View Full Version : Who does the programming for your team?
EHaskins
21-10-2006, 21:05
I'm curios about other teams programming team.
1. How many teams have students do the programming?
2. What level of programming education do the student have?
3. What level of programming education do the mentors have(if you have programming mentors)
My team has only one student programmer(ME) and no mentors.
JamesBrown
21-10-2006, 21:16
I'm curios about other teams programming team.
1. How many teams have students do the programming?
2. What level of programming education do the student have?
3. What level of programming education do the mentors have(if you have programming mentors)
My team has only one student programmer(ME) and no mentors.
2005 team 1568 had one student programmer (me) I taught myself to program during the summer of '04.
2006 1568 had one student programmer (again me) and one college mentor, a chem engineering senior with experience in programming but not in C
2007 1568 has a few students, none with any experience and two mentors one is a parent who has some programming experience (I haven't met him yet so I don't know what exactly he has done) the other is a computer engineer from Raytheon.
theycallhimtom
21-10-2006, 21:20
1540 has 5 this year and last year. Requirement is to go through one year of basic programming at our highscool or equivalent. Right now we have two students who learned on their own to get the requirement and three students who took the year. So everyone has at least one year in java or c++. Our mentor is our programming teacher who has a college degree etc.
237 had one self-taught programmer (me) in 2005 and 2006.
2007 we have me again and another self-taught freshman.
375 has one self-taught programmer, me. :p
Alexa Stott
21-10-2006, 22:05
Team 25 currently has 2 student programmers. We were both taught by the previous programmer, Bharat, who is self-taught.
AustinSchuh
21-10-2006, 22:09
I am the programmer on team 971. I taught my self. None of the adults on the team have any idea how the code works.
Tom Bottiglieri
21-10-2006, 22:30
Team 195 had 2 high school students with no mentors
Team 125 has 1 high school student with 3 college mentors.
Nuttyman54
22-10-2006, 00:02
I am the programmer on team 971. I taught my self. None of the adults on the team have any idea how the code works.
Correction: none of the mentors know how YOUR code works ;). We have a few mentors that are software engineers, but they mostly just let Austin do his thing.
jackie Ha
22-10-2006, 00:55
we have one student doing our programming, kiet. hes been doing for years, and has beed doing a great job. hes done our auto modes, jyro, PID loops, and who knows, maybe a little something for cal games. ;-)
Last year our programming team had 9 programmers (with me as lead) and 2 programming mentors (one is a programming teacher at another school, the other is my Dad who is a software engineer). By the end of the season we had 5 programmers doing quite a bit and the others kind of helping.
This year looks to have 5 or 6 programmers and me leading again. I can say from last year's experience that having 9 programmers is a bad thing. We simply did not have enough tasks to hand out and supervise between them all since the skill level varied drastically and we really couldn't figure out what we wanted to do fast enough.
We don't require our programmers to have a certain level of programming education, but we tell them that if they haven't at least taken an Introduction Programming class that they will probably get left behind unless they're willing to do significant outside learning.
efoote868
22-10-2006, 01:51
for my team, we've had 2 1/2 brains do it (2 geniuses and another... meh), last year i learned from them, so this year i'm taking the place of the 1 1/2 that graduated. we've also got an EE helping us as a mentor, but he only helps debug, he never writes the code, but gently guides us.
most of us have taken java courses from the high school (and java is very much like C)
RbtGal1351
22-10-2006, 01:56
We now have 5 programmers, last year we had 3. They are all students and write all the code. But don't get me wrong, our software engineer mentors help a lot, especially in designing the code.
(Most people don't know this, as most of this mentoring happens at home. 3 of us have software engineer dad, 1 has a programmer brother, and I don't know about our 5th programmer.)
~Stephanie
This year it will be just me programming for our team. Hopefully I can get someone else to help since its not easy to be team captain and the only programmer.
galewind
22-10-2006, 10:25
in the past, I used to do some coding for our team, being a programming teacher (though not of basic, so I had to learn that our rookie year and ended up coding it all).
I teach C++ and java, and since 2004, I've stepped back from actually coding, and have students doing the coding. We now have one mentor who helps with researching and new complex tasks that are new for our students (including using encoders, interrupt handling, and the CMU cam), but now the actual coding is mostly done by one student. This year, he is running in-team programming workshops and will be training some new ones for the future.
I, too, will continue to train more students once he's gone.
Alexa Stott
22-10-2006, 11:20
This year looks to have 5 or 6 programmers and me leading again. I can say from last year's experience that having 9 programmers is a bad thing. We simply did not have enough tasks to hand out and supervise between them all since the skill level varied drastically and we really couldn't figure out what we wanted to do fast enough.
That has always been one of my major concerns with having a large group programming. There is only so much to do and, while you can delegate tasks, sometimes there just isn't enough to go around.
This year, we had around 5 or 6 kids sign up for programming. We have been teaching them some basic stuff and we're hoping that we'll have a few good kids to help us out this year. For now, the other programmer (Calhounian) and I are going to probably be the only ones dealing with the CMU Cam and delegating the other things, such as autonomous and encoders and such to the new guys (with our help and guidance, of course).
We're hoping it works out. ;)
Tom Bottiglieri
22-10-2006, 11:39
That has always been one of my major concerns with having a large group programming. There is only so much to do and, while you can delegate tasks, sometimes there just isn't enough to go around.
This year, we had around 5 or 6 kids sign up for programming. We have been teaching them some basic stuff and we're hoping that we'll have a few good kids to help us out this year. For now, the other programmer (Calhounian) and I are going to probably be the only ones dealing with the CMU Cam and delegating the other things, such as autonomous and encoders and such to the new guys (with our help and guidance, of course).
We're hoping it works out. ;)
Why limit to the RC?
Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.
Why limit to the RC?
Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.
Bingo!... why limit it to the robot? Make scouting software. Write a game simulator. Write software to control your own segway. To control the firing mechanism on your t-shirt cannon. Oh so much to do...
(A large team forces us to think outside the robot in order to inspire as many as possible - with year round non-robot projects.)
On a side note... "Think outside the robot." - I kinda like that. I'll have to use that in a meeting someday....
Scott Shaw 237
22-10-2006, 14:26
237 had one self-taught programmer (me) in 2005 and 2006.
2007 we have me again and another self-taught freshman.
Actually to be 100% correct 237 has had a mentor since 2002 who has been helping with the code. While he let the kids do it themselves, he still over looked it and helped debug it and made sure it was done on time.
Build a co-processor. Create a linux distribution for robotics. Write a dashboard. Write a driver for an LCD screen. Make a new driver feedback system. Use an inertial navigation system. Start a CVS. Make your robot talk to you. Play pac-man.
I would have loved for us to do some of these. It doesn't work as well when all of your programmers have learned how to code from school courses though; they aren't used to "figuring it out" for themselves, and since they were all new to the FIRST program (they had various coding experience, but I was the only returning robotics programmer) many wouldn't have a clue where to begin to look for information on this.
If done properly a large programming team could work (once you get beyond robot programming). I have my doubts from last year though, and I won't allow it to be that big again.
Shinigami2057
22-10-2006, 21:20
Team 1350 has had a few programmers over the years, my friend Marco the most prominent of them (he was the lead and only programmer for that year), and I helped him lead the team programming last year. Since we were the only ones who had significant experience in C (or any language, for that matter), we did all the code for that bot. He wrote the majority of the base, since I had never written for embedded applications before; although in the last two months I caught up and wrote the autonomous code we used in Atlanta and by the end, I was able to successfully manage the source in case Marco dropped off the face of the earth :)
We are both self-taught C programmers, and we took the same Java course at our school (which we gained very little from, since it was much more of a beginner's class than anything). This year I am mentoring the team and will be helping them learn C before January, since none of them have enough experience yet to code the bot on their own. It should be an interesting and fun year :p
Royalpride1070
22-10-2006, 21:40
well.. unfortunately.. only two people actually do the programming on our team. our two mentors Don and Mike.. we hav a programming team, but half the time they don't know what don's talking about. that's why i stick to building.. :D
Robo_Coyote
22-10-2006, 22:52
I was fortunate enough to have a freshman last year sign on that had self taught himself C++ so we are all student programed baby!!!
Our robots are totally programmed by students.
For our team, last season we had just myself and one other student, then a couple mentors... but they werent there much.
I have lots of software and hardware programming experience from my job, my partner has taken programming classes, so it works out.
This year we have 4 new people on programming team... none of which know programming... :ahh:
guess i've got my work cut out for me :yikes:
-Q
This year 195 is trying to delegate the task of programming. We have a group of 4 or 5 students and 1 mentor interested in programming and I'm trying to teach them how to program now so we can delegate tasks during the season. :cool:
Last year we had about two productive student programmers(don't ask about the third) and three mentors that helped out a bit. the entire programming team was trying to figure things out last year and this year it looks like it's me on 340 and two that i'm mentoring on 424.
Alexa Stott
23-10-2006, 18:59
I would have loved for us to do some of these. It doesn't work as well when all of your programmers have learned how to code from school courses though; they aren't used to "figuring it out" for themselves, and since they were all new to the FIRST program (they had various coding experience, but I was the only returning robotics programmer) many wouldn't have a clue where to begin to look for information on this.
If done properly a large programming team could work (once you get beyond robot programming). I have my doubts from last year though, and I won't allow it to be that big again.
Our team is similar--We don't really have much time to teach them to do anything but robot programming. Our two current programmers (Calhounian and me) came onto the the team last year knowing 0 programming. Currently, we have about only 3-4 people who can do any programming in anything other than C and other than for the robot.
Many of those projects sound really cool, but for us right now, it's not much of an option.
Last year, though, we did have a few students who designed and wrote a scouting program for us in Java.
Its sort of shocking to see that 3 teams have the programming done all by the mentor and 7 have it done mostly by the mentor. I guess that this is the same topic as how much work some mentors do on building the robot, but it think that the programming should be done by students.
Astronouth7303
24-10-2006, 15:33
For the past 3 years, it has been a massive programming team of 3: me, myself, and I. ;) I learned PIC C on the EDU pre-2004. (Previous programming experience in other languages.)
Last year, we started getting some younger people, so hopefully they can take over when I leave after 2007.
LordTalps
24-10-2006, 19:35
Team 1885 has three to five student programmers, depending on how you ask the question. There on we have 3 to 5 mentors who will help/teach/lead. Trouble is, the three of us who REALLY program (out of the students) including myself, thegathering, and another guy, is we're all seniors. Need to get some fresh blood in the mix.
LightWaves1636
24-10-2006, 22:37
I'm curios about other teams programming team.
1. How many teams have students do the programming?
2. What level of programming education do the student have?
3. What level of programming education do the mentors have(if you have programming mentors)
My team has only one student programmer(ME) and no mentors.
Rookie year, our team had two programmers and both were self taught basically. Last season we had five programmers but one attempted, two did actual work, one went into building, and one went into operating our CNC Laser. This year, offically as of now, there are two programmers, one amature(me) and one who believes anything's possible with a laptop. We had two mentors every year who helped us with programming. Except this season, we will only have one mentor because our two mentors have new lives, only the new mentor we're recieving doesn't program in any type of code so, it's just up to Jonathan this year pretty much. Stole him off of team 604, lol, okay, he moved from California to Colorado and was in search of a new FIRST team and we invited him to come join ours.
1141, 2003 - Just me (as student)
1141, 2004 - Me teaching 1 student - almost entirely student
1281, 2006 - Most drive code done by 3 students, and any touchups at a competition done by me.
Our team has 2 student programmers and 2 mentors, and there great. We learn a ton.
While I would love for our team to have students do all of the programming, I've had trouble finding students interested in do it. In my 3 years with 1437, last year was the first time I had a student with interest, but she had no previous experience and didn't join the team until January, so while we discussed the theory and concepts together, I did the programming.
This year I'm with 2014, and it appears I'll have the same problem. I've tried making announcements and having the other students recommend people for me to talk to, but nobody seems to know anyone with any programming skills.
This year will be even harder for me, since in the past I've had 2 other teachers working with the team so I could spend some of my time during the build on coding. This year I'm the only adult there (unless I can get a few more interested), so I will be responsible for overseeing all of the construction, and not just a portion as in previous years. Oh well--I guess that's what late nights and caffine are for.
artdutra04
16-11-2006, 16:03
Last year 228 had two student programmers and one adult mentor/electrical engineer who worked on the code for our robot. The majority of the work was done by one of the students, who is now an alumni and continues to help our team. This year, I am not sure of the exact numbers, but we have at least as many programmers, as well as a new computer science teacher that's involved with our team. :cool:
Although I generally don't do much C programming for our FRC robot, I do all the PHP/MySQL/XHTML/CSS programming for 228's website. I'm self taught all four of those languages. I also do a lot of programming in EasyC for various projects.
JonathanLKS
18-11-2006, 22:48
We usually have a few people in programming every year but most of them usually go to other parts of the team within the first week. Seems to always end up with 2 people doing the programming every year.
Last year there we me who was self taught and the team leader who was taught by the former team leader.
Branden Ghena
22-11-2006, 22:30
I was unanimously voted head-programmer at a meeting I did not attend, and therefore had no choice in the matter. Besides me, there are two other students (both new at C)trying to learn up on it before the season starts.
ScottWalls
25-11-2006, 10:07
I'm curios about other teams programming team.
1. How many teams have students do the programming?
Our team is always purely student programmed.
2. What level of programming education do the student have?
The students usually have whatever training they can muster in the 4 years of being on the team.
3. What level of programming education do the mentors have(if you have programming mentors)
We also have no programming mentors.
My team has only one student programmer(ME) and no mentors.
EricS-Team180
25-11-2006, 20:15
On SPAM, we lump together controls hardware and software + the layout and construction of the OI into one sub-team. Programming is one part of that. My goal is to let as many students, as possible, be a part of Software and Controls. I typically have 6-8 students that are interested and 1 or 2 that have had the chance to learn any programming language. I'm an Aerospace Engineer by training with FORTRAN,C and C++ thrown in the mix over the years. I always tell the students, that all they need is a willingness to try. The rest will come with persistence and practice. Last year, I had the luxury of working with a senior (Josh G.) who completely took over the programming and configuration management of the software. It allowed me more time to work with the students that had no experience. Now this year I'm counting on them. ;)
1. How many teams have students do the programming?
There's just me and another girl who's new to C. We used to have one more, but she left the school near the end of build season last year. =(
2. What level of programming education do the student have?
Err...just enough to get by.
3. What level of programming education do the mentors have(if you have programming mentors)
We have one programming mentor. He knows more than us, but he's not exactly a C guru...though, rumor has it that we may get some new mentors with the sudden influx of new members joining this year. Yay!
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