Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

What specific advantages can you pick out?

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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


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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Improve what exactly?

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

An Ed rant !!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EMPLOYABILITY – YOUR FUTURE

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


THE LONG VIEW
Ask your team some questions.

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

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

The video


</END_RANT>

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Good rant, Ed!

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Kudos to your team for finding resources in unexpected places.

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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



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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Inspiring and anecdotal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

I just have two questions on this:

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which ones?

Which ones?

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

This thread is unnecessary.

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

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

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

-Matt

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Which they very clearly do NOT announce, and probably never will!

I'm honestly very surprised that the following haven't been posted yet:
(emphasis mine)

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Did you use the Kitbot transmission? How about motors from the KOP? Control system?

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Patrick,

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Patrick,

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which, and what things?

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

I'll post my take.

** this is only my opinion**

To the OP:

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

On the topic of student involvement:

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

bottom line: those students owned those programs..
.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Martin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Thank you for this post!

Jane

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Kind Regards

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Jane

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Jane

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Absolutely.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Absolutely inspirational,
- Sunny G.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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