Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

WHO CARES?!??!!

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

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

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

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

Congrats on the ICA.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

And the majority of us? We'd look like this. Trust me. I've been there. You don't want to.

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Martin,

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

lovin it man...

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

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

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

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

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

Ed

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Two things that we should keep in mind.

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

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

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

Joe J.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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



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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep steam rollin'. See you at champs?

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

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

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Mr. Wilson,

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

The hatorade tends to have one hell of a kick.

- Sunny G.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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That's HOT.

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

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

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Martin,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing personal.

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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While what you say rings true, it does not coincide with what Martin pointed out:
That, to my mind, equals ignorance and prejudice. Not cooperating with a team is one thing; making hateful statements is entirely different.

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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Taylor,

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

Thanks for being so gracious and professional.

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Rivalries can be fun, but they can also be taken too far. My hope is that the sports model stolen by FRC, infused with a dose of gracious professionalism, would allow for friendly rivalries (which in some cases it does - check out some of the historic pranks between 148 and 118). Unfortunately, some teams forget that while we may have different numbers, we're ultimately all on the same team.
This almost exact conversation took place last year. It's a struggle, it's a battle, of education vs. ignorance.

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

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

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I figured I should throw my experience out there:

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

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

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

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

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

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All -

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

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

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

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

Please.

Jane

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

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

Because it's cool watching the underdogs win.

-Nick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Excellent post Alex !!

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

2c - no haterade

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I want to reinforce Martin's comment.

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

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

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

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

"hooah!"

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

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

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Martin,

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

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

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

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

(emphasis mine)

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

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

(Steps on soapbox)

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

(Steps off soapbox)

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"don't be hating"
.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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



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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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


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


Just my $00.02 on this.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

off topic but actually the legal name for FIRST is:

United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

dba (doing business as)

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Here's the story from another point of view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Give this thread a good read http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...le+regional s

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Story 1:

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

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

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

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

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

Story #2:

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Umm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end rant

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Again, this is just personal opinion.

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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

Re: Sippin' on the haterade
 

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

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