

It ABSOLUTELY does not improve the quality of engineering on your robot.

It does not necessarily result in you having a robot done in 4 weeks.

So, why do we do it?

It revolutionizes what our team is capable of building.

It forces sound engineering.

It gives our students pride in their work, that they made the robot happen.

It does make our robot look nicer.

Joe is right on about how this program exposes student to the way things are done in the real world. All of these things that Joe says that having a sheet metal supplier does and does not do for his team can be applied to the company I work for, a large multinational manufacturer of industrial electrical equipment, with the appropriate substitutions.

Basel A

13-02-2015, 13:37

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

Well, no, it says if the sponsor employee is team member, which is a very real distinction. Let's take a look at R11, example 5.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be $10 USD.

This clearly indicates that the machinists are not team members by default through the company's sponsorship of the team. Now, how you define who your team members are is up to you. But I for one am not sure that (in the extreme case) someone who, over the course of the entire season, spends two hours machining a few parts for the team should be considered a member of the team.

I would, however, agree that these rules are encouraging teams to build relationships with sponsors and to integrate those employees into their teams. But the way the rule is written does draw a line in the sand. Sponsor-machined parts are not by default free of labor costs.

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 14:07

Just going to offer a bit of perspective from a current mentor, former student. This is not some normative claim about how teams ought to be run, just a couple of observations based on my own experience.

Team 449 is a decidedly student-run team. The robots are designed and manufactured by the students - mentors provide valuable input, but they do not do the hands-on work. That approach was a conscious choice made by our head mentor, and I am exceedingly grateful for it. When I was in high school, I was already a nerd. I did not need "inspiration" in the form of "seeing people do cool things with technology." I knew that cool things could be done with technology. What I needed (and received) were hands-on lessons on how to do things. This is sorely lacking in high-school education (and even in many undergrad programs), and is exceedingly valuable. There is a huge disconnect between knowing some of the theory behind a problem and being able to actually construct a solution. FRC is far-and-away the best program I have encountered for learning how to do the latter. Robotics was probably more valuable to me than the rest of high school put together, all-told.

I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot. Does that mean there is nothing to be gained from that model, or that that is not an appropriate model for any team? No, of course not. But it does mean that there is something lost when you marginalize student involvement. It'd be nice if the atmosphere here were such that people could say this without inciting massive debates, because it's really not (or shouldn't be) a contentious claim. It does not immediately follow from this that "mentor-run teams are bad" or "student-run teams are good" - a team should try to maximize the return for the students, and this is only one factor in that calculation. If you think your team's effectiveness is maximized by an approach that does not emphasize students doing work, that is fine - but there should be no offense taken when someone points out that there are costs involved in that approach.

I understand fully why some teams choose to have mentors do much of the work. On 4464, I do far more work on getting the robot finished than would be permissible for a mentor on 449. They are different teams in different situations, and their needs are not identical. This does not mean that I won't admit that there is valuable experience that the students on 449 receive thanks to their approach that the students on 4464 do not. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out, nor does it reflect badly on anyone. It's just one piece in a much larger puzzle.

Re: the team resources discussion, it is amusing how discussion of this always progress nearly identically to political discussions on socioeconomic disparity. I think it'd be nice to see a bit more understanding of the facts that there are teams with limited resources who are not in that situation simply due to incompetence or lack of motivation, and that teams with more resources are, indeed, at a competitive advantage (in the most general sense - I am not going to argue the specifics of how big this advantage is and how it scales). There is no perfect meritocracy distributing support to FRC teams. This obviously does not justify bitterness towards successful teams - but I think a lot of the vitriol we see when this subject is brought up is as much a result of frustration at the perceived condescension towards disadvantaged teams as of the disparity in resources itself. I don't think I'm the only one who has noticed this.

Cory

13-02-2015, 14:24

I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot. Does that mean there is nothing to be gained from that model, or that that is not an appropriate model for any team? No, of course not. But it does mean that there is something lost when you marginalize student involvement. It'd be nice if the atmosphere here were such that people could say this without inciting massive debates, because it's really not (or shouldn't be) a contentious claim.

This is a contentious topic because it's constantly presented as a straw man where teams have "teams of engineers building their robots" and students just driving it. This is not reality. In reality the teams (like 254) who get called out under that logical fallacy are trending towards or past 50% mentor/student work breakdown, not 99% mentor, 1% student.

robochick1319

13-02-2015, 14:28

Re: the team resources discussion, it is amusing how discussion of this always progress nearly identically to political discussions on socioeconomic disparity. I think it'd be nice to see a bit more understanding of the facts that there are teams with limited resources who are not in that situation simply due to incompetence or lack of motivation, and that teams with more resources are, indeed, at a competitive advantage (in the most general sense - I am not going to argue the specifics of how big this advantage is and how it scales). There is no perfect meritocracy distributing support to FRC teams. This obviously does not justify bitterness towards successful teams - but I think a lot of the vitriol we see when this subject is brought up is as much a result of frustration at the perceived condescension towards disadvantaged teams as of the disparity in resources itself. I don't think I'm the only one who has noticed this.

Well said. I am FIRST alum and a FIRST mentor now. I have seen teams with huge budgets and teams with shoestring budgets. Even my team has had feast and famine years. The goal should be for teams to do the most they can with the resources they have. Socioeconomic disparity is a real thing in the real world so trying to stop it in FIRST seems counterproductive. Besides, if we start placing too many restrictions on teams we will lose the diversity and innovation that makes the program so great.

It reminds me of this campaign from Android.

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 14:33

This is a contentious topic because it's constantly presented as a straw man where teams have "teams of engineers building their robots" and students just driving it. This is not reality. In reality the teams (like 254) who get called out under that logical fallacy are trending towards or past 50% mentor/student work breakdown, not 99% mentor, 1% student.

If someone claims that a specific team is "a team of engineers building a robot and students driving it," then that is an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim, yes.

However, it often seems on Chief Delphi that people treat any mention of student/mentor workload issues as if this were being claimed. These threads would not become so inflammatory without problems on both sides. In reality, this is a complicated issue and there are reasonable arguments to be made either way. The manner in which people usually post about it here does not usually reflect that.

It is very easy to argue against a caricature of a point rather than the point itself. This happens on both sides of this discussion with alarming regularity.

Cory

13-02-2015, 14:38

If someone claims that a specific team is "a team of engineers building a robot and students driving it," then that is an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim, yes.

The only reason I made that point was because the first line of your post said "I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot"

Obviously you didn't intend it that way, but the only interpretation of that statement is that the team of engineers is doing 100% of the work and a student would be sitting there watching and twiddling their thumbs. That was the construct you presented, which we both clearly agree is not the issue being debated.

AdamHeard

13-02-2015, 14:41

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 14:42

The only reason I made that point was because the first line of your post said "I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot"

Obviously you didn't intend it that way, but the only interpretation of that statement is that the team of engineers is doing 100% of the work and a student would be sitting there watching and twiddling their thumbs. That was the construct you presented, which we both clearly agree is not the issue being debated.

That was a position taken to an extreme as a rhetorical device, not an accusation levied at a specific team. It is often useful to examine limiting cases of certain positions, specifically, the one quoted in the very first post of the thread:

Who cares who truthfully does the work?

There are two extremes here - the students doing all the work, and the mentors doing all the work. Observing differences between them provides useful insight into what happens when you trend in either direction. In this case, it can show why one maybe should care, in some capacity, about who does the work.

He probably did intend it that way, it's a pretty clear statement he made.

See above.

Karthik

13-02-2015, 14:42

I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot.

If someone claims that a specific team is "a team of engineers building a robot and students driving it," then that is an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim, yes.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm having a hard time reconciling these two statements, unless your intent was to say that you were making an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim. // {I'm slow at posting, you and Cory addressed before I could hit send.}

Regardless, you make some very good points about resources. The level of a team's resources (finances, experience, shop access) goes a long way in defining a team's limits. Team's with more resources definitely have an easier time. However, if a team works intelligently and efficiently within small set of resources, I content that they are much more likely to be successful than a team who lacks a solid strategic plan and is inefficient within a large set of resources.

AdamHeard

13-02-2015, 14:46

I'll throw out a scenario to think about.

Take any of the top 5 teams in FIRST, remove all their resources (machines, facilities, money, sponsors, etc...) over the summer. They have to start from scratch resource wise.

I guarantee they'll still be in the running to win regionals (or districts) the next year, and likely worlds.

MrForbes

13-02-2015, 14:49

Could be.

What is the difference? It's not money, sponsors, machines, facilities.

Is it the students? They change every few years.

Is it the mentors?

Is it the coaches?

Is it where they live?

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 14:49

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm having a hard time reconciling these two statements, unless your intent was to say that you were making an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim. // {I'm slow at posting, you and Cory addressed before I could hit send.}

I don't see how it's contradictory to believe that "'claiming a specific team has all their work done by mentors' is obnoxious and incorrect" and also "I would not have gotten anything out of simply watching other people do work, from which I can conclude that there is value in students doing the work and so claims that 'it does not matter who does the work' are ill-founded."

If I had mentioned "like team 254" in that statement, yes, it would have been obnoxious and incorrect. I did not. I think it's worth noting that the "team of engineers" hypothetical has been used multiple times by people on both sides of this issue, often to the tune of "if a team wants to do that, then there's nothing wrong with it." That doesn't carry the implication that any teams necessarily do that.

Cory

13-02-2015, 14:49

That was a position taken to an extreme as a rhetorical device, not an accusation levied at a specific team. It is often useful to examine limiting cases of certain positions, specifically, the one quoted in the very first post of the thread:

There are two extremes here - the students doing all the work, and the mentors doing all the work. Observing differences between them provides useful insight into what happens when you trend in either direction. In this case, it can show why one maybe should care, in some capacity, about who does the work.

See above.

I don't think I'm getting my point across...The rhetorical device you're taking to the extreme is a straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) and is what is confusing the issue. There are not two extremes...There is one extreme (students do everything) and one case to the right of 50/50, but to the left of the extreme of "mentors doing all the work".

We can't have reasonable discourse about two different methods of running teams when actually nobody is doing the second method as stated and it's an inflammatory construct designed to push public opinion to the opposite side of the spectrum.

Mr. Van

13-02-2015, 14:51

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 14:56

I don't think I'm getting my point across...The rhetorical device you're taking to the extreme is a straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)

The quote that started this entire discussion was:

"Who cares who truthfully does the work?"

If someone takes the view "I do not care who truthfully does the work," then that would entail that they would not see anything worthy of consideration in the extreme case of "a team of professional engineers does the work."

Pointing out something worthy of consideration that might be lost in such a situation is not a straw man, and serves valid rhetorical purpose even if there are no teams that realize the hypothetical.

Madison

13-02-2015, 15:03

Could be.

What is the difference? It's not money, sponsors, machines, facilities.

Is it the students? They change every few years.

Is it the mentors?

Is it the coaches?

Is it where they live?

I was writing a post very similar to Adam's just now because I think it addresses a topic that often goes ignored in these debates.

Some engineers are better than others. The criticism that gets leveled against teams like 254/1114/et al is often couched in terms like "resources" and "CNC," and often gets refuted with notions of working harder, but a simpler, more likely explanation is probably that the folks on those teams are better engineers and better mentors than most. That doesn't make other people bad mentors, it just means they're less effective in certain areas than others. That's okay.

You could give my team all the money, manufacturing support and time in the world and, in the end, I think we'd still produce a product that is inferior to these teams and that's because they're better at managing an FRC team than I am. I'm not bad at it; they're just better.

smistthegreat

13-02-2015, 15:06

Andrew Schreiber

13-02-2015, 15:09

I don't think I'm getting my point across...The rhetorical device you're taking to the extreme is a straw man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) and is what is confusing the issue. There are not two extremes...There is one extreme (students do everything) and one case to the right of 50/50, but to the left of the extreme of "mentors doing all the work".

We can't have reasonable discourse about two different methods of running teams when actually nobody is doing the second method as stated and it's an inflammatory construct designed to push public opinion to the opposite side of the spectrum.

Could we have a discussion about the other extreme (Students do 100%)? I personally feel those teams are more against the spirit of FRC than the theoretical 100% Engineer Built team.

Oblarg

13-02-2015, 15:12

Could we have a discussion about the other extreme (Students do 100%)? I personally feel those teams are more against the spirit of FRC than the theoretical 100% Engineer Built team.

Sure. There are losses in both directions - I'm equally sure I wouldn't have gained anything if I had been on a team with no mentors at all that had hobbled together some barely-working box-on-wheels and not won any matches.

MrForbes

13-02-2015, 15:19

I was writing a post very similar to Adam's just now because I think it addresses a topic that often goes ignored in these debates.

Some engineers are better than others.

That's true. But I think it is not nearly the whole story.

I've spent some time reading and watching mentors on elite teams describing their process, and their analyses of various things about games and robots, and I don't really learn much new. What I haven't seen from them, is a frank discussion about how to motivate a team. I don't even know if it's possible, because I think some people are just natural leaders, and they don't really know how they do it.

I've had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time hanging out with Fredi of 842. He seems to be one of those natural leaders, who can motivate a team to do things that no one thought possible. He's told me he doesn't really know how he does it. As food for thought....they didn't have an engineer mentor on their team until my son joined them in 2011.

I know we've had several coaches/faculty advisers over the years, but the same couple of mentors. Our robots and game playing have varied drastically from year to year, depending on who was coach, and which students were on the team. Our best performance was with a team heavy in seniors, who had been coached by a very enthusiastic coach their freshman and sophomore years. When they graduated, the team seemed to fall apart.

I talked about "magic" on the Einstein thread, and got no response. I still believe there is magic on some teams. I don't know what it is, and I doubt the folks on the teams know what it is, either.

waialua359

13-02-2015, 15:30

Threads like these make you feel either terrible for building our program ground up on our own (no school support or regular education budget), OR very proud that while being in pretty much the most rural part of our State (and middle of the ocean) to be able to compete in FIRST Robotics.
I can understand why there would be frustration/misunderstandings/anger for other "better" teams. But I guess for us, we decided a long time ago that if we were going to continue, we better figure out how to keep getting better.
I think we arguably spend the most amount of money on Robotics.
I always complain about FIRST rules and issues that prevent us from competing like the other teams.......but its never been to dumb down the playing level so that we could compete.
For 16 years now, we keep trying to get better despite the dynamic challenges that we all face as FRC teams.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but when I look back at old robots, even some of the better teams...........I cant help but think they all look outdated. Raising the bar is what it's all about, and the best part of going to competitions is seeing all of the cool robot designs we never thought of.

Karthik

13-02-2015, 15:34

bduddy

13-02-2015, 15:42

One of the issues that this brings up is how FRC events are perceived by the viewing public. Over and over again, I hear people in the stands say "There is no way students made that by themselves." In just about every case, they are correct.

But that's the point. This is what makes FRC unique (for the most part).

It's very hard for the vast majority of the public to translate "Robotics Competition between high schools" to mean "Robotics Competition between teams consisting of professional engineering mentors, sponsoring companies and high school students" instead of "between high school students".

- Mr. Van
Coach, RobodoxWhy does FRC require that high school students drive the robots? After all, if you take the "inspiration" maxim to its logical conclusion, there's no particular reason that they should. The only real reason I've been able to think of is that it would look really bad to the viewing public if adults were driving the robots.

Here's something really controversial - has anyone ever dared to consider that, in this case, the great unwashed masses might have a point?

dubiousSwain

13-02-2015, 15:44

Socioeconomic disparity is a real thing in the real world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto

SteveGPage

13-02-2015, 16:31

Raising the bar is what it's all about, and the best part of going to competitions is seeing all of the cool robot designs we never thought of.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants! This is how we learn and grow!

Sometimes what we try works, sometimes it doesn't - but this should be a learning opportunity for everyone, mentors and students. Who spends how much, who has what equipment, who built what part, who has access to this or that ... If that's your focus, you've missed the point. We say the robot is the bonus. The learning, however it happens, is why we are here.

Nick Lawrence

13-02-2015, 16:36

So, here's a thought. How is having a robot that is somewhat mentor-driven any different from a team full of students purchasing COTS items and utilizing great products such as the AM14U2? Many of the products from vendors like AndyMark, BaneBots, IR3 and VEXPro are designed by active FIRST mentors for the teams.

Food for thought. In the meantime, maybe we can work on building ourselves up to each other's levels rather than tearing each other down from them.

-Nick

Siri

13-02-2015, 16:36

I've had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time hanging out with Fredi of 842. He seems to be one of those natural leaders, who can motivate a team to do things that no one thought possible. He's told me he doesn't really know how he does it. As food for thought....they didn't have an engineer mentor on their team until my son joined them in 2011.One, I think you're exactly right. And two, the bolded statement blows my mind. For those of you not yet playing at home, the legendary HoF Team 842 did this:2003 - SoCal Delphi Award & Semifinalists
2004 & 2005 - Arizona EI
2005 - World Championship EI
2006 - Arizona Chairman's, Worlds Chairman's HM
2007 - Arizona Finalists & Chairman's, Las Vegas EI
2008 - Hall of Fame, Championship Division Finalists, Las Vegas Finalists, Arizona Chairman's & Safety & Semis, Los Angeles & Las Vegas Entrepreneurship
2009 - Arizona Judges' & Safety
2010 - Las Vegas Creativity & Semis, Arizona GP & Semis
...without an engineering mentor.

With so many stories of current struggle, there are others who did in fact make it. Oh, and sometimes those guys end up with a feature-length movie about them starring George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Lil' Lavery

13-02-2015, 16:43

So, here's a thought. How is having a robot that is somewhat mentor-driven any different from a team full of students purchasing COTS items and utilizing great products such as the AM14U2? Many of the products from vendors like AndyMark, BaneBots, IR3 and VEXPro are designed by active FIRST mentors for the teams.

I think the crucial difference here is that these mentors are making the fruits of their labors available to all teams, rather than just one at a time. Granted, a new scarce resource (money) is then required to take advantage of this.

MrJohnston

13-02-2015, 16:53

One thing that makes this conversation difficult is that we are largely talking in absolutes. The fact of that matter is that there is a continuum of every factor that leads to a team's success (or lack thereof).

*No robot is 100% mentor built. Likewise, there is no robot that doesn't benefit, at some level, from mentor support.

* Let's face it, financial health is a PART of any successful team's health. Power tools, milling machines, waterjet cutting, machine shop sponsors etc. all give a teams the ability to expand their abilities and be more efficient - thus enhancing their abilities.

* At the same time, infinite finances cannot overcome a complete lack of technical knowledge.

And so on...

The relationship between the students and mentors is at the very heart of FIRST's mission. There is a reason we call these adults "mentors" and not "supervisors" or "babysitters." There is a reason we have mentor parades and go out of our way to thank them. Students are learners and are only going to learn the fundamentals of engineering if they are working side-by-side with their mentors.

The real question is, "What is the appropriate balance between mentor and student labor?" I think of this much like I do my math classrooms. Some students just need a little bit of guidance and they are ready to fly. Others need prolonged attention and repeated modeling of processes if they are to learn. In education each teacher is expected to learn and work with the very specific needs of each child and each classroom. How is mentoring different?

If the job is "build the robot" and you have a group of very inexperienced students who can barely turn a screwdriver, the mentors will have to be very "hands on" just to keep the kids safe and get something rolling. With the same job, if you have students who have been around robots for several years, the mentors have a choice: either turn it over to them and let them put their knowledge to use -or teach them more advanced engineering. The latter would require more hand-holding, but would result in a better robot. What's wrong with that?

I have seen the these "elite" teams - and their kids know the robot. I see the kids making repairs. I see the kids talking about its functionality. The kids are learning - and loving it. They are inspired.

I also don't believe that "just any team" can replicate their efforts. They have mentors who are not only strong engineers, but have many years of FIRST experience and have, thus, developed a very strong familiarity with FRC robots and can think of half a dozen ways to successfully accomplish "new" tasks very quickly. Sometimes I look at it like this: If one school hires the best and most experienced football coaching staff, do they have an "unfair" advantage? If they have a former NFL QB working individually with their QB's, is this unfair? No, it's just a fantastic resource that they have.

I am certain that if you took all the Cheesy Poofs mentors away, replacing them with equally as many mentors from other teams but otherwise left them with all their resources, their performance would slip - even if the other mentors had the same level of "involvement" in the build as the current mentors.

Monochron

13-02-2015, 17:31

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

I honestly hadn't thought that was FIRST's intent, and I don't think that rule lends favor to that opinion, but I could certainly understand if that is what FIRST wants.

The rule in question : "and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply."

It specifically delineates the difference between "a company that is a sponsor" and "specific machinists who both works at the company and are members of the team". If the machinists is not considered a member of the team, then the machining cost must be accounted for correct? I'm mostly wondering for my own team where there is a single machinist who only a parent on our team has met and who has machined things for us. No team member (adult or student) has seen or spoken to this person, and I'm not sure how I could call them a "member of the team". If we create a relationship between them an our team, then it seems much more straight forward.

Just to be clear, I am fully in support of how you guys (and other powerhouse teams similar to you) run your teams. I think you provide a unique and inspiring experience. Teams absolutely should be able to use whatever industrial resources they are able to acquire. I'm just curious about the reporting of those costs because I had assumed something that appears to be very different from reality.

waialua359

13-02-2015, 18:52

One, I think you're exactly right. And two, the bolded statement blows my mind. For those of you not yet playing at home, the legendary HoF Team 842 did this:2003 - SoCal Delphi Award & Semifinalists
2004 & 2005 - Arizona EI
2005 - World Championship EI
2006 - Arizona Chairman's, Worlds Chairman's HM
2007 - Arizona Finalists & Chairman's, Las Vegas EI
2008 - Hall of Fame, Championship Division Finalists, Las Vegas Finalists, Arizona Chairman's & Safety & Semis, Los Angeles & Las Vegas Entrepreneurship
2009 - Arizona Judges' & Safety
2010 - Las Vegas Creativity & Semis, Arizona GP & Semis
...without an engineering mentor.

With so many stories of current struggle, there are others who did in fact make it. Oh, and sometimes those guys end up with a feature-length movie about them starring George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis.
We often felt like we were Team 842 in many ways with respect to the hardships, socio-economic background of our community and focuses early on in our program. We went through a long period of not having an engineering mentor on our construction team as well (I dont count myself as an engineer even with the degree). Our only engineering mentors today are young former students with respect to designing and building the robots with our students.
Team 842 provides many examples of how to build your program with great successes vs. the amount of resources they had to work with.

Siri

13-02-2015, 19:40

We often felt like we were Team 842 in many ways with respect to the hardships, socio-economic background of our community and focuses early on in our program. We went through a long period of not having an engineering mentor on our construction team as well (I dont count myself as an engineer even with the degree). Our only engineering mentors today are young former students with respect to designing and building the robots with our students.
Team 842 provides many examples of how to build your program with great successes vs. the amount of resources they had to work with.Wow, I walked right into that. Yes, of course, you guys too! I feel like we need a place to aggregate all these incredible stories, both to help people understand different philosophies about mentorship/sponsorship, and so that we can be inspired by the all different rocky roads to success. And you know, so I don't ignore HoF teams who are literally on an island and just posted about it.

I don't know much about the exact mentor/student relationship on most HoF or otherwise elite teams, but between the 842 story, Hawaiian Kids, and 103 (who literally started (http://www.cybersonics.org/cybersonics/rural_mission.php) the FIRST rural support network), there must certainly be a lot of amazing underdog stories out there. It's hard to argue that a great team with an awesome robot (http://www.waialuarobotics.com/2013-2014/Construction/FRC/crunchtime/Images/February%2018/Robot.jpg) that won every regional it went to might be getting something handed to them when said arm would have to be 2500 miles long.

Andrew Lawrence

13-02-2015, 20:11

Could we have a discussion about the other extreme (Students do 100%)? I personally feel those teams are more against the spirit of FRC than the theoretical 100% Engineer Built team.

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.

bduddy

13-02-2015, 20:37

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.I was on a student-run team with a couple of technical mentors, and even though we never won anything, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Your personal experience (nor mine) is not representative of all participants, and the one part of your post that does upset me is where you equate losing with being a bad team. Yes, I know this is your own experience, and I myself hate losing as much as the next guy, but there's a whole lot you can get out of FIRST - arguably more - when you don't have a great robot or the immediately accessible resources to make one.

rhinobot

13-02-2015, 20:39

I wasn't going to comment either, however I am frankly quite upset reading all these comments. As a first year mentor of a rookie team I have been able to work closely with students and teach them the skills they need to succeed in FIRST. Without mentors students would not be able to compete/would compete very poorly, as at first they lack the necessary skills. Much like my first year. 3 years ago I was a rookie student and we had little mentor guidance, it was terrible as none of us knew what we were doing, and in the end I was the only one that carried on with robotics after that year (with another team, due to no teacher support with the old team). I am blessed to have been able to teach these students and it makes me feel great knowing I have taught them something new that will benefit them in the long run. I know that veteran teams have very experienced students within them, in this situation yes, the students are self sufficient....but everyone does need guidance and often a push in the right direction, which mentors can provide. I have also had experience with a mentor that was too involved, its hard to find a happy medium, every team has a different mentor:student ratio, and how they achieve that is whatever policy is in that teams handbook (if applicable). No two teams will be the same. However at the end of the day mentors make the FIRST experience, they allow the students to learn new skills, and most importantly be inspired. Win or lose on gameday, if your students are inspired and had a good time, thats a win in my books.

bduddy

13-02-2015, 20:45

EricH

13-02-2015, 20:58

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? I'll also bite.

I'll speak for two teams in this post: Yep, and Yep.

For one simple reason: One of the teams has minimal to no CNC access, and drills/cuts/welds everything in shop, or if something is sent it's sent to a shop that a team member or mentor has access to use the machines in. The other has CNC access...Run by the shop owner, who is a team mentor, with students there! (If the manual machines weren't being used instead, that is.) Last I checked, the shop still supports an FRC team or two as a sponsor and mentor. Per FRC accounting rules, the only cost there is materials. And if they HAD to count CNC time, probably no more than $1K at $100/hr, easily.

Both teams make reasonably frequent trips to eliminations (and hopefully playoffs), I might add.

hzheng_449

13-02-2015, 23:29

When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves.

What exactly you mean by this?

What "lies" do teams that are proud of being student-run tell themselves?

Are they lying to themselves when they say that students gain an invaluable learning experience leading the design and fabrication of a FRC robot. (Which is an experience almost impossible to get in a high school setting?)

Are they lying to themselves when Students recognize their team's failures, analyze and learn from said failures, and take the initiative to restructure the team, spend extra effort in the offseason, and start improving?

Are they deluding themselves when they are proud of the robot they build not because of how well it perform, but because they have sense of ownership and achievement of the machine that they have poured their (literal) blood sweat and tears into building.

Please tell me: what "lies" are these teams telling themselves and why exactly do you feel sorry for them.

Rangel(kf7fdb)

14-02-2015, 00:05

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.

Not everyone who is on a mainly student run team has these types of experiences. I know many many people from different FRC teams where students do 99 percent of the work and they are just as capable and as good of problem solvers as I am coming from a team that had some pretty inspirational mentors. I don't think there is anything wrong with being proud to be on a team where you struggled and persisted but learned a heck of a lot nor do I think they are lying to themselves. I would argue that you turned out pretty well despite this. And the alternative is would you rather of been on a struggling team or no team at all? I can't speak for FRC but I was on a struggling FLL team where basically our mentor was never around and I was the only one of three who even did anything productive and basically taught ourselves everything we needed. We didn't win anything and was very stressful especially with how young I was but I'd rather of at least had the opportunity than not. Not directed towards you but a general question people can ask themselves as a whole. Of course it's great to have mentors but if low mentor involvement is a team's thing, then let them do it I say. If the students are happy, inspired, and proud I can't see the fault. This isn't the case in every mainly student driven team but there are many out there.

Mr. Mike

14-02-2015, 00:07

This discussion has not change in the 6 years I have been involved with FIRST.
What it really comes down to is how you perceive success. Is it banner count, amount of resources, number of students, number of mentors? We are here to inspire. Some can do it with very little, others with lots of time and help.
There is a lot to learn out of admiration and emulation. I have yet to learn anything out of jealousy.

Jon Stratis

14-02-2015, 00:11

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.

I don't think there's many people here who are arguing for a 100% student team... the whole point of the program is to get mentors and students together. That said, there is tremendous opportunity for a student-led team which has mentors to advise them as they go. My team is student-led. The students make almost all the decisions. Mentors do the purchases, are responsible for selecting team captains (with student input), determining who letters. Those are the only times we get to actually make decisions. The rest of the time, we give advise, we teach, we provide options or feedback on ideas, and we make sure everyone is safe.

I've seen teams that have only a single teacher "working" with them. While what they can accomplish with no professional help is impressive (seriously, you have to put it in perspective and not try to compare it to what teams with more resources have done at that point), I can only imagine what it's like going through the season without someone to lean on. Even as a mentor, if I was the only one working with my team, I would feel completely overwhelmed. If I come across one of those teams at an event I'm working at, I try to give them a little extra attention, assistance, and guidance throughout the event.

PayneTrain

14-02-2015, 00:13

Please tell me: what "lies" are these teams telling themselves and why exactly do you feel sorry for them.

I feel sorry for "student-run" teams that delude themselves into thinking their way is the only way an FRC team can be run. Teams are run that way and think any alternative to it is lesser or invalid, regardless of any accomplishments these alternatives may have. I know from personal experience.

It's toxic, wrong, pathetic, and most importantly stupid.

The lies told?

1) from top to bottom, everything is controlled by a raucous band of teenagers revolving through the door of a four year high school. For example: if your school administrator is going to you for field trip information or handing you keys to a classroom, that person probably is in the wrong line of work. If your school administrator is not doing those things, you're not truly a "student-run" team and instead are loosely corralled by a contingent of adults monitoring the program instead of help giving it the guidance FIRST thinks it deserves.

2) that it's supposed to be that way. IT'S NOT! When I think of an ideal FIRST team, structurally, I don't actually think of 254 or 1114 or whatever team you might think of. I actually think of 190 for its partnership(I also think of 842 when it comes to building a Hall of Fame program). A 50/50 partnership between a sponsoring organization (Mass Academy) and Contributing Sponsor (WPI) that extends from funding down to leadership.

When FRC was the only program FIRST offered almost 25 years ago, the whole program was about an institution like Xerox or Motorola or Delphi Automotive or E-Systems or WPI adopting a school and showing them how cool it was to be an engineer. Obviously that kind of relationship is a rarity in FIRST ever since the program was retooled back before the 2 v 2 era. Still, 190 is a team that has existed that way successfully and uninterrupted every year since 1992. It's the way Dean Kamen saw teams coming to be, and I still think it's one of the best ways for a team to come together (there are many great ways to do it, this one just never gets enough credit).

As someone who was a student on a "student-run" team before I learned how to overcome inertia and turn the same program into a team that I consider to be a 50/50 partnership, I know the lies we told ourselves. I also know we built up a pretty strong inferiority complex.

Oblarg

14-02-2015, 00:16

Why do all of these threads inevitably turn into people arguing against a position that was never advanced?

Debate culture demands that people concede nothing, lest they lose face. It's much easier to not concede anything when you argue against a caricature.

Moreover, creating emotional distance between yourself and how your team is run is difficult, and so criticisms are taken personally and people get defensive.

who716

14-02-2015, 00:22

FRC: FIRST Robotics Competition.

It's a competition. There is no rule that says we cannot have a team of 300 of the brightest engineers build our robot for us. Team 254 inspires students by winning and being better than 99% of everybody else. That's their call to make, and not ours to discuss or criticize.

idk how i feel about this, its a competition and i grew up racing and one thing you learn about competition is if you can get an edge on someone by all means do what ever you cant to get that edge, would i be inspired watching mentors build a robot like 254 probably not, would i be inspired driving a robot like 254 on Einstein in front of thousands of people, and winning heck yeah.

now do i get do drive a robot like 254 in front of a thousands of people on Einstein and win........ no and most likely never will so do i feel its unfair absolutely so i think there is a curtain amount of criticism we are aloud to speak.

mwmac

14-02-2015, 00:26

Debate culture demands that people concede nothing, lest they lose face. It's much easier to not concede anything when you argue against a caricature.

Moreover, creating emotional distance between yourself and how your team is run is difficult, and so criticisms are taken personally and people get defensive.

No it doesn't...:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

asid61

14-02-2015, 00:59

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.
I feel for you. There are days when I want to throw in the towel and just quit, because I think we can't win.
And while it's very demoralizing to be unable to drive, or placing 50th out of 58th at a regional, it's fantastic when you get picked or end up in elims on your own.
And I've noticed, for rookies and veterans alike, the real joy comes not only from building a working robot but from the process itself; I have three rookies this year who all want to learn machining and CAD design after seeing how much I was working.
Winning used to be my drive, but lately I've found that as long as the team continues to get new members who can have this once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a robot, I'm okay with how things go. I feel the need to win to show the new people that we can win.

cadandcookies

14-02-2015, 01:12

Here come the false equivalencies again. No one is arguing that teams should have minimal or no mentor involvement.

I disagree. I've seen students argue that teams ought to be run without mentors. Not a large amount, and not in this thread, but this is pretty much a discussion that comes up every six months or less, and a large part of the time either the OP or a poster early on talks about how great their student run, student built, no mentor team is and how it's exactly what FIRST wants. That's also when the thread usually takes the dive to dead horse emoticons and people complaining that we've had this discussion a million times before (big surprise).

// Meta thread discussion
Part of the reason I think many people are defaulting to arguing that point is that it's the point that has been brought up in the past. While I agree that it would be more constructive to focus on the grey in between, it's very understandable that some (especially veteran forum members) default to this line of argument. I've been on here for the last four seasons, and I already put these threads in the "not going to touch that with a HAZMAT suit and a 30-foot pole" category. I can't imagine how some of the people who have been on here for the last 10-15 years feel about it.

I'm actually a bit surprised (pleasantly) that there's been a higher ratio of constructive conversation in this thread than there usually is. I have some theories on why I think this might be the case but I'll probably post them in a thread with a more relevant topic later.
// End meta-discussion

End note: In these types of threads I try to always remind myself that the people posting almost always have the best intentions in mind-- inspiring students, changing culture, the whole shebang. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where people came that leads to their current perspective, but that difficulty makes it all the more important to try. Having been on the other side recently of someone assuming that I had poor intentions, it can be really bewildering and confusing when someone assumes you're out for blood on their ideas. For both sides of the coin, taking a step back and looking for alternative explanations to the first assumption can be very valuable towards having a constructive dialogue.

Scott Kozutsky

14-02-2015, 02:16

As I see it, the goal of FIRST is to inspire and to teach.

Mentors are there to help guide kids in the right direction and allow them to use and understand tools they would otherwise not have access to. You can plop a kid in front of a mill or lathe and check that they don't kill themselves but they'll learn a lot more if you guide them.

That kid will also be a lot more inspired if they make something awesome instead of fumbling figuring out what was going on.

As I see it the best teams are the ones with the best process of guiding students into fields that they enjoy. Having more tools and resources allows students to learn more and make more awesome stuff. (I know 865 is going to continue using CNC despite being more competitive because it's a valuable learning tool, being competitive is an added benefit)

254 and 1114 are both teams with a lot of resources and as a result the kids that come out of them are some of the best that FRC has to offer. They are educated in engineering and very enthusiastic. It's worth it even if mentors helped along the way.

I don't like that we're discouraging devoted mentors from doing what they love. I want more students to learn more and I don't agree that less mentor involvement is going to do that.

JamesTerm

14-02-2015, 02:28

http://www.termstech.com/images/WhichLeader.jpg

Hey all,

I posted this sometime back, and wish to take a moment to speak to the mentors as this may be somewhat off topic from Mentor/Student involvement philosophies, but then... maybe it is on topic... you decide.

Firstly, I do not consider myself a leader as I don't think I am ready or want to take on this responsibility, and I do not claim to have all the answers... what I tell you here is what I've observed, experienced, and want to share it with you. This is about the picture posted here and what it means to me.

When you look at that picture... know that the guy who posted it is one of those followers has been with the same "leader" for the past 14 years, and is very happy where he is. Why is that? I admire my "boss/leader" and he's been a mentor to me (even though I do not tell him this). I get up every morning looking forward to going to work, and taking on the new challenges of the day... all the jobs prior to this where just a job... a boss, and something I dreaded going to.

I tell our students that mentors have mentors, and to find someone better that you at what you do and stay with them. This is what I've done... I know who is better than me and I learn as much as I can from them, and adopt some of their ways as a part of my own... I believe I will continue to learn for the rest of my life... when I'm old... I refuse to be set in my ways... still wanting to learn.

So let me try to bring this back on topic... I know what kind of leader I am committed to and what makes me happy each day. Can I offer this to the students? I don't know! I can say even though I don't claim to be a leader I have taken responsibility among the co-workers in our team and naturally take a lead of things here and there but in a cooperative nature. It is hard to explain, but I feel... as I've learned in the military a good follower can become a great leader.

Knufire

14-02-2015, 02:48

I talked about "magic" on the Einstein thread, and got no response. I still believe there is magic on some teams. I don't know what it is, and I doubt the folks on the teams know what it is, either.

During my senior year of high school (2013), 469 had the drive team and one or two mentors in a car to St. Louis when the bus with the rest of the team broke down. We spent a significant part of that ride trying to figure out what we had done differently that year that lead to such a high degree of success compared to previous years. We never really figured it out.

Andrew Schreiber

14-02-2015, 08:08

Here come the false equivalencies again. No one is arguing that teams should have minimal or no mentor involvement. Some people are arguing that some/many teams have too much mentor involvement.

Why do all of these threads inevitably turn into people arguing against a position that was never advanced?

Because we always bad mouth the teams that have "too much mentor involvement" (by some arbitrary metric that the poster decides) but I find the notion of student run teams, a topic that has been lauded by many on here as admirable, to be an abomination of the ideals and concepts of FIRST. There are many other competitions in which students do 100% of the work with limited mentor involvement, FRC is different. So I advanced the topic, because I've not seen any real discussion as to whether we should be as harshly critical to all student teams as people seem to be to "overly" mentored teams.

Are the two equal? No. One is, in my opinion, and according to many comments from FIRST HQ, doing FRC wrong. The other has mentors working with students.

asid61

14-02-2015, 11:32

Because we always bad mouth the teams that have "too much mentor involvement" (by some arbitrary metric that the poster decides) but I find the notion of student run teams, a topic that has been lauded by many on here as admirable, to be an abomination of the ideals and concepts of FIRST. There are many other competitions in which students do 100% of the work with limited mentor involvement, FRC is different. So I advanced the topic, because I've not seen any real discussion as to whether we should be as harshly critical to all student teams as people seem to be to "overly" mentored teams.

Are the two equal? No. One is, in my opinion, and according to many comments from FIRST HQ, doing FRC wrong. The other has mentors working with students.

Actually, could you name some of those student-run programs for me? I want to suggest some robotics programs to a few of the younger kids I know that aren't going to my HS, and I don't want to just tell them "FRC is the only one".

Lil' Lavery

14-02-2015, 14:50

Actually, could you name some of those student-run programs for me? I want to suggest some robotics programs to a few of the younger kids I know that aren't going to my HS, and I don't want to just tell them "FRC is the only one".

http://www.robotevents.com/

iVanDuzer

14-02-2015, 18:26

That's true. But I think it is not nearly the whole story.

I've spent some time reading and watching mentors on elite teams describing their process, and their analyses of various things about games and robots, and I don't really learn much new. What I haven't seen from them, is a frank discussion about how to motivate a team. I don't even know if it's possible, because I think some people are just natural leaders, and they don't really know how they do it.

(sorry in advance for the essay)

Karthik agreed with you and called it "magic." Knufire said the same thing about 469. I disagree. I don't think it's called "magic." I think it's called "pressure."

I believe that FRC teams go through three stages on their road to powerhouse status:

1) A well-organized team structure and mentor base. This is the greatest benefit a mentor can give to a team in terms of seeing on-field results. 2056 and 3710 (and I'm sure many others) have mentors who do not touch the robot or fundraising package at all. Their job is to organize, fill out paperwork, keep everyone in the loop.

You need organization to actually develop from year to year. You can have passionate students (step two), but without the organization, your on-field results will be flashes in the pan, as opposed to a veritable gold rush.

2) Passionate students and excellent mentors. You can have really, really technically gifted mentors, but if you only have 3 students, and those students see the team more as after-school hangouts than a robotics team, then you're not going to have a competitive robot.

These students, when given the right resources (in FRC, these are mentors) grow. And they love FIRST. Adore it. Imagine a team of 10 Andrew Lawrences (you might not like his post in this thread, but the guy is so crazy about FIRST it blows my mind). This was actually a reality for the early days of 2056. The core group was so passionate about FIRST that they didn't just breathe it, they lived it. And we were lucky enough to have great mentors to fan the flames.

You don't have to work to motivate these students, because they'll actually be begging you to work longer hours, to open the shop early, to work on new drive trains.

This is where success first starts to happen. Your team might win a regional, or a chairman's award, or make consistent finals appearances. But eventually, your core of passionate students graduates and moves on. Which is where stage 3 comes in...

3) Pressure. 2056 has won 19 straight regional victories. Do you have any idea how much pressure the current team is under? There is a looming cloud that says "we can't be the group that broke the streak." But it's not a bad cloud - it's a motivator.

Many of the powerhouse teams do well because they are expected to. It's hard for newcomers to "get" the team until their first competition, but they usually get it shortly thereafter. Seeing exactly how your team is regarded is one motivator. Actually winning is a huge one - it's a great feeling, and you want to capture it.

So as a second-year student, you know the stakes. You know that the community sees you as a winner. And you will do anything, anything, to keep that mantle. This pushes students who are already passionate, or even just semi-passionate, to being uber-passionate. Powerhouse teams have students that buy into the team's culture of success. No need to externally motivate when the motivation to build on and surpass previous accomplishments is ingrained into every student by their own observations.

CASE STUDY: A great example is 1717. What's going on on D'Penguineers? All of their students have no prior FRC experience - the team is only made up of grade 12s. But they are consistently one of the best teams in FRC.

Well, they're well organized: they have a great education system that starts well before the students are on the team with VEX. They had a group of passionate team members who developed what is probably FIRST's best swerve drive. And now their current team has access to these previously developed systems, and they are pressured into using them to the best of their abilities (because they only get one shot at this, remember?). Boom, powerhouse team.

The tricky thing about continued success is that it's really, really hard. If you lose any of those three stages, your team's on-field performance will suffer. Your group of students can feel pressured, but if they aren't passionate, the pressure will break them. If your team loses its organization, it's harder to reallocate resources and succeed.

When you are part of these teams, you don't really feel the pressure. You feel a drive, and a passion, but you don't really know where it comes from. That's why Karthik and Las Guerillas couldn't put their fingers on it. I only realized it after I joined another team and bought into 3710's culture, and then talked to my siblings who were still on 2056.

But there is an element of Magic to these teams as well. Legendary mentor / drive coach John VNeun once described what it takes to win Championships: it's all about preparation and practice, refinement and iteration, so that if and when you hit that streak of luck, you are able to run with it as far as possible. Sometimes, if you're lucky enough, you get that perfect alliance, and the right opponents are eliminated, and your strategies work, and you win. That is a magic I hope to experience every time I go to competition.

hzheng_449

14-02-2015, 23:53

. There are many other competitions in which students do 100% of the work with limited mentor involvement, FRC is different.

...

The other has mentors working with students.

I think for the thread to have progress we need to agree on what "student-lead" means, because I do not think "student-lead" is even remotely close to "no mentors"

I believe that the defining factor of "student-lead" teams is that students ultimately have the responsibility to make executive decisions on a team. This does not preclude heavily involved mentors providing guidance and assistance, but it does mean that said mentors would ultimately defer to the students.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, much of the bad blood regarding this debate comes from only considering one extreme. (And of course, the resulting backlash from teams that feel they are being unfairly characterized because of this extreme position... case in point my own post earlier :o ).

I don't think it's hard to accept that when someone says "student-run", they by no means mean "100% students 0% mentors". (And vice-versa) Neither extreme is healthy for a team, neither extreme is an accurate portrayal of 99.99% of teams, and neither view is constructive to furthering this discussion.

RRLedford

15-02-2015, 18:26

Yes, it is a mistake to focus mostly on the extremes, since there is really a full spectrum of different ways that the mentor-student responsibilities ultimately end up being defined, allocated, and carried out, in the process of completing a First Robotics season.

When participants (students, teachers or mentors) become upset, within this process, it will nearly always relate in some way to unfulfilled expectations, thwarted intentions, or undelivered communications (and/or combinations of all three).

As head mentor for nearly 6 years at a K-12 school that does both the FTC and and FRC programs, and launched our 2nd FTC team this year, I have seen the full range of how these upsets develop and play out.

The collection of intentions and expectations that student participants bring with them to the program varies considerably, and these are most often never really clearly communicated at the start of a season. Many times, as these student intentions and expectations start being seen (by them) as thwarted or at risk, the mentor(s') roll(s) will start to be examined and questioned.

For example, in this FTC season the sophomore team member majorities of both our FTC teams decided they would learn best if mentor involvement was kept at an absolute minimum - as in => "we'll call you when we need you."
For them, in their opinion, the mentors had become an impediment to their robotics learning process.

They indicated they would rather make their own decisions and choices, even if they proved to be wrong and their robots failed to perform as expected.

Needless to say, such an approach did not really turn out so well, and other more veteran team members considered it absurd, especially when the time window pressures for meeting robot build deadlines made this more trial & error approach (ending up heavy on the errors count) an extremely unworkable one.

The mentor group was also not so pleased to hear that their mentoring efforts could be assessed with such a negative view, by this many students, However, in the end the middle ground between the extremes of viewpoints was eventually found.

Still, it had to be acknowledged by the team mentors that, the mere success of getting a decent performing and, competition ready robot on the field, if that effort required too much hands on mentor involvement, then such an approach was not necessarily the kind of result with which all student team members would consider an equally satisfying for them way to run the program.

-Dick Ledford

ZackAlfakir

19-02-2015, 08:30

If you have mentors on your team capable of teaching programming to the level that your students can do all of it, you're very lucky.

Sorry I haven't been following through with this thread due to build season, but as a Student, I actually teach all of the lower classmen how to program. As someone with 3 years of experience, I actually don't touch the robot code for the most part, and instead I help all of the other kids understand how to do their part.

From my experience, all you really need is dedication and determination. My Rule #1 for programming team is "All Day Errey Day" and they really believe that, and that is what makes our team sucessful.

Anupam Goli

19-02-2015, 09:08

Sorry I haven't been following through with this thread due to build season, but as a Student, I actually teach all of the lower classmen how to program. As someone with 3 years of experience, I actually don't touch the robot code for the most part, and instead I help all of the other kids understand how to do their part.

From my experience, all you really need is dedication and determination. My Rule #1 for programming team is "All Day Errey Day" and they really believe that, and that is what makes our team sucessful.

Excellent. pretend you're a few years older now and are either in the process of getting your degree or have it. Congrats, you just described what most all mentors do. Here's your free corndog.
(though some mentors they may actively contribute to code too).

(as a side note, I hated in high school when my team leadership tried forcing me to teach others how to work with the control system. While I liked explaining it and helping others while they were interested, they wanted me to step back and let the underclassmen do most of the work. If I'm a student on a team, I want to be inspired, and I get my inspiration by doing the actual programming myself...)

Seth Mallory

20-02-2015, 09:20

Each team is different since the depending on the goals that the team sets for the students and the resources the team has. The following is a small listing of what is many items.

Goals for example could be to inspire, win, teach or any combination of what they want. Also in teaching what do you want to teach.

Resources include mentors, money, facilities, training time, students.

Mentors. This means how many, skill level, mindset (inspire, win, teach).
Money. How much and does it have strings.
Facilities. What tools, space, storage, or access to sponsor's facilities.
Training time. Does the team form before build and have no time to train, Is it an after school team and gets some training in the fall. Do they have a class and train year around.
Students. Is the team struggling to get members or is it more popular then the football team. Do you have students that can train the rookies in correct use of the tools and teach them how to design and build.

Now you take all of the above and much more and you make a team and that is is why there are so many different types of teams. This is why I try to not judge other teams on their program. A good robot does not mean a good program and a bad robot does not mean a bad program. If the team meets the goals set out for the students then it is a good program.

Mr. Van

20-02-2015, 12:33

Each team is different since the depending on the goals that the team sets for the students and the resources the team has.

...

A good robot does not mean a good program and a bad robot does not mean a bad program. If the team meets the goals set out for the students then it is a good program.

This is probably the most important thing said here.

The Game (winning and losing) is primarily a game of mentors. The experience of doing the whole thing is something completely different - something we often forget to focus on here on CD with our emphasis on OPR, blue banners, trips to Einstein, etc.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

philso

20-02-2015, 13:13

This is probably the most important thing said here.

The Game (winning and losing) is primarily a game of mentors. The experience of doing the whole thing is something completely different - something we often forget to focus on here on CD with our emphasis on OPR, blue banners, trips to Einstein, etc.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

^
|
|

This and what you do to have a positive impact in your community. That is why I think FIRST made the Chairman's Award more coveted than winning on Einstein.

Sam_Mills

20-02-2015, 15:01

... as a Student, I actually teach all of the lower classmen how to program. As someone with 3 years of experience, I actually don't touch the robot code for the most part, and instead I help all of the other kids understand how to do their part ...

I can appreciate your position; as a student on 11, I taught underclassmen to use Solidworks, as well as basic machining. Programming was the same, upperclassmen teaching underclassmen. There are limitations though. When I started gearbox design for example, VEXpro didn't exist, WCP was in its very early stages. Everything I learned I either taught myself using wikipedia articles, or asked mentors on teams with more experience.

Older students teaching younger students is an elegant, mutually beneficial dynamic that should be encouraged whenever possible but as I said above, there are limitations. I taught Solidworks, but I wasn't CSWA certified and there were professional conventions I knew nothing about from teaching myself.

I don't doubt that when you get to college (assuming you are doing Comp. Sci.), you will be ahead of the majority of your peers. You can't claim though to have the depth of knowledge to teach other students to write camera code for a 5 ball 2012 auton that is 85% accurate. If you could write code that could get you 70% of the way there, and have a mentor assist and debug the remaining 30% to get it working, would you honestly say "No, I don't want that. A mentor helping me would devalue the learning experience more than the gained knowledge and inspiration from winning could offset"?

I don't mean to come across as snarky, just consider the effects on the student base in each hypothetical situation before deciding one is better.

Tammyo

22-02-2015, 11:48

Our team is a student led club in which the veteran members pass down their knowledge to the newcomers. The experienced members teach the rookies what they have learned and may seek the mentors assistance on topics beyond their expertise. The goal of our team is for the students to be actively involved while mentors give their guidance.

Avrum Goldman

24-05-2015, 21:49

Joe, I agree completely with your philosophy. IMHO, FIRST robotics is such an immersive experience that almost any aspect and any element can be a "teachable moment" that will inspire the students to learn more.

I was very interested in your Sheet Metal experience. Does your team have any material you can share, such as design guidelines, library of parts you have made, or training material? Our team has access to our own "manual" sheet metal equipment, but I would like to know your views on what you can do with CNC vs manual shop.

Avrum Goldman
Lead Mentor
Team 3979 Solaris

Joe G.

24-05-2015, 22:05

evanperryg

26-05-2015, 09:18

FRC: FIRST Robotics Competition.

It's a competition. There is no rule that says we cannot have a team of 300 of the brightest engineers build our robot for us. Team 254 inspires students by winning and being better than 99% of everybody else. That's their call to make, and not ours to discuss or criticize.

Exactly. Every team has a different philosophy on how mentors should be involved; trying to get every team in FRC to utilize their mentors in roughly the same way (or to eliminate some kinds of mentor involvement) is futile. What matters is if the students are being inspired, and winning is pretty inspiring.
Admittedly, I am a strong believer that most design and strategic decisions should be made by the students. However, why underutilize brilliant mentors when they can contribute so much? Why not take advantage of the unique skills offered by mentors experienced in their field? I learned to use PCB design software this year after a mentor designed a circuit for a custom Talon SRX expansion board. Was it mentor-deisgned? Yes. Did a student learn something new? Yes. Mentor involvement in design, and student inspiration aren't mutually exclusive.