When do mentors go too far? [Archive]

Spikey

04-04-2005, 13:06

Having been to several regionals, and having competed in robotics for four years I have noticed how some teams are completly dominated by thier mentors. When you walk around in the pits instead of students working on the robot you see 4-5 adults working on the robot you begin to wonder what is going on with FIRST. I have seen adults who are a teams scouts, and builders, the students just sit in the stands and drive the robot. I have to ask myself when do mentors go too far. It can be very obvious what is a student built robot, and a robot that has been by adults.
As a team how much involvemnt do your students have? What is the point of robotics if adults are the ones designing, engineering, building, and servicing the robot? When a robot breaks down during a practice match and 4 adults rush out to fix it I ask myself why arn't the students involved?
I have seen pits where students are not even allowed to touch the robot, the adults handle all the mantiance. This problem has been going on for years, and I wonder what everyone else thinks about this subject of adult involvement.
My team is quite small and during a regional almost every student has something to do. People often ask us why we arn't cheering during the competition, and I tell them all of the kids in the stands are busy scouting. We had 9 people who filmed and wathced every single robot in every single match. The rest of our students were in the pits servicing the robot while our mentors stood back and gave pointers from time to time.
I am worried FIRST has become more lopsided with teams who have student built robots vs. adult built robots. I feel as if for some teams that FIRST is about adults building a robot for the kids, then having the kids drive the robot, when do adults and mentors go too far?

Erin Rapacki

04-04-2005, 13:17

Dave Flowerday

04-04-2005, 13:17

This discussion has come up over, and over, and over, and over, and.... use the search feature to find out how those discussions went.

In a nutshell, however, FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Go read the "About FIRST" at their website (http://www.usfirst.org/about/). It never says anything about being a competition where students build a robot all by themselves.

Additionally, as many many others have warned, be careful what you assume about the way a team operates. A team may function a lot differently than what you perceive.

plutonium83

04-04-2005, 13:20

Dave Flowerday

04-04-2005, 13:25

To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.
(Emphasis mine) And what knowledge would that be? Did you actually go and talk to them? Did you ask them about the process they used? Were the kids on the team excited to be there and having a good time (perhaps, even, being inspired)?

It's not fair to anyone on those teams to say things like this, even if you think or know it to be correct. There are many many measures of success for a FIRST robotics team and just because one team's measure does not fit the idea you have in your head does not give you the right to criticize them publicly.

Joe Matt

04-04-2005, 13:31

*sigh* To each their own, and well, we run our team where the students design, build, and do everything themselves with mentor help. We have students working on the robot all the time in the pits, and our mentors rarely handle it. That's how we run our team. While I do have personal preferences about how a team is run and I wish it was that way for ALL teams, it simply isn't, and with an organization as big as FIRST, there will be contradictions in ideas.

plutonium83

04-04-2005, 13:32

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?

The same thing applies to robotics. If the adults are doing all the work, that takes away from the student experience, which is why the adults are there in the first place.

Rich Kressly

04-04-2005, 13:39

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?

Plutonium,

We all understand your views and some will agree with you, but please know that this debate has been circling the CD drain for years with no conclusion. To recap:

1. All teams are different and FIRST places the "Inspiration" and "Recognition" above all else.

2. It is truly impossible to know a team, their process, and who is doing/learning what just by watching them at a regional. I tried it early in my FIRST career and was wrong more than I was right.

3. Each team has the right to do this any way they choose to. FIRST has made its standards on this issue clear, therefore we respect all apporaches and work to create meaningful experiences for students on our individual teams in our own ways.

BillP

04-04-2005, 13:43

Karthik

04-04-2005, 13:47

I had the same thought when I was at the Greater Toronto Regional and the Finger Lakes Regional. At GTR, I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process. At FLR, I saw an adult scouting team and a lone adult working on a robot.

This level of adult involvement takes away from what FIRST is all about, the inspiration of students.

Wow.

Your attempt to be discreet failed miserably, since there weren't really many three team collaborations at the GTR regional.

You're talking about the NiagaraFIRST.org robots, and you're doing so with no knowledge of our teams. Did you actually talk to anyone on our teams and ask them about our design and build process? Do you think it's fair of you to make assumptions our teams, without taking the time to get the facts.

Here's how things worked for NiagaraFIRST.org this season.

The day after kickoff students and mentors convened at all three schools, and broke into small groups to breakdown the game, and begin the initial brainstorming process. Later on that evening all the groups met at General Motors, and each team presented their findings and ideas. A vote was held, and ideas were narrowed down.

From here the design process began. Different ideas were prototyped as the team worked to finalize a design. Both students and mentors were involved with this process. Once the design was finalized, many finer points were ironed out by our engineers. The students were involved in this process as well.

Most of the fabrication took place at Westlane SS, home of Team 1503. They have an amazing machine shop, with CNC facilities. This is where our frame rails, sprocket hubs and wheels were made. The students from all three teams were an integral part of this process, working with their shop teacher and a GM machinist.

All the robot parts were brought to Governor Simcoe SS, the home of Team 1114. This were most of the robot assembly occurred. Again, the students were the leaders of this process as well. Students from all three schools would work late into the night with GM engineers and other mentors to get the robots built.

I'd say the more than 50% of the wiring on our robot was done my the students as well.

The credo of NiagaraFIRST.org is "Inspiring Future Science & Technology Heroes". We will never claim that our robot is 100% student built. We do have a large degree of engineer involvement. We firmly believe in our process of having the students work with and learn from engineers and other adult mentors. But to say that "the students had no involvement with the development process" is insulting, offensive, and blatantly untrue.

Kevin, I welcome you to come to our pits in Atlanta, so you can see first hand what our team is all about.

---------------
Edit:

Here's a quote from one of my students on Team 1503, from our team's message board. This was in a thread started by one of our engineers asking the kids to describe their proudest moment of the season...

"My personal favourite moment was seeing the robot completed for the first time. Knowing how much of my blood, sweat, and tears went into that thing, I was glad to be done with it, but I was happier to see it fully functional knowing that Chris V, Evelyn, Khalid, Andy and I built the thing from scratch, I, and I'm sure everyone else, almost cried when we shipped it away."

SuperJake

04-04-2005, 13:49

I've seen what you are describing, and have wondered to myself the same things that you are talking about. I had the opportunity to speak with several higher-ups in FIRST and got to ask them what they thought of the different team structures. Basically, it boiled down to learning experiences. FIRST is about teaching students about engineering and sparking an excitement for science and technology. That is a pretty broad brush to paint details with, so a lot of what that means is left up to team interpretation.

I know from close experience that some students are only allowed to watch the process of building the robot - from design to fabrication. In these teams, the idea seems to be "watch it done right, and you'll learn how to be a good engineer." I haven't had a chance to speak with students on teams like this, so I don't know their side of the story, but it seems that they are content with this approach. They still get to drive the robot and have fun at the competitions, and I am sure it is fascinating to watch engineers in their natural environment. Kinda like the Discovery Channel in this sense. And I've learned a lot from the Discovery Channel.

I was brought up on Team 365 where there is a good student-engineer relationship. Students and engineers work together to develop ideas with the engineers, everyone votes on the ideas, and the concept is done. The engineers then generate a CAD drawing of the team's ideas since most of the students don't have the knowledge of CAD to generate a model in the same time. Most of the fabrication is done by students unless the use of a few machines is limited due to DuPont's safety regulations. In that case, the mentors do that portion of the machining while the students watch. In the pits, student leaders from every sub-assembly build team lead maintenance of their part with the mentors keeping an eye on everything. The few times a lot of mentors are working on the robot are when the pit crew is out helping another team or there is too much grunt work to do in order to get the robot back together. In this system, the mentors act as a nice helping crutch - this allows the students to learn through experience while having engineers to guide them in the "right direction". I learned a lot here, and this experience has helped me in College to get into all of my internship positions.

My freshman year in College, I was asked to help out a local high school team. They were working out of the basement of their school with the help of their physics teacher. They were very limited in resources, and their only other mentor was a friend of mine from college. The students were clearly enthusiastic and interested in science and technology. In this case, the professor and college mentors only provide a watchful safety eye and encouragement as they learn with the students.

All of these examples promote FIRST's goal of inspiration in science and technology. The students are excited about technology and learning about how things work. To me, that is what FIRST is about. Building a robot is only the end goal of a long journey that is FIRST. The important part is the knowledge you gain from this experience and the ability to take your learnings into the world and pass it on. I don't think either one of these methods are more advantageous than the other, just different.

Tom Bottiglieri

04-04-2005, 14:05

This always has been, and always will be an issue. In my opinion, there is no standard correct answer. Rather, the balance between mentor (e.g. adult) and student activities must be determined by each individual team, and be revisited each and every season. This balance will be determined by the capabilities of the students AND mentors with the ultimate goal being to provide the most beneficial experience for the students.

For our team, the mentors make every effort to stand back and act as advisers during every aspect of robot design and construction. Sometimes we do feel the need to step in to settle arguments, re-focus the direction of the design/build, and to remind the students of certain physical laws that may prevent their design ideas from working as anticipated (gravity comes to mind). There have also been times when the mentors will develop alternate design implementations and, working alone, build them, to demonstrate more options that we want the students to consider.

For all our efforts to stay in the background as much as possible, sometimes the students still feel that we are "doing too much". In these cases, we just grin and bear it. There have also been times when the students have asked us to do more. As I said, there is no formula to identify the correct balance.

I also think that, the only time this becomes a real problem is when the mentors define exactly what there role will be and that role eclipses the students participation in the design, build or competition. (as in the case mentioned in another post where the students were not even allowed to touch the robot in the pits). Unless this is what the students have requested (not likely), this is wrong.
It seems as if our teams work in a very similar fashion. I like the way our team is balanced now. Students come up with a strategy, then present designs to the team, and we vote on it. This is usually where the most bickering takes place. As for actual robot contruction, adult help really depends on the particular sub group of the team. For instance, our 4 speed transmissions were an iteration of team 33's shifter, and totally redesigned by 2 students. An adult threw in an idea to save some space, but all the actual design and contruction work was done by these 2 students. But, the arm team had 2 dedicated parents who were there almost every night helping machine parts and come up with design technicalities. As for other systems.. the wiring, programming, pneumatics, and end effector were all 100% student done, with no adult help.

One of my best memories from this build season was being able to walk in one day after school, and see about 10 kids all working together, without an advisor to tell them what to do, or how to do it. If we needed to figure out how to do or fix something, we went and researched the problem until we could find the answer. We were all able to work as a team, and get the job done. But at the same time, our team would be nowhere without the support and decication of our amazing advisors.

Before someone replies to this saying "oh, you're making teams who have engineer support look bad", remember this... My freshman year on the team we were sponsored by Johnson and Johnson. We had about 10 engineers who took the teams strategy and did 100% of the work on the robot. The build was boring and I didnt learn much. I fell in love with FIRST because of the competition. Now that sure inspired me... just not in the way it was meant to. I was inspired to stay on the team to go to more competitions and have fun, not to become an engineer. But without that initial inspiration, I would have never come back to find out that we had lost that sponsor, and now needed to do all of the work on the robot in our high school. 2004 was a rough year, but we got the job done. This year we improved by leaps and bounds. I have learned so much and now I know what I want to do with my life, engineering.

As for which is better.. for me I would like to see a 50/50 mix. While it is nice to say we built the entire robot, its brutal when something you've worked on for so long fails because of lack of time and knowledge. That is what I would like to see more of; also why I had the idea of the FPG. It would give every student the chance to create their very own work to share, but at the same time give every student a qualified engineer to fall back on when they are in a hole.

Dave Flowerday

04-04-2005, 14:11

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?
Except your goal with homework is to learn that material. FIRST is not about teaching you how to build a robot - Dean, Woodie, and others have made that quite clear. FIRST is about giving you a chance to interact with engineers and see what the engineering and technology world is all about so that hopefully you'll be interested enough to pursue a career in one of those fields.

Believe me, I know where you are coming from. I spent 3 years as a student on a smaller team. I had the same opinions as you of large teams that "appear" to have everything done by the adults. I heard the rumors (and, sadly, I probably contributed to their spread) that some teams' robots were built "behind the scenes" by the engineers and ship-day was the first day that the students even saw the robot and were then just trained to drive it by the adults. I noticed that the big-name teams tended to win more awards and I "knew" there was some sort of conspiracy there causing it.

The irony is that now I am a member of one of the teams which I used to dislike because I thought it was a team where only adults did the building and the kids didn't get to do anything. Of course I now know that my opinion was misguided. In reality, my current team which I thought was so different from my old team really isn't that different at all. Students on both teams get plenty of opportunity to do hands-on work. The primary exception in raw part fabrication - we use Motorola's shop and because of that there's legal reasons why we can't let students use certain equipment.

Trust me, my team is aware of what some people think about the way our team is run. Even though they don't really know, it's still disappointing that that's what some others think of us (no, you did not say anything about my team, but if we had been at Finger Lakes then you probably would have been just as likely to say "Motorola" instead of "GM").

Tristan Lall

04-04-2005, 14:19

I had the same thought when I was at the Greater Toronto Regional and the Finger Lakes Regional. At GTR, I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.Well, this is interesting. A direct accusation against 1114, 1503 and 1680. I, like Karthik, can speak directly to the fact that this allegation is incorrect.

For the record, I assisted (in my spare time during a co-op term at GM St. Catharines) with the development of the pre-season prototype robot that would evolve into their competition design. (It did not include the tower and arm found on the competition robots.) The basic design was arrived at through brainstorming and discussion of various ideas, eventually resulting in a concept by first-year McMaster University student (and 1114 alumnus) Tyler Holtzman being chosen for development. (It was his idea to enclose the running gear in an aluminum box beam.) Though GM engineers Derek Bessette and Matthew Vint were quite involved (in their spare time) in the design and construction process of the prototype, so too were the shop teachers at Simcoe and Westlane (Greg Phillips and Ted Clark), and more to the point, so were a multitude of students at both schools, who fabricated parts and suggested modifications to the design.

To say that "the students had no involvement with the development process" is patently false. To further claim that an engineer was solely responsible for the design only compounds the fallacy, and takes credit away from those who were involved.

zarf

04-04-2005, 14:22

My team doesn't have corporate sponsors. We have a budget just a bit larger than the allowable robot cost, but good tools. We meet at the US Coast Guard Academy, and we work in the engineering building's power lab.

We have one adult mentor, Captain Wilczynski, who oversees the project and makes sure we stick to schedule. His main role is to try and keep the Academy cadets from slacking off, taking on ideas more ambitious than they have time to do, and getting behind schedule. That and to teach us the last parts of the Mechanical Engineering curriculum here.

We have another adult mentor, Master Chief Griswold, who works in the machine shop, keeps everything orderly, and teaches cadets how to use the tools and build things. If you go to him and ask how to build a particular part, he can always suggest something. He also knows exactly where to go to get supply of any basic parts such as gears, springs, aluminum, etc.

This year we had three cadet mentors. Cadets are basically college students, with a bit of military weirdness thrown on top. We did most of the work, because it was hard to get all the high-schoolers together at the Coast Guard Academy. Also, there were safety rules about using the power tools, and the high-schoolers could not be in the lab without a cadet mentor. Among the high-schoolers' tough schedules, and the cadets never being permitted to miss a class or a military obligation, the high-schoolers could only work on the robot once or twice a week, for a few hours at a time.

So what we did is, first, in the brainstorming part of the project, we got all the cadets and students together and brainstormed ideas for the robot. They built small models with LEGO Mindstorms, we threw three main ideas on the blackboard. We split up and discussed techniques in groups, and then the cadets built prototypes out of wood. We met again with the high-schoolers to discuss what we actually wanted to build. We tried to keep them in the decision-making process, but it just wasn't possible to involve them in the full build. One place where there was a large amount of high-schooler involvement was in the programming; there was only one cadet (myself) who knew how to program, and there were a few high-schoolers and one parent. So we met more often than the building team--which I was also a part of.

So how did it work out? Probably about 10-70-20, adults-cadets-high-schoolers. Was it bad? I don't think so... The high-schoolers said we really made them feel like part of the team, and we built a robot that really was much like they'd discussed and planned. I think the biggest thing was attitude. Talking to the high-schoolers just like talking to the other cadets, and being calm but not fake.

At the Long Island regional, I saw a lot of good teams, but one memory that stuck out was a team close to the stairs down to the pit. One guy on the team was yelling at everybody around him, "If you're not building on the robot, get out of the pit! Get out!" Really stressing out.

Admittedly, the constant vaguely-pumping-up music and announcements on the speakers led to an environment where it was nearly impossible to communicate. I do wish that would change--the noise level felt constantly above safe levels. I spent most of my time there in ear plugs. The environment set up there was stressful and a little frustrating, when trying to get work done. I don't know why FIRST does that. I guess the music is supposed to add to the atmosphere, but the music is artificial, and the atmosphere generated by the (much less noisy) sound of tools, arguments, cheers, and robots is far more genuine.

We were a bit stressed too, having to put last-minute fixes on the robot to make it work at all in competition. The high-schoolers were involved a lot in the pits. I was proud of how we did, and I think we treated everybody on the team well. I was pretty badly sick at the time, but even so, was getting a good vibe from the team.

Do mentors go too far? I think they can... It's hard for students to get a good mechanical engineering experience when somebody else is doing all the engineering for them, or they have a professional lab building everything and solving the problems. You need to at least meet often enough to discuss problems with the students. If you're professional and you think there is a problem with their designs, you need to discuss that with them and show them why, instead of smiling, nodding, and rejecting the idea behind their backs. I think you have to talk like grownups--to the point, getting work done--but like grownups with respect. If students are doing nothing, you need to look for somewhere they can help. If students have skills, you should use them. But the students can't be there all the time, so you shouldn't be ashamed if you do more work.

Andrew Blair

04-04-2005, 15:28

Our team, from its conception, has never had an engineer even come to one of our competitions. During build period, we have either built or started to build our idea, and our engineer, a Mr. Overfield, will then come in to tell us whether or not he feels that it will hold up under competition conditions. (We have proved him wrong several times, but he's a nice guy so we don't say anything). We take his council into account while finishing our bot, and thats the end of it mostly, as far as engineer input.

After attending several competitions, and seeing the engineer input many teams have, I realize that our team is missing out on some of what FIRST wants us to experience. We do not hear much professional advice, and therfore we have to build our robot entirely by ourselves. Sometimes this can be daunting, but in the end, and I do not intend to bash mentor run teams, I feel that a student built robot makes you learn more through trial and error. If you are constantly behind someone who knows all the answers, you tend not to learn as many answers yourself.

I do not know what having a constantly working robot and team would be like, as I have never had one, but I feel that lacking all the right answers and solutions and skills that a mentor has tends to show the true sides of people, and brings the leader out in them. If FIRST is not about building robots, but is to inspire, then student run teams do a good job of that. They always inspire, through trials and problems, and sometimes they barely build a robot. Thats seems pretty close to the definition of FIRST's objective.

Engineer teams out there, hold on to your engineers!!!! They teach a lot, I am sure of it. But students, make sure you learn, not just be inspired. The more you know now, the more you can know later. And just ask the mentors to move, I'm sure they will. It is your robot. :)

StephLee

04-04-2005, 15:55

Our team has 11 students and about 11 mentors. We share the work pretty equally, actually. The students design things, the mentors tell us if what we've come up with is possible and help us get it done. They step in if we can't do something, but if we can do it on our own, they let us. Still, it's mostly a partnership between kids and adults. I like it this way, especially since we're a rookie team and most of the kids don't know a whole lot yet(me included).

Are any other young teams set up this way?

JoeXIII'007

04-04-2005, 15:57

AHHH!!! :eek: It's another touchy issue but I feel compelled to reply to it.

When you have a group of students and a group of mentors trying to work together to create that perfect blend of work, there is a small tweaking to the math behind it. In this case 1 team's work divided into 2 groups of people cannot and will never ever equal to 1/2. Why? First of all, the human aspect of the entire thing comes into play. Who wouldn't want to have fun with all sorts of cool new gadgets, widgets, cogs and what not? It effects all ages. Second, sometimes one side is right, the other is wrong and vice versa. Finally, in order for that perfect blend to happen theoretically, someone would have to plan it out, and whoever has control over that plan, their side has the small majority. (55/45 or 50.1 to 49.9, you get the picture).

Short: its impossible to get it perfect, but if you work hard, you'll get extremely close, and that's fine in my opinion.
*edit* On the other hand, if you don't learn anything, not even a nibble, there's a problem.

Kevin Sevcik

04-04-2005, 16:04

I have little to actually add to this conversation, I'm sure I've extensively posted my thoughts elsewhere. I'd just like to note something I always notice when these threads pop up from time to time.

1. Someone comments that some team has a 100% engineer built robot.

2. People quickly point out that FIRST is about Inspiration, and there's no limits put on how that is achieved, so 100% engineer bots are perfectly alright.

3. The same person or other people often say that the original poster isn't being fair to the team they're talking about. Sometimes the original poster is said to be accusing the team of something, or somehow maligning their good name.

This seems inconsistent to me. The original poster possibly has misconceptions about said team, and should be corrected. It's not something to get defensive and upset about if one is said to have an engineer-bot, right?

Just something to think about.

Steve W

04-04-2005, 16:06

I personally believe that a 50/50 split is the best way to go. That being said...

Last year Simbotics seemed to me to be totally engineer/mentor driven. I have had discussions with Karthik and even though I don't always agree with him, the preception was there. With the Niagara First trio I would have to say that there was a HUGE change from last year. Every time I ventured near their pit there were more students working on the robot than mentors. I give kudos to these teams for their student involvement this year. Was it perfect? Probably not but was your team perfect? After talking with the students on these teams, which you know I do, I could see the light in their eyes. These were their robots!!! Inspired? That would be a definate YES.

We will continue to debate all sides of this story but please leave Niagara First out of the descussion because they "get it".

omutton

04-04-2005, 16:50

I like the way my team works. We try and be as student driven as we can. We have engineers and teachers at our side when we have problems or questions. At our competitions, you will see the mentors standing back and letting the students do the work. Our 2 drivers, human player and coach are all students. A lot of teams have adult coaches, which I don't agree with. When they have questions or need a hand, they will ask a mentor. The engineers already know what their doing and are supposed to be there to guide and inspire the students, not do all the work while the students watch.

Our team has created 2 FIRST Robotics courses in our school for next year. These courses will allow our team to be even more student run then it already is. In one of the courses, students will handle finances and deal with administration.

In short, I don't think that a team would be able to function without the help, support and guidance from our dedicated teachers and mentors. I do however think that students should essentially run the team and call on the mentors when they are needed.

Dave Flowerday

04-04-2005, 16:53

This seems inconsistent to me. The original poster possibly has misconceptions about said team, and should be corrected. It's not something to get defensive and upset about if one is said to have an engineer-bot, right?
The defensive response is because the original poster and some follow-ups implied that such teams are somehow cheating their students out of an opportunity, by asking questions like "What is the point of robotics if adults are the ones designing, engineering, building, and servicing the robot?"

The fact that these conclusions are reached on false information (that the robots in question actually are not 100% adult built) is simply salt in the wound.

Collin Fultz

04-04-2005, 17:10

I'm bored...so I'll post.

I was a student on Team 234 for 3 years. we're viewed (i think) as one of the middle of the road teams, possibly more on the engineer side. we have some really great engineers and teachers. we also have some really amazing kids. i can back that up:

98% of student's on 234 have attended college
60% for technical or scientific degrees (sounds like FIRST in a nutshell to me)
4 students now work for Rolls-Royce (a sponsoring company); many others work elsewhere
Last year, Purdue University awarded 2 scholarships, one for 30K and one for 28.5K...they went to two 234 students
This year, another Purdue scholarship (8K) went to a 234 student

2 former student's now work with teams other than 234, and one works with 234 and indianaFIRST.org
(if you want more information stop by 234's pits in ATL...they'll hit you with some knowledge)

I am now a freshman at Purdue University, in Mechanical Engineering. I've just begun to crack the tip of the iceberg of what engineering is. To think that one can "learn" engineering in 6 weeks while under the strain of building a robot too is proposterous. FIRST isn't about teaching. It's about inspiring.

Talk to the kids. Find out if they're inspired. I bet you they'll say yes.

StephLee

04-04-2005, 17:15

I know I've already replied to this, but something seems to be missing from the posts. Maybe it was in other threads before.

Isn't one of the goals of FIRST to promote relationships between students and adults that may not have otherwise formed? I'm sure I remember that from somewhere. By working WITH the mentors, our team's students have formed bonds like this. That type of thing might not happen if one group or the other does all the work.

We correct our mentors almost as often as they correct us. Like how our head mentor never had his safety glasses on in the pit; the whole team was on his back constantly about that. The students generally know the rulebook more thoroughly than the mentors, too, so the adults ask us about rules.

Cory

04-04-2005, 18:26

This problem has been going on for years, and I wonder what everyone else thinks about this subject of adult involvement.

This is not a problem, it is simply a different way of doing things.

If you don't see students on those teams complaining, why does it bother you how they're inspired?

The end result is the same. Students are inspired. That's all that matters in FIRST.

KTorak

04-04-2005, 19:13

I personally look down on Engineer designed and built robots becuase I always wonder: "What do students learn from sitting there and watching someone else o the work for them?" The answer probably is: "Very little, if anything." FIRST is designed to be a learning experience. An engineer has had numerous years of education and learning expeience. The students on the other hand have had very little, if any education in the engineering field. FIRST helps them gain some basic knowledge in the engineering field, such as trial and error, different design characteristics, assembly and manufacturing pocesses (milling), and much more that many of us already know about. When you have an Engineer or any adult member do all the work, it takes away from the students experience.

I'm proud to say to others that 1023 is all student run. A core group of vetern team membvers (4 to be exact) do alot of the decision making. They come up with ideas, such as a list of regionals to attend, and the rest of the team meets and dicusses our options then votes. When we build our robot, we brain storm after kick-off (at our lockin) to come up with ideas to use. Then we vote on an idea and design it using a CAD program (with some help from our lone engineer mentor). After that, we're more or less on our own. We machine 99% of our parts our self, and do 99% of the work on the robot. The only work that is done by an adult is complex machining (like making a spool to wind our belt lift on). After the robot is built, we test it and our mentor is there to give suggestions on how to improve it if we get stuck and need assistance fixing a problem.

We believe that this system works well because we (the students) learn alot during the build season. Its a great hands on experience to build a robot from virtually nothing. It's an even better experience to be at a competition with a Finalist robot and knowing that you labored over it to make it work. You remember all the hard hours of work that you put into it through out the season.

...Just my $0.02

Cory

04-04-2005, 19:18

I look down on Engineer designed and built robots becuase I always say to my self: "What do students learn from sitting there and watching someone else o the work for them?" The answer is: "Very little, if anything."

You are entitled to your own opinion, but who are you to say what a student is learning until you are a student on said team?

Maybe you wouldn't want to be on a team where engineers do more work than students, but that doesn't mean that others feel the same way.

Richard Wallace

04-04-2005, 19:52

...students, make sure you learn, not just be inspired. The more you know now, the more you can know later. And just ask the mentors to move, I'm sure they will. It is your robot. :)
I agree with Andrew.

Much as my development-engineer's ego wants to push its own ideas, I have to say that my team made me very proud this year by telling me and the other mentors to step aside, and let them design and build THEIR robot.

They've done pretty well this year: regional Chairman's Award at St. Louis and semi-finalist at Buckeye.

I'm for inspiration, and for teamwork between mentors and students, too. But my experience is that nothing gives mentors more satisfaction than seeing students pick up the challenge and go with their own ideas.

[All that said, I won't stop pushing my own ideas next year.]

KenWittlief

04-04-2005, 20:19

Sarah Johnson

04-04-2005, 20:45

As I was reading through this thread, and I have read several others like it around Chief Delphi, it struck me that most of the people posting were debating how mentors can or cannot be too involved... and I personally have a totally different opinion on the whole thing. I think that on my team for one, the mentors and engineers let the students do TOO much.

I am on team 573, and although many of my teammates would disagree, I feel that our mentors often step back in situations where our robot could have turned out a lot better. Our teachers are proud that they are never in the pits and that the students operate the whole team by themselves. I'm not saying that because every student on the team knows how to maintain and fix the robot, it is a bad thing. What I am saying is that the mentors should be involved and working with the students, to engineer the robot. More often than not, actually.

I love how our team has excellent student involvement and dedication. What I am concerned about it how our mentors feel that this is "the students" team and not a collaboration of engineers and students. I think that if we had a cooler robot that was designed better than students could do (virtually) alone, we would be more inspired and I am sure we would love our robot just as much... if not more.

I am always amazed by the robots the big powerhouse teams have. I find myself wondering why we can't have a robot like that. I always come back to the fact that students could never have built those robots with even minimal engineer involvement. The teams who build those kind of awesome robots definitely do not step back and let the students take over. The engineers play a big role on those team. I feel more inspired by those robots. I get excited when I see them. I even cheer for them (at times) more enthusiastically than my own robot. Like in the elimination rounds.

I think that when a robot can do that for someone who hasnt even taken part is building and designing it... you know they are pretty darn inspiring. I love my team and our robot, but I just wanted to say that not all students like to build the robot ALL by themselves. Also, that mentors CAN do "too little" as well as "too much"

neilsonster

04-04-2005, 21:47

For us I'd say 100% of the electrical, programming, and fundraising work is done by students. We have five engineers that help us with the fabrication of the robot in terms of teaching students how to work with the machines, and helping us get different parts. Overall at least 60% of the robot's fabrication is done by students. I am really happy with how we do things.

For teams who have their mentors and engineers do everything, all I have to say is that it means a lot more to EVERYONE for a student built robot to be a champion than otherwise. It also provides a LOT more inspiration and recognition of science and technology.

Kims Robot

04-04-2005, 21:49

When do engineers go too far?

1. when winning a plastic trophy is more important that winning a student's admiration and respect

2. when they start yelling

3. when students are only allowed to touch the robot with their eyes

4. when they put the robot in the back of their car and drive off to live in the mountains of Alaska, never to be seen again, because "you people dont understand, thats why!"

more here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36384

Ken, I 1000% agree with you!! The student built vs engineer built robot debate is old, and will likely never end. I like 50/50 myself, but to each team their own... but you have hit the nail on the head... when the students arent included, or the mentors take it WAY to seriously, and yell at their drivers or other teams drivers, or when awards drive a team, that is when they have gone too far... not whether or not they built 0% or 99% of the robot.

Spikey

04-04-2005, 21:56

The defensive response is because the original poster and some follow-ups implied that such teams are somehow cheating their students out of an opportunity, by asking questions like "What is the point of robotics if adults are the ones designing, engineering, building, and servicing the robot?"

The fact that these conclusions are reached on false information (that the robots in question actually are not 100% adult built) is simply salt in the wound.
I'm in no way trying to present false information, I am just reporting my experience through interactions with other teams and mentors. I have talked to mentors who have advised teams that have the students tell the engineers what they want, then the students see the finished product a few weeks later.
I'm not saying that these students should feel cheated, they are free to feel however they want too. Maybe they like having an adult built robot that performs well and wins all the time.
I acknowledge that part of FIRST is about inspiration, but inspiration cannot have a full effect without interaction. Teams that truly inspire students to pursue engineering involve those students in the process. Hands on experience is the way robotics inspires students to get involved in engineering. Even if some students choose not to build their robot because they deal with other aspects of FIRST seeing other students work on the robot can be inspiring as well.

davelu

04-04-2005, 22:26

nobrakes8

04-04-2005, 22:52

We had the problem of menotrs takeing over the team in the past. Our team's mentors kind of took a lead role, they were involved with team 228 since 1999 and when we split off in 2003 they had a general idea on how to have a competitive robot. Funding and organization was our problem in 2003 and 2004 along with the fact the students were mostly new to FIRST and didn't understand we couldn't do every challenge the game threw at us (like last year had so much to do).

In 2004 we had the final pieces in place of our team as far as organization for students, added 2 more mentors for 2005 and really gave a big foundation.

Most of the new teams probably go through what our team did, maybe even longer than 2 years if their mentors and teams don't have a background in FIRST.

On our message boards on the website the second week of the year we reminded our team that we are a "high school" built team not a Timken or Hamilton Sundstrand (our mentor's companies) built team.

All but one of our mentors really backed off this year, the mentors did come up with the overall design of the robot useing what the students felt the robot needed and then stepped back and let the students go to work.

It's only to the benefit of teams to let students do the work after a team forms that foundation, if you look at Team MAX over the past two years when were "mentor built" compared to this year when it was "student built" the results are so much different at the compeition and the students have a much more fun time I think, especially because once we're out of qualifing and into elmination rounds the only people who touch that robot on the field area is the drive team and 2 student pit crew members.

S.Nickens

05-04-2005, 00:40

As I read through posts like this, one thing is clear, this is an issue that can never be resolved. Some people think the other teams are doing it all wrong and their way is how all the other teams should do it. That’s funny, considering the odds of everyone on their own team agreeing on everything is pretty slim.
If every team was the same and worked the same way, then all the robots would be the same. What fun would that be? One of the best things about this program is seeing all the different solutions to the same problem.
While some mentors may not “get it”, don’t make assumptions. Your mentors are volunteers. FIRST is generating millions of dollars of FREE professional guidance, technical expertise and technology to share with you. Show me one program other than FIRST that is capable of making that happen without charging you thousands of dollars. If you have a problem with your mentors “getting too involved“, try to work things out. If you have a problem with another teams mentors, you’re focusing your energy in the wrong direction. Change the things you can, don’t worry about the things you can’t, and be wise enough to know the difference.

Good Luck and Best Wishes To All

Daniel Brim

05-04-2005, 01:46

A perfect post for this thread: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=362086&postcount=30

KathieK

05-04-2005, 06:20

Andy Brockway

05-04-2005, 07:58

mathking

05-04-2005, 09:10

I have hesitated to post in this thread, or any of the others like it, because I don't want to confuse my preferences with "what is right." That said, here are a couple of observations.

The purpose of FIRST is to inspire students to study science and technology. There are a LOT of ways to do that. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the way your team does it is "the right way" just because you like it.

If students really aren't doing any of the real work on the robot, they are not being inspired as well as they could be. Sorry for the blanket statement, but it isn't just opinion. It is a well established fact in educational research. Students will realize that they are spectators rather than participants in FIRST. But don't make the mistake of assuming this is what is going on by observing a team for a couple of minutes at a competition.

I am betting that a lot of the teams who seem like they have a completely engineer built robot don't really. I also bet there are a lot of teams where the students don't really have substantive involvement in the design and building process.

This doesn't mean that a 100% student built robot is the best either. You don't learn as much doing everything on your own as you do when you learn from a professional. A mentor should be guiding the students to be able to do more. Mentors should be offering their professional guidance.

Don't use the "you can't learn engineering in 6 weeks" as an excuse to let students not do/learn anything. You can learn a LOT in 6 weeks. (Particularly 6 weeks of FIRST with perhaps 20 hours or more in a week spent working on the robot.)

Don't be afraid of mistakes. A mentor should point out problems with a design or idea. That is part of learning. But don't think that the mentors should do everything just because they will do it better. Mistakes are powerful learning tools.

One of the most effective ways to inspire is to give students involvement from the start. This should be seen as a central duty of mentors. Involve the students. Challenge them. Ask them questions. Make them defend their answers. Students should learn through their involvement. When students learn more and start to do more work they will feel they have earned something. This is a key to inspiration.

The post below is an example of the philosophy I would, as a teacher and team advisor, look for in a mentor:

Much as my development-engineer's ego wants to push its own ideas, I have to say that my team made me very proud this year by telling me and the other mentors to step aside, and let them design and build THEIR robot.

They've done pretty well this year: regional Chairman's Award at St. Louis and semi-finalist at Buckeye.

I'm for inspiration, and for teamwork between mentors and students, too. But my experience is that nothing gives mentors more satisfaction than seeing students pick up the challenge and go with their own ideas.

[All that said, I won't stop pushing my own ideas next year.]

The mentor-student relationship has the potential to be a powerful influence on the student. (and the mentor) However your team operates, remember that fact. The satisfaction a mentor gets from watching students gain confidence and assert themselves is tremendous.

omutton

05-04-2005, 09:18

We have a small Mentor base. This past year we were fortunate to have two Mentors spearhead our fundraising.

To continue with KatheK's line of questioning..... I am also curious on how many students lead their fundraising, set-up presentations at companies, follow-up on promises. Who makes sure the robot makes it to the presentation, cleans up afterwards and makes sure all materials are ready for the next presentation.

This is about more than building a robot, we cannot only do the fun things. If you are fully involved than you will be prepared to do anything in life.

I am fundraising co-captain. It is my responsibility to make initial contact with a company and set up an appointment. If the robot is needed, the people attending the presentation will load and unload it and set it up. I set up the binders with team information and pictures and such. Of course, I couldn't do this without the help of the mentors/teachers. They drive us down and photocopy things and do all the things the students don't have access to. Seeing as I am in charge of fundraising, it's my responsibility to make sure everything runs smoothly and my responsibility to contact a company, set up an interview and try and raise money!

thoughtful

05-04-2005, 09:22

Wow, didn't see a single post in this thread about mentors and the non-engineering aspect of a team... just a question, not meant to insult or inflame, just curious, on the student-led teams, how did you eat during your Regionals? Was one of your students in charge of figuring out where the team would get breakfast, make the bagged lunches, figure out what restaurant could seat you all for dinner? And did you put your hotel reservations on your credit card (to be reimbursed later)? Our team has a large mentor base. I'd love to talk to a team which is more student-based to see how you do it all.

I think you have a good point. IMHO FIRST is about collaboration between mentors and students. Although, i may not have any right to make this statement but i think a team shouldn't be 100% student-built/led or 100% mentor-built/led. Students love to build robots, and i also know that they love to get guiudance from their mentors. Its about finding the best balance. However, its important for all of us to understand where some of these posts are comming from. Sometimes i have myself seen mentors scouting, building, strategizing and even moving(to/from matches) the robot!. This is disapointing for me, either the team's students dont care or they are not allowed to. Both of which are unacceptable in FIRST. If any team has a situation like this the best way is to communicate. All mentors are selfless, they take their precious time away form home/daily routine to come and help the students. If the students talk to them and explain their dilema they will co-operate.

Just my $0.02 :)

Kit Gerhart

05-04-2005, 09:27

In reality, my current team which I thought was so different from my old team really isn't that different at all. Students on both teams get plenty of opportunity to do hands-on work. The primary exception in raw part fabrication - we use Motorola's shop and because of that there's legal reasons why we can't let students use certain equipment.

Trust me, my team is aware of what some people think about the way our team is run. Even though they don't really know, it's still disappointing that that's what some others think of us (no, you did not say anything about my team, but if we had been at Finger Lakes then you probably would have been just as likely to say "Motorola" instead of "GM").
You are, to a large extent, describing "The Pink Team" as well as WildStang. Our parts are fabricated in a NASA shop which, like the Motorola shop, can allow only shop employees to operate certain equipment. Still, students help assemble the robot and, more importantly, students are heavily involved in deciding the functions of our robot, the type of drive base, etc. If you look at our robot up close, as with WindStang's, it is obvious that the machine's parts were not made in someone's garage with a hack saw and a file, but that doesn't mean the students don't learn anything and are not inspired. The students have great pride in, and feel "ownership" in our robot, even though they don't run the water jet machine that makes a lot of those cool looking parts.

There are compromises in all FIRST teams. To me, my team of several years, TechnoKats, has the best of all worlds in that they have their own shop with enough equipment to fabricate most of their parts. In that shop, students run mills, lathes, etc. and make many or the robot's parts. Still teams like my present team, and the opposite extreme of teams with no resources having to built their robot with "hack saws and files," can provide inspiration to the students. This year FIRST has done the teams with few resources a big service by providing the very good "kitbot" transmission that makes it easy for a team to have a decent drive base.

Joe Matt

05-04-2005, 09:37

Wow, didn't see a single post in this thread about mentors and the non-engineering aspect of a team... just a question, not meant to insult or inflame, just curious, on the student-led teams, how did you eat during your Regionals? Was one of your students in charge of figuring out where the team would get breakfast, make the bagged lunches, figure out what restaurant could seat you all for dinner? And did you put your hotel reservations on your credit card (to be reimbursed later)? Our team has a large mentor base. I'd love to talk to a team which is more student-based to see how you do it all.

Don't get me wrong, I agree mentors, parents, and teachers are a VERY important part of a working team, from what you described to actually inspiring kids into science and engineering, but from what I have read, it seems that many people are disappointed in the whole "new train set on Christmas day" type scenario. I read this in a tour book once about if you are doing it for the kids or if you are doing it for yourself. Imagine you are 7 years old on Christmas (or any other holiday) day and you got a huge, new, shinny train set. You have the train, the track, the little people, the cool gates that go up and down when the train comes near it, even a faux tunnel! But before you get to play with it, your dad takes it downstairs to build it up, allowing you only to watch and see it in motion. Your dad thinks it's best if he sets it up and runs it, he thinks you'll get more out of it.

That's the thing I think people have problems with, the whole "engineers with toys" portion of it. The engineers don't have to be greedy or power hungry, just a little to excited to inspire. Is this analogy true, I don't know, I'm only part of one team so far. But I can see where these people are coming from.

Rosiebotboss

05-04-2005, 12:20

This is an issue that FIRST usually decides not to handle personally because FIRST is about 'Inspiration' and not exactly 'Education' (search for similar threads on CD, you may find a few). Every team has their own unique way of working together and its difficult to tell which method is better. One hand states that a student-built robot is better because the students get more hands-on work, but on the other hand a mentor-built robot gives students direct insight into more advanced design options and how 'real' teams get things accomplished. Basically, as long as students are being inspired (and the team follows the rules), either way is OK.

This only matters for awards though. A 50/50 student/mentor partnership is the best way to go when it comes to judges; however, I personally like all student-built robots.

And we know Erin LOVES Rosie!!

We include the high school students in 100% of the design decisions, 80% of the machining, 95% of the assembly, and 100% of the descision making for the team. The only reason for the small amount they are not actively doing is for schedule reasons. Simply because the mentors can work faster. The students do 90% of the work in the pits, 100% of all the interviews with scouts, judges and spectators.

BTW, with this set up we are KPCB Entrepreunership Award winners 2 years running AND have a grand total of 10 minutes actual repair time on our robots in the last 2 years. Nothing broke in 2 years.

KathieK

05-04-2005, 12:45

A better way for me to state my question (and this is a general question that I think a lot of mentors would ask) would be, "How can I, as a mentor, inspire you, as a student, to take on the not-so-glamorous tasks?" It's so easy for us to take over and "do it myself" - it's very hard to ask for volunteers, have no one step up, and then let something go undone because no one volunteered to do it. (I know, I know, just because we did something in the past doesn't justify doing it this year or next year...)

But as a mentor this is a learning process for me, too, and I'd love some ideas for getting more involvement from the students on the things that no one wants to do....

Spikey

05-04-2005, 13:09

I completly agree that mentor involvement is crucial to any team. Without mentors I would have never have learned how to design a good wiring or pneumatics system for our robot. When mentors are serving as teachers and advisers to the students who then experiment and use that knowlege that they have gained from the mentor to build the robot, that is what I belive to be the spirit of FIRST on the robot side. Mentors do a lot of behind of scenes work like planning for the regionals and other things that most students have no involvement with. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, students should learn organizational skills as well. I am more strictly speaking from the robot side of things, the Toy Train analogy by the previous poster seems to sum up best what I am trying to get across about the robotics experience.

dhitchco

05-04-2005, 13:17

What to do when mentors go "too far".

1) Be sure to actively TALK and roll-up-your-sleeves if you want to take a leadership role and that action, all by itself, will give the signal to the mentor(s) that you want them/us to back-off.

2) When you go to work in the "real world", you will find the full spectrum of very passive managers to very active "micro-managers". You will have to deal with both styles.

3) In any mentoring/parental activity there is a fine line between too much hand-on nurturing and too much hands-off. Just be sure to communicate your own needs and desires clearly. I suspect most mentors, since their involvement is after-work and voluntary would be very happy to see the students do more.

In my rookie team's case, we did have many nights during the build season where not everyone was involved in doing something. I suspect we could have done more of the spirit & fundraising activities in parallel each evening to the actual build.

Alexander McGee

05-04-2005, 13:18

These threads have been around a lot this season. Am I the only one noticing this?

On one side, we have the distressed students trying to understand how some teams operate. What appear to be “engineer built” bots are at every regional, and generally place highly at nationals. On the other hand, we have the dedicated engineers and mentors who make all this happen, defending their level of involvement.

To the students: take a good look at the teams that you think are built by engineers. Sure, there are some teams where the students hardly touch the robot at all. We have all witnessed the familiar scene in the pits where the students stand idly by while three or four adults are working on the robot. However, many very excellent teams have major, if not complete student involvement. Keep that in mind. Talk to these students on these teams; find out what they learned, what they know, and how they “did it”.

To my fellow mentors and engineers: Keep doing what you are doing, but take a look at yourself along the way. There is a reason that this is called a “high school” robotics competition, and there is a reason that high-school students are required to drive the robots. Inspiration is one thing, but handing students fabricated parts and having them bold them together is not what this is all about. Let them get their hands dirty, let them do the engineering. It is, after all, just a game. Let the students be involved. How much they do is up to you, but don’t ever withhold an opportunity to teach a student something new. Don’t let this become a hobby, do it for the right reasons.

See you all at nationals!

Dave Flowerday

05-04-2005, 16:01

Don’t let this become a hobby, do it for the right reasons.
I wasn't going to post in this thread again, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to respond to this.

Almost any reason for a mentor or engineer to get involved with this program is the right reason. You say "Don't do this as a hobby" yet what a lot of people don't realize is that if this program wasn't fun and exciting (like a hobby) for the adults as well as the kids then it wouldn't exist. I believe the whole reason FIRST is as successful as it is is because the adults involved do think of it as a hobby, with the added bonus that they get to do this great thing for all the kids in the program as well.

If all the adults who are now on FIRST teams were willing to put this much time and effort into making sure high schoolers get exposure to science and technology careers just for the sake of doing the right thing then Dean and Woodie wouldn't have had to dream up this competition in the first place. The fun, exciting, and challenging aspect of this program is what keeps the adults interested and involved just like the students.

If every machine in FIRST was completely student-built using whatever equipment students have available to them, this competition would not be nearly as exciting as it is now. Dean and Woodie knew this when they created FIRST, otherwise they would have just asked companies to pony up money and supplies instead of engineers and access to machine shops too.
handing students fabricated parts and having them bold them together is not what this is all about
What exactly gives you the right to make this statement? What if I said that letting students build the whole robot without any adult help (a fact which many teams actively brag about) is not what this program is about? The message that FIRST repeatedly sends us is that anything which is done to expose high schoolers to science and technology is what this program is about. What we're really trying to accomplish is to get all the high school kids here to go to college, study these fields, and get jobs in these fields. How that gets done really isn't that important. Some teams let the kids build the whole robot without any adult oversight, some have lots of engineer help with design and fabrication. As long as the students on either style of team are inspired to pursue a career in science or technology then the mission has been accomplished.

Chris Hibner

05-04-2005, 16:25

I promised that I would stay out of this one, but I just couldn't do it. This thread comes up at least twice a year and it is the same arguments all of the time. In that spirit, I'm going to make this same post that I've already made a half dozen times. Here it goes...

There is nothing wrong with having engineers take over certain aspects of the robot, or even entire robots. Here is why:

This program is meant to INSPIRE students to go to college for engineering. One of the best ways to do that is to create something in front of them that is incredibly cool yet way over their head. If the students say, "that is SO COOL", and "I wish I could do that", then the program is a success. If enough students wish they could do something that cool, then act on it (by going to college), then this program is a success.

That being said, everyone is different. Some students need the hands-on experience to be inspired. Some are more inspired if they are in awe of what they see and can't possibly imagine that a college education can teach them to do that.

I like to do a little of both. Let the students get their hands on the robot and gradually teach them and make them more able to do more on their own. While that is going on, I like to have the engineers doing something that has a big WOW factor that is later explained to the students how it was engineered, and what school subjects are used and how they were applied (hopefully inspiring them to find school fun and useful).

The end point is that a lot of inspiration can be had on both ends of the spectrum. I don't ever want to see the highly engineered robots go away; after all, that's what makes all of the people in the stands say "WOW - I wish I could've done THAT!" To me, there's a lot of inspiration in that.

Andy A.

05-04-2005, 16:45

Jay Trzaskos

05-04-2005, 16:50

handing students fabricated parts and having them bold them together is not what this is all about

Sorry but I have to post about this statement too. I am High School sophmore and this year, as you may or may not know, 229 worked with the Thunder Chickens(217) to create a tower that worked to both teams advantage. While we students didn't fabricate this extendo, we had a lot of input on what we wanted it to do. We also helped to design some of the features of this tower. Sure there might not have been as much input as previous years due to the distance between the 2 teams and such. Yet we still put together a robot with a lot of student designs and ideas in it. There will, for as long as i am on this team, be a lot of student fabrication, design, and build put into 229's robots.

We don't have your GM engineers or profesional machinists, we have a bunch of college kids and high schoolers building a robot. In the end I think I like this better, these college kids are always open to our ideas and designs. They stress the importance of student ideas during the design and build process. Example: I had designed a gripper for our robot this year. At the meeting when i was going to present it, we were shown a design one of the college kids came up with. I told the mentors how much better I liked this design, but they still insisted on taking the time to go over the design with me. Me and a few other students then helped to make the lance design we are now using better. My original idea may not have gone on the robot, but alot of other ideas of mine went into making our lance/robot better.

Last year i got all excited about a couple of chain tensioners i had designed/built/assembled for the robot. This seemed to me to be a huge acomplishment for me as a freshman. After we got the robot back from Nationals I sat and stared at it. I could list off all of the parts i helped to design/build/assemble/fix.

When you look at these robots or talk to the students, I'm sure they can tell you about how they were inspired by their mentors and the entire build process. Whether they designed a part of the bot or not. They are, most likely, still inspired by the experience. It may not even br the building that inspires them, to go on into the fields of science and technology, it's really the experience that brings them back

As for students in the pits, we have a pit crew of around 5 people. Two college students and three high schoolers, I also jump in if there is work that needs to be done. whenever there is a job that needs to be done, there is a high schooler on it. the college students are there to make sure it gets done correctly. And if we don't know how to fix something, they are there to teach us how.

The end point is that a lot of inspiration can be had on both ends of the spectrum. I don't ever want to see the highly engineered robots go away; after all, that's what makes all of the people in the stands say "WOW - I wish I could've done THAT!" To me, there's a lot of inspiration in that.

I agree. These highly engineered robots are one of the big reasons i come back every year. I am always saying, "John, can you tell me how that works?" or "Carne, can we build one of those for the robot?" Last year at Nats i took a walk down murders row and stood staring at Wildstangs bot with all the sheet metal fabrication and asked John, "We really need to do that next year, can we?" These amazing robots may be designed largely by engineers, but they always inspire me.

Sorry for my long post and incessant ranting. I am also sorry if I got a little off topic. And if it may not all make sense :rolleyes: , these are my feelings and may not reflect those of my fellow team mates.

I don't have anything against/see anything wrong with having professional engineers and machinists as team mentors, this is just the setup i am used to and like.

Derek Bessette

05-04-2005, 17:05

I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.

This level of adult involvement takes away from what FIRST is all about, the inspiration of students.

As the head design mentor for NiagaraFIRST.org I figure I shouldn't let this type of whimsical comment pass without a reply.

Karthik, Tristan and Steve have all told stories of how we do things to back up what we have done so I am going to try and stay away from defending the way we do things. I think the results speak for themselves. I know we have a lot of room for improvement but in no way do I think we are doing something wrong. What I am going to do is tell you why I participate in FIRST and what my experiences have been so far.

FIRST for me is a hobby. I enjoy it and I don't get paid, that to me is a hobby. When I was attending Queen's University I was a part of the Mini Baja team. This team was a group of engineering students that built an off-road vehicle that we raced against other schools. There were about 12 students on the team and we had no engineering help. We did have the shop workers who helped us when they could. We built all of the vehicle ourselves and did pretty well after a few years of learning lessons the hard way. I loved every moment I spent on that team. I loved the feeling of building and designing something. That experience is the only reason I have a job at GM today.

After a year of working here the Engineering Manager asked me if I would like to help out with the FIRST robotics team we were starting (team 1114). I agreed to give it a try and immediately fell in love with it.

With FIRST I am able to combine my loves of designing, fabrication, teamwork, competition and teaching all into one "hobby". Right from the beginning I was involved a lot in the design and build process. We had a few key students with the interest in working in these areas who I worked with along with a few other mentors. We did everything as a team. We all had our roles and we worked together to complete a common task. When the first season was over I was proud of the robot and the students.

Our second season was much of the same. Great kids, great mentors, and a great robot. After that second season I decided I wanted to take more of a leadership role on the team. That is when I became the lead mentor for team 1114. We recruited more mentors in the off-season and recruited two more schools to join our group (now called NiagarFIRST.org). By doing this we were able to get more kids involved in FIRST. It was tough this year with three teams to keep them involved in the design. The brainstorming session at GM really got the kids excited and involved. After that day we knew what the robot would do. The rest of the season is a blur. I couldn't tell you which kids or which mentors did what because it was all a team effort. The only thing I do know is that we inspired kids. I know that for sure. I see them every day. They love it!

I've been on a team with no mentors and I have been on a team with lots of mentors. I know both sides. Both sides are great! There is no need to make any drastic changes. Just keep in mind the goal of inspiring students and thrive to do it better.

To make a long story short. I love designing robots and I love working with the students. Does my excitement get in the way of mentoring sometimes...I'm sure it does. But my excitement for engineering is what inspires the students, so I won't feel bad for loving FIRST so much.

I hope this helps.

MikeDubreuil

05-04-2005, 17:06

The excitement of being an engineer is being able to take a problem and create a solution. FIRST provides this opportunity by creating the problem, the game, and leaving the solution, the robot, up to the team.

What’s important to remember is that inspiration is the objective of the FIRST program. FIRST’s goal is to motivate high school students into technology related programs in college. Upon graduation they will enter the workforce as an engineer or scientist.

FIRST’s goal is not education; it is not an advanced shop class. If your school embraces the education part, more power to you, but it’s not FIRST’s focus. Building a robot is an assembly line manufacturing job.

This misconception happens a lot in my major computer engineering technology at my school. Students come and say they want to learn how to build personal computers. What they don’t realize is that that job isn’t very glamorous and is a manufacturing job on an assembly line.

Everyone please don’t take offense, I certainly don’t want to disparage manufacturing jobs. After all, just like the garbage man, someone needs to do it. It is however prudent to understand that FIRST was not started by Dean Kamen to create factory workers.

newton418

05-04-2005, 20:57

The team I am on (418, Purple Haze, LASA Robotics) is a team made up of students, one teacher (who is our coach), one mentor, one welder and a parents association. The parents association handles the money, provides transportation and leads the “frou crew,” which puts up flags and shiny things in the stands. Our teacher occupies himself with the paper work, making sure we have materials, dealing with the school and of course teaching his classes. Our mentor focuses on another, smaller, competition we compete in which overlaps with the FIRST build season. He also attends competitions because he enjoys the FIRST organization. Our welder does exactly that, welds aluminum pieces for our team because we don't have the facilities for aluminum welding. Besides this the kids do everything. We design the robot, we build the robot, we modify the robot, we test the robot, we model the robot and we’ve even been known to sleep with the robot.

Personally, I love this approach. Being a small team (we had 19 members go to competition) we rely on each and every student to work on the robot. As a result, when I was a freshman I was expected to design and machine parts which would go on the robot. In doing so I have learned much more than in any class I’ve taken. Additionally, I think the single biggest compliment I’ve ever received is the look on the Cheesy Poofs’ coach last year at nationals after our coach informed him we had no professional help.

I don’t mean to preach that having adult help is bad, nor do I mean to suggest that one way is better than the other but I do have to say, winning a round against a robot built with the help of professional engineers feels great.

mathking

05-04-2005, 22:15

FIRST’s goal is not education; it is not an advanced shop class. If your school embraces the education part, more power to you, but it’s not FIRST’s focus. Building a robot is an assembly line manufacturing job.

This is the one concept in all of the threads on this topic that really bothers me. And I know it is something Dean Kamen has said.

I don't care if some teams have all engineer built robots. Or if teams have all student designed robots. But for all the teams which are from a high school or schools, it is imperative that this be an educational experience. It may not be FIRST's focus but is the mission of schools. And in my view it is almost criminally wasteful to miss the opportunities for learning that present themselves when students get to work with professionals.

Furthermore, without "the education part" you are not going to do a good job inspiring. It just won't happen. Students need to be participants and not spectators if you really want to inspire them. This is not just opinion, it is well established and well tested theory in education and psychology. Participation does not have to mean students do all or even most of the work. It means that students are involved in the process and that they feel involved in the process. Building a second robot exactly like the first one may be an assembly line manufacturing job, but designing and building the first robot is not.

OK, I am editing this because the post came out a bit (WAY) stronger than I wanted to. I really am trying to convince people not to waste the chance to educate and not chastise. And I certainly am not casting aspersions on how teams involve students as participants. As I said in my first post in this thread, there are many ways to get students involved and thankfully many of these get demonstrated by FIRST teams every year.

Chris V 1503

05-04-2005, 22:45

Hey all,

I'm from team 1503 and what Karthik, Tristan, and Dereck said is 100% true. The mentors only helped us with the designing process. I would know it, I'm the leader of the Design & Build team for team 1503 and I basically along with a few others built the entire robot. Tell me how it feels after spending 3 hours designing a wheel, then spend 4 hours infront of a CNC machine making the wheel???? I had to do this for 28 wheels I spent almost half of the three weeks cutting wheels and various small parts that was designed between the three schools. Our mentors from 1114, 1503 and 1680 was basically there to help us along the way. Advice on how to make these parts, thats all. When we packed the robot into the crate on ship day. I had about 4 tears in each eye just watching all the blood, sweat, long nights, and hours I put into the robots. I had only missed 1 day out of the entire build season. It was our idea to build three identical robots.

Argoth

05-04-2005, 23:11

In all truth, I feel that my team has more of an edge on teams that have an engineer to completly build their robot because we don't think inside the box. You cannot be limited if you don't know what they are. This year the only things the students didn't do was weld the chassis and a base plate. We still managed to make it to the semi's. My team has absolutly zero engineers. The students are the engineers, the builders, and the soul of the team. At the Lone Star Regional I talked with a judge who had been with FIRST since the beginning and she said that the first year one team had a robot completly done by engineers. All it could do on the field was break-down the entire competition. I personally think that FIRST designs it's competitions to put everyone on as equal a footing as possible. So, to all the teams who have loads of engineers and picture perfect robots.... I say bring'em on. Victory comes to those who deserve it.

GB330033

05-04-2005, 23:23

He's right, we've got 0 engineers. We have one man, his father, that helped us all season. He's not an engineer, he's just trying to help us out. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade him for an engineer any day, I'd much rather have Papa Page.

There were so many teams at the LSR that looked like their engineers/mentors did everything for them. Half of them couldn't explain their own robot, and that's sad. A mentor's role is to do that, to mentor, to help out the students, not to do the work for them. If you have the resources to get engineers and mentors, then you should also have the resources to build the robot yourself, not let your mentors do it all.

No matter what rank they finish at, I'll always have more respect for the teams who work hard on their own. Those who can be seen in the pits struggling to make repairs, those who look hurt when their robot loses, and those who are elated when their robot wins. It's those students, the ones without an engineer-built robot, that define FIRST, and what FIRST is all about.

KathieK

06-04-2005, 06:32

The team I am on (418, Purple Haze, LASA Robotics) is a team made up of students, one teacher (who is our coach), one mentor, one welder and a parents association. The parents association handles the money, provides transportation and leads the “frou crew,” which puts up flags and shiny things in the stands. Our teacher occupies himself with the paper work, making sure we have materials, dealing with the school and of course teaching his classes... Besides this the kids do everything.

Thank you for responding to my question. As you've stated, the students on your team do everything... related to the robot. So you have a very vested interest in that part of the team. I encourage your team to branch out next year and recruit students to get involved in the other aspects of the team. Get the student who excels in Math to help set up the budget; ask the school newspaper to recommend a student who can write well to help you with Public Relations; find someone who is interested in art to design your t-shirts and buttons and make your flags and shiny things... Encourage all team members to learn about the flip side to your organization. The goal of FIRST is to inspire students about science and technology but it doesn't say anything about limiting the inspiration to those students who naturally gravitate towards those subjects! Get the humanities students interested in science and technology and THEN we're accomplishing the goals of FIRST! :)

Steve W

06-04-2005, 09:19

Please do not assume that what I am about to say shows anything against student built robots. I will be talking generally not specifically.

Engineers have years of experience and training. They have developed a knowledge base on which to work. There are some things that they don't even try because they know it won't work. This saves time and frustration when you only have 6 weeks to build. Students have enthusiasm, desire, energy and no preconceived ideas. They don't know what will or won't work or maybe a better way to do the same thing. They work on a trial and error system (I do too, I'm not an engineer) which takes a lot of time and effort to sometimes produce nothing. This is why we need engineers. Their abilities and insight actually let us accomplish more than the sum of our parts. Can student run teams work? Yes. Can Mentor/Engineer run teams work? Yes. Can the two work together? Yes.

We should not be debating "When do mentors go too far?" but how do they feel that their team works and inspires with mentor/ engineers doing what they do. This would be only seen and recognized by the members of that team as they are the ones spending the time and seeing what is being done.

I know personally that our team is becoming more student run than the first year i was there. This is great and it inspires me as a mentor. Teams will go through different cycles in their growth. Every 4 years a team has been changed over with all new personalities and abilities. This is what challenges the mentors. We don't just have to inspire you but also everyone that comes after you. FIRST is a great program! Let's not tear other teams down when you are looking on from the outside. As a famous saying goes, don't criticize someone till you have walked a mile in their shoes.

cbolin

06-04-2005, 10:27

Hi,
Here is what I have like seeing at the two regionals thus far...

*Robots break down during a match...students hustle and team up to correct the problem. A mentor may get his hands on the problem or looks on. The robot is repaired.

*Drive team needs a specific autonomous mode. They go to the 17-year old who listens, clarifies and then writes the code to make it happen. The autonomous mode works well. A real crowd pleaser.

*We do poorly at one regional. Students get together with mentors to discuss robot problems. Mentors organize a major overhaul to be conducted on the first Thursday at the next regional. At the next regional, the students spend 8 hours implementing major changes. The robot is twice as fast and the arm elevates more quickly and smoke doesn't come out of the motor any more.:-)

*Students' determination to improve the robot after a dismal performance motivates a mentor come in on the following Saturday (his own time) to machine parts needed for a modification at the next regional. The parts work perfectly. Robot is much better.

*With a great robot, team is still doing poorly in the rankings. Students get together with a mentor facilitating the discussion. They figure out on their own how to improve scouting, why the top teams are ranked high when our bot is just as good, etc. The next day, they look like a different team and make it to the semifinals.

*Drive team takes video of the matches back to their room to analyze the top teams. Develop an improved strategy. It works.

*Students and their parents who can't stay in a hotel near the competition drive 100 miles one way each morning and evening just to be at the competition. They are dedicated. Thanks parents.

*A mom prepares a delicious meal and delivers it 100 miles away to the competition. It is still hot. I eat too much. Yum!

*Student has a behavioral issue. I pull him or her aside, remind them they are doing a good job and ask them to focus on correcting a certain behavior. They do. Others note the change.

Regards,
ChuckB, Team 342

Spikey

06-04-2005, 19:40

Dean Kamen, among others have wieghed in on this before. I can't think of a better way to put it. So I'll let that speak for me.

Portion of a Speech by Dean Kamen
1998 FIRST Competition Kickoff Workshop, January 10, 1998
The Center for New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
[imperfectly transcribed from a videotape]
copyright 1998 PNHS and GMPT

"I don’t know how many ways to try and continue to say it. . . What this organization is about is not education per se. I heard a lot of people, even last night, and I think they mean well, and I understand what you’re saying, there needs to be a balance, but I heard people saying "well sure that other team did great, but thats because the engineers did all the work. The kids didn’t build the robot." I have to tell you, FIRST is not an educational institution. Its okay if the kids build the whole robot, its okay if they don’t touch it. FIRST ought to be to education what the NFL or the World Series is to little league."

-Andy A.
I respect Dean a lot but I have to disagree with him on his point of education. FIRST robotics has become an educational institution and has been for a long time an educational experience. Anything that teaches students about organization, leadership, engineering, and design is inherently educational. I must say learning how to wire and and build a robot has been very educational, I have learned skills that I would not have learned anywhere else. Perhaps Dean has changed his mind today, but no matter what FIRST is inherently about education as much as it is about Inspiration.

Steve W

06-04-2005, 19:58

Let me try and put Deans words another way. It may be wrong but this is what I believe he is saying:

FIRST is about inspiration not education. This does not mean that education does not happen with FIRST. As you become inspired you try harder, work harder and learn more. This is education. To see touch and get excited about robots, web sites, CAD drawings, animation or book keeping through FIRST is inspiration. Without the inspiration none of the other stuff would happen or it would be at a slower growth rate.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard students say, so that's what I am taught that for. Seeing a reason for education is inspirational. Students that see why they are learning or a reason for learning, apply themselves more to the learning. Again that is inspiration. FIRST is definitely about inspiration and education is the largest beneficiary of it.

I hope that I make sense as I babbled on.

Andrew Blair

06-04-2005, 20:12

Argoth

06-04-2005, 23:18

I believe what Dean may have been saying is that education in and of itself is worthless. There must be some driving force that causes you to DO something with what you have learned, and I think that was what Dean was getting at. As my father always says... "you can have a PhD., but if you don't get your head in the game you'll be digging a ditch with a pretty certificate. " I don't think Dean was knocking the educational experience of FIRST at all, just taking another view of it. But, I guess the only way to truly know the answer to that is to ask the man himself.

David Guzman

06-04-2005, 23:59

In my opinion FIRST is about creating relations between students with adults and the only way this can happen is if they work together and learn from each other. Now if only the mentors work on the bot and there is no comunication with the students then that relation is being lost.

I am very proud to say that in my team, we students do all the work and our mentors just sit back and relax. During the building season they give us their thoughts and they help us develope ours, but we design and we built. At the competition mentors are the ones who actually don't touch the bot, once in a while they'll give us an advise or correct us but always letting us fix it or improve it.

cbolin

07-04-2005, 10:15

Being a geek of 40+ years, I have always had difficulting respecting and enjoying the company of 'teens' and seeing them as important individuals. I allowed differences in taste such as music, hairstyles, clothing, language, etc. to create this really big generation gap between myself and teens.

However, a few years ago I began teaching a group of junior/high school students how to program computer games. Additionally, during the past two years I have learned to work with teens in robotics.

Consequently, in my personal life, FIRST and common technology interests have served as bridge between myself and teens. Now I enjoy their company and look forward to working with them. FIRST has provided me with a 'new language' to communicate with high school students.

Because of this common language and regained confidence in young people, I can trust them to take on significant robotic tasks (electrical and mechanical design and wiring, programming, strategy) successfully so I can sit back and be as passive as possible during the robotic six-week build phase and competitions. I am available when they have questions and I interject when necessary to keep things moving along safely and smoothly.

Its neatto see all the inspiration and education that results from FIRST robotics...benefiting students and mentors.

High school students today really rock! I am proud to work with such wonderful people.

Regards,
Chuck

White_Orpheus

07-04-2005, 20:24

plutonium83

07-04-2005, 21:20

My sincere apologies to 1114, 1503, 1680 for my judgments of your collaboration and the teams at FLR. It was unfair for me to accuse your team of being inspirational or judge the quality of your 6 week build based on based on conjecture and rumor.

I learned a lot from this thread. Such as the difference between being educational and inspirational and the balance between mentor and student involvement. I didn't know such issues have been debated again and again at cd. However, I learned the most important lesson of all, I learned that I should think before I post anything potentially offensive toward another person.

Again, my sincere apologies.

Kevin Cheng
Team 639

MattB703

07-04-2005, 21:34

I think all too often a team is heavily mentor run for the wrong reasons. Are you taking too much initiative because you want to see your team perform well at competition, or because you honestly believe it is more beneficial to your students to watch you work on the bot?

Well, I've been mentoring FIRST teams for 7 years now. I cannot begin to list the things I've given up in other parts of my life to be a part of this grand experiment.

As others have pointed out, part of the reason I do this is because it IS fun. I enjoy it. I also enjoy Autocross racing. I could be spending this time making my car faster. SO why do I throw myself so heavily into FIRST? Because I truly believe this is our best chance to change our society.

To directly address what White_Orpheus said above;

I am not in this to inspire the students on my team.

There are 10s of thousands of students who are exposed to FIRST each year. We can best inspire all of them by each of us doing the very best we can to increase the excellence of each FIRST event. Our best chance at influencing 100s of thousands is to get a mass audience. To do that we need the competition to be so awe inspiring that even people who are not involved will want to watch.

My personal goal will always be to contribute to the excellence of each event. I think that is the best shot at inspiring the most people.

Matt B.

Sean Schuff

08-04-2005, 11:24

Wow! This discussion has evolved quickly! Just like every other one on this topic.

I'm a big picture kind of guy and I don't like to see people ruin a good thing because they don't like a small part of what they see. Don't trade in the Cadillac just because there is a scratch in the bumper. FIRST is bigger than a handful of teams that some perceive to be in violation of some rule that doesn't exist.

I've said this before in an unrelated post and figured it fit in just as well here. Relating to why students (and mentors for that matter) get involved in FIRST...

Whatever the "reason" for their wanting to be a part of something really cool, it's their reason and just as valid as anyone elses.

Who are we (any of us involved in FIRST) to judge another team/robot/approach to FIRST? I take pride in the way our team operates and I fully understand the philosophy behind FIRST. And I certainly don't belittle other teams because they don't share the same operational philosophy that I do. I will admit that when I was new to the world of FIRST I had some skepticism toward teams that are driven more by mentors than by students but I've changed over the years. I get it now. I understand what FIRST is all about. Big picture - kids think engineering and science and math and technology and being an ubergeek is cool! We are succeeding!

My thoughts on the notion of FIRST not being an educational enterprise... Being an educator I find it very difficult to not view FIRST as an educational endeavor but that's simply becuase I look at most things in life as educational in some respect. That's my perspective and that's how I operate. You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher. My life revolves around teaching, sharing experiences and getting kids excited about learning. It's a lifelong process that they need to be prepared for.

Different teams. Different philosophies. Different approaches to the anamoly that is FIRST Robotics. If you have a hard time reconciling this simple truth you may want to find something different to do with your time.

Bottom line for me - I do this FIRST thing because it's fun. When I'm no longer having fun doing it (can't imagine that!) I'll find something else fun to do.

Best of luck to ALL teams no matter how you operate. You all deserve it!

My one cent (the other is paying for expensive gas!)

Sean

nicholaswheaton

14-04-2005, 07:31

the way that it seems to be is that adult built robots are just stealing awards from the other teams.

naskie18

15-04-2005, 10:29

As others have pointed out, part of the reason I do this is because it IS fun. I enjoy it. I also enjoy Autocross racing. I could be spending this time making my car faster.
Nice Formula, btw ;) Still running the 2.8L?

It has been my experience, in being on a FIRST team and in mentoring a FIRST team, that the kids on the team seem to get more out of it when they get to build and design the robot. Maybe that was just the group of kids we had this year, though, this being the rookie year of the team I helped to found and mentor. While we mentors took care of most of the planning of the meetings and getting registration done and organized and planning many of the fundraisers and such, the students got to design and build the robot how they wanted, and it was really cool to not only see them do that, but to see them when we were in our first match at our regional and it all worked. That was really cool. It has also been very cool for us seeing the students get more involved in running the team, when they won the Rookie All Star award and qualified for Nationals, they did some serious brainstorming to try and come up with ways to raise the money so that they could go.

Originally I was sure that the best FIRST team was one that the students got to design and build the robot. Now, I'm not so sure that there is a best format for a FIRST team. Students designing and building it seems to work well for some teams, and engineers desiging and building it seems to work well for others.

In high school, I was on a team where the robot was, for the most part, designed and built for us. And while I would've liked to have had a more active role in it, I had a lot of fun and it pbviously impacted me a great deal, as I decided to help to start and mentor a FIRST team. Yes, this team is being run differently than the one I was on in high school. But it seems we're having the same effect on the students, inspiring them to learn and to have fun while doing it. As long as that continues, I see no reason to complain about doing it either way. As Sean said, when it stops being fun, then there's a real problem to address. But until then, I'll be right here continuing to mentor and participate in FIRST.

seanwitte

15-04-2005, 10:53

In my opinion, it is far more beneficial to the students to be 100% responsible for every aspect of the team, with adults merely present to make sure discipline is enforced, and offer advice when asked.

Thats a valid opinion, but you will have a hard time finding qualified adults who are willing to give up their free time to sit and watch and wait. I think the best environment is where the students and the mentors act as peers. I think there are more adults like me, who got involved because they like building robots, than the remarkable people who do it because they want to inspire today's youth. I consider myself just another member of the team. I think students AND mentors get more out of the program as peers, but every team is different. Why should the students have all the fun?

vic burg

15-04-2005, 11:09

Sometimes the mentors, and I'm talking in general, do seem to dominate over the teams. On the other hand, since it is only at the regionals where we witness what is going on with the individual teams, we can only assume somethings. but, I do agree, some teams seem to be powered by their mentors and/or sponsors. If I was to say how much that is unfair, I might get yelled at but, to the other teams, it is not fair. To be rational, you can use the machines at the place where you build but, there is an extent of whether or not the mentors should step in or just let the team itself work on the problem and try to correct it. I do recall seeing some teams where the robot looked a little too good to be made by majority students with some of the mentors helping. But, then again, that team could just be really advanced and be really good at what they do. Unless you are there the entire season with the team, you can't be entirely sure or unsure what goes on but, some teams don't seem to have a limit to where the mentors need to stop helping.
::Just my opinion::

Mark Pettit

15-04-2005, 13:55

An ex-mentor turned FIRST judge told me that, during a pre-regional judges meeting, FIRST told the judging staff that they were going to hear a whole lot of "our robot is 100% student built" as they made their rounds. This was followed by a directive that this does not matter and should not play into a team deserving any awards over a team that was 100% engineer built. He was surprised to hear that from FIRST and so was I when he told me about it.
Our team is in a constant state of change. 5 years ago when I first became my team's coach, we had a very overpowering mentor that designed, built, and programmed the robot. Our team more or less revolted against this and we had to make a really tough decision to get away from utilizing his knowledge and skills at all. For two years after that, we had students who were all of knowledgeable enough, interested enough, and capable enough that they could do everything themselves. All the while, we had a couple of underclassmen joining our "club" not team (see THIS THREAD (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37014&highlight=club+team)) who were maybe into electrical and programming more than using tools and machining equipment. Today, these students are upperclassmen who require our mentor staff to do the majority of the build, at least the mast/arm portion of our machine (http://faculty.brophyprep.org/robotics/images/2005/robot3.jpg), and then they (students) wire and program. Incidentally, we have some current Freshmen who are incredibly motivated and apt enough with tools and ready to take things over so we are planning now for a more student-built machine in the coming seasons. It's a constant evolution and whichever state we're in during any given season, the students who are in FIRST for the right reasons still take away knowledge, experience, and a desire to pursue engineering.
Basically, it just doesn't matter.

Richard Wallace

17-04-2005, 18:50

Back in graduate school, I bought a poster-size portrait of Einstein that features one of his most recognized quotations as a caption: "Imagination is more important that knowledge." [see my sig area below for the unabridged version of the quote and a link to an insightful essay on the subject]

That poster has been a fixture in my office for many years now. I never get tired of it.

This has been a great thread. I have been a mentor/sponsor/advisor for several kinds of technical competition over the years. I like FIRST better than the rest, and this thread has help me understand why. It's because FIRST is mostly about inspiration (and recognition), not education. Of course I am a big fan of education -- before taking my present job, I spent sixteen years either enrolled in or employed by institutions of higher learning. Knowledge is the foundation on which inspiration is built. But inspiration is the fountainhead of new knowledge, and of course old knowledge soon becomes as dry as dust without the new life that inspiration brings to every field of endeavor.

So I think it really does not matter whether an FRC team's robot is built by mentors or by students. All that matters is that everyone who participates in FIRST, or even just watches at an FRC event, gets inspired to imaginative participation in a world where science and technology become more important every day.

KathieK

19-04-2005, 08:27

-Writing a program with me not included when i am the actuall programmer who is suppouse to do all this...i have waited for the entire year to program that bot and the mentors kindaof ruined it for me. I know they are trying to help out but they crossed the line when they do everything for you and leave you with no jobs to do. I thought the mentors were suppose to help out and teach the students how to do stuff but why are they doing it for us??? isn't it our job??
That was what really bothered me and espeically when you ask them for some help and they end up not helping you but ignoring your request for help. I could see where that could be an issue - I would hope that you could feel comfortable bringing up issues like this in your team meetings. If not, perhaps speaking with your team leader privately about your concerns might help - you may not be the only one this has affected. Or perhaps you and the mentor have personality conflicts (that may or may not be able to be resolved). These situations often occur in the workplace. Learning how to deal with them can be a great learning experience now. Does your team have an end-of-year assessment program? If not, I recommend that you implement one this year. It gives the team members a way to step back and say, Ok, this is what I did this year, this is what I wasn't able to do, this is what I had hoped to do. One of the questions we ask is, "How did the team help you be successful this year?" and another, "What could the team do better?"

the_short1

19-04-2005, 12:20

team 1596's bot is built and maintained MOSTLY by students.. we have some engineers and adults helping us and such.. but . . for instance.. 95% of our arm was designed by a student jon tribanal.. and a lot of students worked on it..

from the start we heard about student built bots and adult built bots.. and at our first meeting we said. . .this is going to be a STUDENT bot.. i think more teams ought to have that kind of philosophy in my opinion

Paul H

19-04-2005, 18:05

Ok, I've read this whole thread, and I've been thinking about this for awhile because there's a mentor on my team who thinks the robot should be 100% student designed and built, so here are the thoughts that I've been playing with in my head for some time now....

Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but I have one question for all of you advocating "student designed and built" bots. Did you use this year's kit chassis and transmissions? If so, you used something designed by engineers and built by professionals, likely with no student input. How is that any better than an engineer designing a chassis, probably with more student help than the kit chassis, and helping the students build it?

How about those of you that come to Cheif Delphi and read the whitepapers and use the designs you see, even if you do make modifications? I could even go as far as to say that looking at other "powerhouse" robots and using their ideas/designs is the same way. Guess What? An engineer came up with something that is on your robot.

Even if you brag that you have no engineering support, or that your robot is 100% student designed and built, the fact is that unless you totally started from scratch, it's not.

Now onto my old team....

I'm speaking for Team 33 on this one, because 1504 doesn't have any engineers yet (but we rely on other team's engineers and ideas). Every year, the Killer Bees turn out beautiful and highly competitive robots. Guess what....their robots are built almost entirely by students. Emphasis on almost. How could you expect a high school student to spend hours calculating gear ratios, torque curves, and anything else like that? Granted, some can and do, and that's great, but I'd say that's the exception, not the rule. What about the material thickness required, or complex machined parts? Most high school students join the team to build something really cool, not sit at a desk for hours doing math.

The first time I saw Jim's drawings for the four speed transmission, I was in awe. I thought "I wish I could have thought of that!" Would I have thought of it? Not a chance. Is it bad that he designed it? I don't see how it would be.

I like to classify 33 as a 50/50 team, where engineers and students work in a partnership to build great robots. In my eyes, this is what FIRST is all about, working WITH professional engineers to build the best possible robot. This is how I was "brought up" in FIRST, it's how I was inspired, and it's how I will strive to conduct any team that I am on in the future, including 1504. Do I believe that engineers should do the work for the students? Absolutely not, but I also believe that teams with no engineering support are at a disadvantage, and that's where this turns into a robot building contest. How can students be inspired to pursue careers in science and technology when they don't interact with anyone in those fields?

Spikey

19-04-2005, 18:15

Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but I have one question for all of you advocating "student designed and built" bots. Did you use this year's kit chassis and transmissions? If so, you used something designed by engineers and built by professionals, likely with no student input. How is that any better than an engineer designing a chassis, probably with more student help than the kit chassis, and helping the students build it?

There is nothing wrong with using engineer built and designed parts, I completely understand that somethings are out of the range of what a student can do. What I say when it comes to being a student designed and built robot is more of a harmony between engineers, mentors, and students. There is nothing wrong with mentors helping students build a robot, but when they take over the process and students get left out, that is when I think there is a problem. All of our robots have had engineer built parts, thats fine, what is nice is that the engineer showed us how and why their part works.

What I have been trying to state is that collaboration is fine, but domination is not. I understand that nothing is truly 100% student built, thats fine. The point of this post, and the thread as a whole is really trying to build an understanding between mentors and students that working together is fine, but when the mentors take over, students should ask themselves how much are they really getting out of FIRST when all they get to do is drive their robot.

Not2B

19-04-2005, 22:50

When I first joined FIRST, I was bothered that it seemed some robots were engineer built blah blah blah...

I got over that. It gives the other teams something to strive for. AND who am I to judge how each team should best inspire THIER students. We all come from different backgrounds. My students KNOW about mills, lathes, water jet cutters, etc... but might never have touched a tool in their lives. Other students may have helped fix the house or rebuilt a car, but never knew that math could help build something, or that you can use WATER to cut METAL. (How cool is that...) It's all good.

But I do wonder about a team when I see 3 engineers fixing a broken robot in the pits with NO (zero) students even in range. How can that be good? (I'm serious - is that good? A working, dominating robot makes the team feel good or what?)

ChrisCook

02-05-2005, 20:54

Seekthematrix

03-05-2005, 07:22

I agree that more and more teams are being dominated by mentors, Im from the San jose Area and in the radius of 10 miles we have Team 254, team 115, team 114, team 8, team 1072, 581... its just crazy. Team 254 does have a really good program, but every time I go to look at their web site i always see the same guy in the green vest working on the robot.
Also lest look at it from a students perspective, who has become a mentor. They never really graduated they're just going another year of FIRST. So I think that there are two sides to the situation.

I am a freshman on team 1257. This was my first year in robotics and it was quit the expirence. What made me most proud of my team is we had virtually 0 mentor influence. Other then a little advice by a team mates father (who is an engineer) on the design we did EVERYTHING ourselves. In our work area there were usually one adult (a teacher due to legal reasons) and maybe a mentor who usually just did scrap work like cut metal or something. We find much pride in the fact that engineering wise we have only two seniors, are thrid in command is a sophmore, and we only have on junior. If you were in hte Eurie division u may remmber ares it had the arm with the two neumatic hooks. Next year should be intresting since we are going to have no seniors, and the rest is juniors through freshman.

Jack Jones

03-05-2005, 08:06

There is another side to the “When do mentors go too far?” coin. Please read the following excerpt that I Googled and copy pasted here. Names have been changed so as not to embarrass this teacher, who IMO, is a much more common example of a mentor that has gone too far.

Read this page daily for Important announcements for US FIRST Robotics:

Last updated by Coach SMITH:

Friday and Saturday, Feb 13 and 15, 2004 -
1) Attending were -- NOBODY (except Coach SMITH). Both days. I was there from 3:30 until 8 pm (non-stop, no breaks, no food, no drink) on Friday and from 9 am until 6 pm (non-stop, no breaks, no food, and I wimped out and had a bottle of juice). Having a great time, doing a lot of work, learning a lot of things I wish you were learning, too. Wish you were here!
2) Xxx Xxxxx is closed on Sunday (otherwise I would be there) and is closed on Monday (will be at Science Olympiad at school from 9 am until 3 pm). MH will be open on Tuesday through Friday from 3:30 pm until 9 pm and on Saturday from 9 am until 6 pm. I am committed to work with Science Olympiad on Tuesday and Thursday, but I will go to MH after we are finished on those days which will be about 5 pm.
3) We made a committment to Mr. Cxxxxxxxx and to NASA to spend the $6000 grant well. That means, build a robot and compete. If we do not compete, we will have a hard time getting the second year grant. No grant, no robot, no robotics team.
4) I am going to my daughter's Junior Parent Weekend at college and will not be able to work Saturday the 21st. I will lose about 9 hours of working time. I am hoping to get someone to step up and fill in for me.
5) The robot must be picked up by FedEx by 5 pm on Thursday, February 26, or we are disqualified from all tournaments and the robotics competition season is over. I can work at most maybe 3 hours Tuesday (Feb 17) , 5 hours Wednesday (Feb 18), 3 hours Thursday (Feb 19), 5 hours Friday maybe (Feb 20), none Saturday, 5 hours next Monday (Feb 23), 3 hours Tuesday (Feb 24), 5 hours Wednesday (Feb 25). Part of that will be building the shipping crate and getting the robot ready to ship on Thursday afternoon. In other words, unless we can get some folks (teacher(s) or parent(s)) to fill in for me, we don't have much time left. If we can get some folks in on Saturday in shifts, we can pick up an extra 9 hours on top of these 29 hours I can possibly attend. That gives us a potential of almost 38 hours. From what I have accomplished myself in the last 14.5 hours, we should be OK. Of course, this assumes I drop everything else in the rest of my life for the next 10 days.

dhitchco

03-05-2005, 09:00

Dear students,
I didn't go back to the beginning of this thread, but did re-read the postings from the past few days and I totally agree with what you all have to say about mentor over-involvement.

But....at the same time, it is also your responsibility to really talk to your mentors and PUSH THEM OUT OF THE WAY (not literally....)

In the corporate world, the leadership roles go to those employees who positively ASK FOR THE JOB. If you sit back and do nothing, the mentors will take over. But, if you step up to the plate, almost any mentor should (and must) back-away and let you succeed or fail on your own.

Carpe Diem....go for it! Especially in the off-season.

Joe Matt

03-05-2005, 09:25

I want to throw something out to everyone, mentors don't necessarily go to far when they do everything themselves, sometimes that is needed. What everyone should watch out for is when mentors start rigging the team to where they control everything in a student run team. The students have no say, but this is hidden as the "mentors" throw the students out into sea, have them drown, then show that this is a student run team because there is student failure, along with student "success". They forget to mention the students have no say in that success nor do the students have any choice or input into their failure too. The extreme differences in ideas of how to run a team disguises what is actually going on. I've seen this happen in a team, it's not pretty at ALL.

What we should be looking for are mentors who MENTOR. WOW! RADICAL CONCEPT! Mentors who show the students what to do, let them do work, have them follow them, but still give them enough rope to hang themselves are true mentors. Mentors who call all the shots, use the students as pawns, and hide behind the students aren't mentors, they are control freaks, cowards, and insecure people who must use a robotics team to achieve their personal ego boost, with or without the kids. Doing all the work and not mentoring the kids is just lazy.

Lisa Rodriguez

03-05-2005, 10:18

Many teams function different ways, I'll just say that first. As for who builds and designs the robot, it's up to the team, for mentors to take everything away from the students and do everything is WRONG, whether is be in terms or building the robot, running meetings or making travel plans, it's wrong. A mentor is there to MENTOR, not do all the work. Talk to your team leader or if it's the leader that's taking over robotics, and a group of students believe the same thing as you, talk to your parents. Parents are amazing people, they tend to have a lot of influence, not just on you. Things can always be resolved.
In terms of robots, I'll describe my team (173) to you as best I can. We have one head engineer on our team, Mr Hockaday (AMAZING MAN) who basically coordinates everything engineering. He's completely open to any suggestion you have. When the season begins, he fully encourages students to design and prototype anything that could be used for the robot, and some have in the past, but not this year. Adult mentors and other engineers do the same thing. He also presents his designs to the other engineers and other people (mainly students) who want to hear about it, waiting for a critque or even if you just want to hear it. This year, we have Mr Hockaday designing the drive train, another engineer designing the arm, a gripper designed and perfected by many. Another engineer did the pneumatics. This just HAPPENS to be the way things turn out. No students asked to design anything, he continually asked.
As someone stated before, students can't always sit down and do all the math and such to the designing process ( i am one of those kids) Not all kids that come into the program have the desire or determination to design things. Our engineers designed everything, everyone was open to critque.
Being one of the students heavily involved with build, he explained his design before, while and after we put it together. A few interested students even learned a bit about designing things.
Our robot was build by both students and mentors, by student's choice. I know that robot and how it works like the back of my hand. Ask our engineers. Just because Ididn't design it doesn't mean that my mentors over took it, it means I didn't want to design anything, and there's nothing wrong with that.

This is just my team.

Also, adults have over taken things in the past, and we (my class imparticular:rolleyes: ) have fought for it back. And we've gotten it. We're about 50% student run, although we have a set-up to be completely student run, we don't have the student power for that yet.

As for mentors that go too far, sometimes you just need to talk to them. Our mentors constantly ask if they're taking over or doing too much. Most mentors WANT you be involved. Sometimes mentors just don't realize they're doing so much and that you wanted to do it.

Kims Robot

03-05-2005, 12:48

But I do wonder about a team when I see 3 engineers fixing a broken robot in the pits with NO (zero) students even in range. How can that be good? (I'm serious - is that good? A working, dominating robot makes the team feel good or what?)

See this goes against what you said earlier... about judging how their students are inspired. And this is one brief second that you see a team in their pits. I can remember a handful or more times where this was the case in our pits. In general, it was the mentors just testing something out, or tweaking something. Why, do you ask, were there no students in range?? Well, lets see, our starving drive team was off getting food, half our kids were scouting, others were off getting buttons or checking out other teams... etc etc... sometimes, the mentors step in to let the kids go have fun. The competition is about MUCH more than just the robot. If kids are glued to the robot all of the time, then they miss the rest of it... the other fun stuff, what makes FIRST, FIRST.

And to back up the argument, there are a lot of very tiny teams, and with resources spread thin, sometimes its up to the mentors to make the tweaks.

That said, I remember all the important stuff being done by our students... I dont think a single mentor could tell you how the transmission was assembled, but two of our students could! When we had emergency drive train changes, tightening of the chains, changing of axles, the mentors threw up their hands and claimed ignorance as our students took over.

(This is general now, not to Not2B)
Complain if there is a mentor on your team who bullies you out of the way, complain if a mentor on another team is mean to you, but dont judge how other teams work by what you see in the pits, or what you "hear" from other teams. With anticipation high, struggles for recognition, different views on inspiration, there are a lot of accusations and assumptions. But teams that keep coming back are the ones that are actually inspiring students... so teams that are still around are doing something right.. regardless of student or mentor built bots.

Not2B

03-05-2005, 13:50

I see I struck a nerve... and I do admit my question was loaded. Sorry about that. And of course the little teams can use all the help they can get. I don't count chain tightening, battery changes, screw tightening, and general maintenance as working on the robot. And for the record, I would never, and have never, judged a team on a few minute glance in the pits. That's not very informed. (Explain later)

I guess in a round about way, you answered my question. For many teams, having a highly tuned, very nice robot IS inspiring. I guess I'm trying to understand it all. The mentors on our team are there to give advice, act as a sounding board for ideas, lend a hand if asked, and help guide the students on the right path when they know what end result they want, but don't know the direction. As a result, sometimes they make mistakes. We try to help them understand what went wrong, how it's not the end of the world, how to correct it, and how to prevent it from happening again.

Here is why I'm in conflict - we had a very good year (by our standards). And the students are more energetic and "inspired" than ever before. Would a REALLY good robot (without the rookie mistakes, etc...) be even better (more inspiring)? Or are they inspired because of what they were able to do on their own, with the little pit stops of disaster (and learning) along the way? My team has answered this for me (let them do it, they don't mind the mistakes.) But it's still something I think about.

.... oh yes. The team that was doing work with no students?! I've been watching a handful (I have 6 on my list) of different style teams for the last 4 years - to try and benchmark our own team. I realize that sometimes mentors can't help themselves, or the students are busy working on something else. But when it's consistent over a 4 year span, at regionals and championships, with a large team, then I have to ask - Is that a good thing? Maybe it is, I don't know. And just so you don't think I'm down on the fancy teams, several of the teams that I initially thought were "too good to be true" or "too mentor dominated" turn out to be really well run, and really inspiring. This is based on talking to mentors, parents, and students as well as years of observations. NOT a few seconds in the pits. That would be silly.

EricH

03-05-2005, 22:10

Our team is one of the 50/50 teams, and it has worked very well. I admit that things may be different on a large team, or different on any team for that matter, but our mentors and students work well together. The frame was designed, cut and welded by engineers and sponsors. The robot was designed in general by the team including students and mentors. Students did prototyping with mentor advice.

Even a team that has more mentors than students may have students running a part of the team that nobody sees, and the same thing goes the other way. I am a student. I come up with ideas, run weight checks, design the scouting sheet, and scout. Mentors help and finalize. This is behind the scenes. In the machine shop, one of our sponsors who is also a mentor does all the major cutting and shaving jobs, partly because no student knows how to do it.

What I am saying is, don't judge a team by the visible proportion of mentors to students. Don't jump to conclusions. Better yet, respect the team for being what they are. Every team has a different way of doing things, and who are we to judge them for it?