At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I understand FIRST is for inspiration, but if mentors are building and or designing the robot isn't it pointless for us to waste our time there? When the ideas for the robot are basically mentor ideas, and student ideas are either shot down or refined enough so that they're just the mentors ideas.

If FIRST is about inspiration, then maybe mentors should just build their own robot and face off against each other and just let us watch. I'm sure that's inspiring enough to get into a STEM field.

I'm in no way accusing my team of doing this, I'm just wondering. Where is the line drawn between student/mentor involvement.

Disclaimer: I in no way shape or form are discussing Team 1745's opinions, these are my opinions and mine only.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

There are approximately a zillion threads on this, and it always turns into an accusatory and awful discussion. If people want to discuss this, please do so calmly and without internet-rage.

If you're asking for my $0.02, whatever a team needs to do to accomplish goals - as defined by that team and their dynamic (I'm talking mentors and students here)- is what works for them, and what they should do. So long as everyone on the team agrees on their process - that's their process, and that's that. Outsiders don't get to 'judge', because it's not their team.

For example - I was the founder/captain of 1923 in high school, and we worked side by side with mentors, because we knew that they know better than us. The kids did the design, the mentors were there to tell us "Physics says that won't work. Try this instead?" Now that I'm attending (and about to graduate from!) Clarkson University, I work on teams where there's a lot higher mentor-driven design and work- 229 and 4124 - because we work at the University, mentoring is a course for the CU students... and it's just plain not legal for the kids to machine here. None of the teams I've worked with are doing it 'wrong' - because it's what works for each team, and the kids and mentors are all happy with, and agree upon, the process.

Where teams encounter problems is when one "side" tries to "take over" the process and the team as a whole isn't happy. That's what I think you're trying to get at here, and I think that deserves some discussion.

Chief Delphi always gets weird in threads like these. Keep it civil if you're gonna post here.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

It's unacceptable when students aren't inspired anymore. Anything less is a cop-out.

I've seen students inspired by 90% mentor built robots and I've seen students turned away from engineering forever by 90% student built robots. I've seen robots that look "mentor built" that come from excellent programs with students inspired at every level, and I've seen robots that look "student built" that come from terrible programs with almost no actual student involvement.

All of that said, I don't think the standard "whatever works for your team" answer really helps this particular question, since this thread seems to be asking about at what point one's *own* team has crossed a line. That calls for a level of introspection that the other threads lack. I would try to separate any frustration you as a student have from the objective facts of what is going on, and the subjective reality of how inspired these kids are by this program you've got.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

It's this time of year again already?

I'll wait for this thread to either be closed or develop into yet another thrilling debate on a topic that will forever be debated and never really change anything because most believe nothing should be changed.

For now, I'll leave you with this.

This means we must be mere weeks away from the "adults on the drive team" and "x was 'un-GP' to y, allow me to point them out to you and display my Gracious Professionalism" threads. Gosh, those are fun.

In the name of science, let me propose this if-then statement:

If Dean Kamen tells us "it's not about the robot," then why does it matter how the robots get built?

We come to be inspired. We stay because we are. We will become the inspiration. Teams aren't preparing a dynasty of a high school robotics team.

Sorry if I seem frustrated, it's just... tiring.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I've been reading some similar threads for the past few days (i spend too much time on this site), and a big difference in this thread and the others is that OP is not attacking a team, but is more curious. yes, this is beating a dead horse, but it's nice to see curiosity rather than jealousy.

Know this OP: If you're inspired enough that you want to make those extra steps to win, you'll have to realize that students don't have all of the answers, and it takes years of studying and experience to even understand a fraction of the answers to any year's game. For this reason, it's important to have mentors. Mentors show you the steps to becoming competitive, which is an inspiring process for all. They'll show you how to design, how to go about doing iteration, and how to continue to engineer your dreams. Don't shun them.

It's up to you and your team mates, but also your mentors to decide how to handle relations among each other. You as a student want to design a solution, and the Mentors want to guide you to whichever solution you choose. Talk with them and discuss how your team wants to go about finding and implementing the solution for this year's game. Just remember that different teams have different methods. You'll find that most of the famous teams boast more than a handful of mentors, and this is because the students and mentors want the relationship to be like this, and both parties find this to be inspiring.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

We know we've crossed the line when the students tell us. We crossed the line in 2008, and the students pulled us back halfway through the season. Since then, we've done much better. It's best when the students can be up front with the mentors about what they want. Ours always are.

Personally, I always cringe when our students say "do we want to go with this idea we had, or do we want to go with mentor X's idea?" Unfortunately, that's part of the development process - anyone can have an idea, and a 7 year mentor knows more than the students. We explore every idea equally, and if I present an idea to the students, I don't say "we should do this instead." I say "I had an idea that would get around this specific problem you guys are having with the current favorite idea." I explain the idea, and then walk away - I let them (with the help of other mentors, if needed) evaluate the idea and rank it with he other ideas. I don't stick around to push my idea over theirs.

In the end, it's up to the students and the mentors to figure out the balance that works best for them. If students join the team and decide to leave because of the atmosphere or interaction, there's a problem.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Sometimes I feel that because mentors have been doing this a long time they don't take into consideration or even test students ideas. The mentality that students can not come up with good solutions, or rather the mentality that the mentors designs are more correct keeps coming into play. Students, if dedicated enough spend as much or more time coming up with solutions, and it isn't all that inspiring to be shot down without any thought or even any testing. I'm saying this from personal experience, sometimes I feel like I have to go on my own to build something to prove it will work and after it does suddenly it is looked at more seriously.

Obviously if students are being inspired then they are going to want to help design and build instead of watching. Watching someone build something leaves something to be desired.

To clarify, I am not attacking any teams in this thread. I am talking about team dynamics.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Students should be testing their own ideas, not handing them off to mentors.

For some teams, the mentors need to be very involved. For other teams, they almost don't have mentors. Most teams lie between those two extremes, and as long as everyone is OK, it is OK. When someone doesn't like it, they need to change it democratically.

So in our hypothetical team where some students felt their ideas were being ignored, first advise the mentors of those feelings, and try to see how it can be addressed.

Students need to understand that mentors are unlikely to take any cockamamie ideas that students throw at them and make them work - that takes way too much effort. Instead, the student has an idea, they get reasonable resources to develop and test it, with the mentors offering verbal advice when a roadblock is hit.

I had a student approach me with an idea for lifting up frisbees, and I quote "well, the frisbees get in here somehow and are lifted up somehow and pop into some kind of hopper." Great idea, but still needs some more effort, because a 5 year old could've come to that conclusion. The devil is in the details - come back with a working prototype and we can talk.

No J.W., I am not referring to you.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Having been a student and now a mentor I totally agree. I got started in FRC when I was in 7th grade and about as "useful" as a wet pool noodle. I was very involved for the next six years, and as you can imagine got considerably more useful as I got older. During this time I got to interact with a wide variety of mentors with a wide variety of styles.

I did not mentor a team in college (although I would occasionally drop in on 2791). IMO, this was a critical piece of the puzzle for me. I was never in that awkward phase that is somewhere between student and mentor. I was very clearly a student, and now am a mentor. (Which may scare me, but...)

I do not think there are any adults (or at least exceedingly few) in this program that would intentionally block-out students. It is most likely that they just don't remember when they didn't know how to do something, and are unsure of how to involve students. Or maybe they feel the clock breathing down their backs, and they want to make sure that the team fields a working robot. Or, you get a bunch of technical experts in a room they start going at it without them even realizing that they are excluding everyone else. (eventually you have to fire the engineers and just build the darn thing)

What I consider one my greatest mentoring strengths is I remember when I was a student in varying degrees from "completely useless" to "Mr. Mentor is here for insurance reasons" And I try really hard to hand out tasks that fit where kids are today AND give them an opportunity to grow in the future. And I think the people that stick with this program think along those lines, but sometimes people who are in their first season or two haven't figured that out yet.

For example, freshman and sophomores generally have a really hard time drilling a perpendicular hole with a DeWalt drill. I am not sure what the scientific reason for this is, but I know I was also totally incapable of drilling a perpendicular hole for a long time, so you either have them use a drill press or have someone else sight the drill (and continue moving it back straight when they drift off!) To continue the example you may have to drill a particularly difficult hole during week 1, show someone how to adjust the clutch on a cordless drill in week 3, and just ask someone to mount a reinforcement brace on the robot in the pit.

This thread has some really great insights into Doing / Showing / Asking from people much smarter than I.

::safety::

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Another issue is training time. If a team forms before build then the mentors are more involved in the robot as this is the only time to teach. We have our students all year in a engineering program and so we can mentor before build. There is no way you can compare the two different styles. You have to do the best with what you have. Both systems produce great students. Also some teams focus on the robot and some on the students. Each system produces good results depending on the mentors and students involved. What works for my team will not work for many other teams.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I think our coach handles it perfectly. He basically acts like another student when it comes to brainstorming: suggesting anything that pops in his head or helping out here and there with some new ideas. But nothing more than any of the rest of us provide. I (note: not we. This is just my thoughts) feel like our coach does a great job of being part of the team, but not taking over at all.

A great example. Today we were discussing climbing plans and he said "Y'all are welcome to override me, but if I were a dictator or a one man team, what I would do is..." and gave us his opinion. Then went on to say "but y'all decide what you think is best and that's what we're gonna do." Providing ideas but not shoving them down our throats seems to work really well :)

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I find that one of the most overlooked aspects of this whole discussion is the very extreme time window compression of the FRC build season.

Clearly, there is not a whole lot of time that can be wasted trying out some of the student ideas that a mentor may clearly instantly see is frankly unworkable. It often seems heavy handed when ongoing arguments over opposing design concepts finally get decided by a unilateral mentor decision, and without any student-expected "fair test."

I sometimes feel like the compressed time window prevents a lot of learning experiences from happening, just as much as it may create some too.

There is a lot of pressure on mentors to have a build season end with some sense of accomplishment. When mentors see that the focus of team efforts is going in a bad direction that is destined to fail, they feel obligated to right the ship. Often this leads to them taking too much control and doing too many things that students could still handle, if they were more skillfully redirected toward the more potentially successful direction.

Students can then start feeling left out of the process. It is a real balancing act to have students being responsible for things that they have had zero prior experience doing, and at the same time knowing that there is really not enough time to deliver to them the background knowledge and training that may be required to complete many tasks.

So as the time crunch pulls a team ever closer to the event horizon of bag day, mentors may often seem like they start drifting away from doing as much mentoring, in the manner that students expect them to, and seem to start taking on too much of the job, to the point of excluding students from too much of the process.

However, understand that it is the mentor's strong commitment toward realizing the extended team's goals - students, parents, administrators - that is the primary factors that triggers this kind of mentor-doing-too-much behavior.
This still doesn't mean it is a good thing, but it does make it easier to understand how and why it happens.

I personally feel the the very short time window of the build season of FRC seriously undermines the level of good mentoring that I can accomplish with my team, and forces me to be doing way to many things that I would rather have them be doing, but time simply does not allow that.

-Dick Ledford

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

The best way to avoid these discussions on CD is by teams learning their own team dynamic and discussing it with students, teachers, and mentors together.

The better the students understand the mentors' motives and actions, the better they react. Usually this means more rational reactions and less irrational threads on CD (Not that Kusha is an example of this). When mentors understand students' concerns, they learn how to better react to farfetched ideas in a method that is more conducive to the student being inspired/learning from the mentor.

It really boils down to team communication that happens before build season. Open discussion and everyone understanding how the team runs/how they want it to run is what makes or breaks a student's reactions to these types of scenarios.

+.02 based on experience from the past season and offseason. Kusha, feel free to PM me or chat on facebook about my team's experience with these issues.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I agree completely. It seems we're in the same boat. Student acquisition of skills takes a LOT of time. We started pre-season prep in the summer, and it still isn't enough. In the build season, the competitive teams that will win this are not doing hardly anything new. They are already experts, and are simply repeating things they have done in the past. They innovate in the offseason, and apply minor tweaks during build season. If you're trying much of anything new starting in January, you have already lost the game.

This build season has been particularly tough. Already, I have over 230 hours into it personally. As a team, we have over 3000 people-hours into it total so far.

There are plenty of things I wish I could take the time to show students how to do for the first time, but the harsh reality is that if I did, it would be February 19th and we wouldn't have anything close to resembling a robot sitting here (we still may not anyhow!). Sometimes one has to consider the greater good. Whch is better: students involved in every step an the robot is a terrible failure, or a reasonable dose of mentor involvement and the kids have something adequately field-able? While it's not about the robots, a terrible robot can ruin any team's morale. I refuse to allow it to happen here. Failure is not an option.

In my opinion, a team needs to best utilize ALL of its people. If an adult has knowledge or skills or abilities that can benefit the team as a whole, it's doing the team a disservice to hold that back.

While currently I may do too much work for my students, they are all aware of my goal to be sitting back in a La-Z Boy recliner with my feet up on my desk and a cool beverage in my hand within the next 5 years, and several students are making progress toward helping me achieve that goal. :D (This is a fictional goal by the way. I don't think I'll ever be a hands-off mentor. It's just not my style).

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Almost all of the time it depends on the student. I have a great pair of seniors who can build most anything. They presented me with a frame plan and a CAD drawing and I made some minor suggestions, and then they made it... alone.

The shooter group, on the other hand, has me do most hands on work, even when I insist they do it.

The other groups are a mixed bag, sometimes you need to stop an action in progress, like the first year member using one of my classroom desks to pound a gear onto a shaft... don't ask...

Other times, there just isn't time. Last year a support strut broke in between matches, as I watched the confusion and repair attempts, I KNEW I had to step in and take over, or all was lost. I felt bad afterwards, but the team congratulated me. To quote the outgoing leader, "sometimes experience trumps enthusiasm."

Ask yourself this, should I have let them fail to repair the strut and forfeit several matches? What purpose would that serve?

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

This is a struggle - one that many old farts still have.
This is my eighth season in FRC, and it made me cringe when on the first Monday the students were saying, "I like Taylor's idea. Let's go with Taylor's idea."
The thing was, the way we chose to approach this game was decided by the team. The strategies we'll employ were decided by the team. And when I say 'team' I mean students - I only acted as a scribe on the chalkboard. "Taylor's idea" was simply a way to realize that strategy.
Since then, it has been refined and massaged and manipulated, mostly by students, into a workable solution.
I suppose my tl;dr is this: Ideas are ideas. They're not property. Once they're out, they're not owned by anybody. So if you feel your mentors are hijacking your team, make a concerted effort to stick your nose in, work shoulder-to-shoulder, make yourself a part of the process. If they deny you that, demand an explanation.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I think what you did was completely acceptable.
In my opinion alumni and mentors are a resource to be used in furthering the students learning and inspiration. this means to me that students should be free to ask any questions on the plausibility of their ideas. on the other hand I think the students benefit the most from being led to the solution rather than just being told.

in 2009 the students in my team chose an idea the mentor was opposed to. this was also the first year the robot was mostly designed before being constructed.
After a lot of argument our mentor he eventually came over to the student's side and ended up giving them vital assistance.
I guess I'm just agreeing with the majority that balance is what is most important. Just that mentors and alumni have more responsibility for how the team looks in the long term.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

There is not necessarily an universal answer that answers for every team how much of the robot should be mentor built and how much of it should be student built.

That being said i will explain our mentor/student philosophy and i will state that i am a very large advocate for student built robots halfway because this is how our team does it and halfway because I believe if it is a student built robot the students will learn a lot more than just watching the mentors. Additionally the reason i want to become a mechanical engineer and a roboticist is that i was able to build a robot and actually see the entire design process and participate in it starting from stating my strategy all the way to making the bumpers at the end of the season and mounting the electronics.

Team 1649's policy is that mentors are only there to guide and teach the students and answer questions. They are also there to make sure someone doesn't cut there hand off or something else that doesn't grow back. So basically mentors are there to make sure we don't kill each other or ourselves and teach us how to build the robot. This being said the mentors are not in a glass box and all they do is answer questions and then sit back down. Normally the mentors are there and will answer any question you have but they also move around to the different projects we are working on and they will advocate safety or ask questions and suggest ways to do something better. Also the mentors will voice their opinions and tell us when where not doing something right or suggest a way to do it better but the students are still the ones building the actual robot. This is our team philosophy and our main mentor follows this team philosophy very closely with the only exceptions to this being a alumni mentor teaching us how to do CAD while cadding components for this year's robot.

The last thing i want to say is that this is our team philosophy and i just wanted to share it and it may work very well on our team but it may not work for other teams. Such as teams where the machining tools can only be used by mentors or chaperones.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

On our FRC team I can say with confidence that every idea that has ever made it onto one of our robots has been modified, tweaked, corrected, and/or simplified before going into production. This is normal and happens in real life every day. In my day job I work for a local power utility, we install equipment in the field that will likely be in place for the next 30-50 years. That means the engineer who designed the system is not likely to be around when it is removed. Our control systems and mechanical designs must be able to withstand time (decay) and design brain loss (engineer retirement). Since I support systems designed before I was born and the same will be true for someone else in twenty years, it is imperative to refine ideas until they are in the most simple form possible.

I am not sure exactly what is going on with your team but I would encourage you to think about the advice your mentors are offering you. I simplify systems everyday which gives me experience in taking complicated designs and making them work even better. My guess is your mentors can do the same.

Remember build season is six weeks, it will never be possible to test or refine every idea people present. Sometimes the mentors can see that even after refining, your idea will never get to the starting point of another idea. This experience is invaluable. As a mentor myself the thing I value most is student initiative. Go build a prototype and test it, then try and make it simpler right away, finally make a final case for the design. In the end, I believe in evaluating ideas by removing who designed/created it and then comparing each system side by side, the one that integrates into the entire system (complete robot) the best should be used.

We had some great ideas this year for sorting Frisbees, but I could see right away that they would not fit in our robot design due to orientation and frame size. Students got upset when I wanted to move on because of the same mentor/student idea origination. We are now building a different design that everyone is happy with and to be honest, I am really not sure if any one person came up with the current idea. It has been through so many revisions that it must have 20 sets of fingerprints on it by now. I use this as an example to show how systems evolve; your idea might not be used verbatim now but later a small piece of it may find its way into a much bigger and better design.

Just my $0.02.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Does anybody truly believe there are teams out there where the students "just watch the mentors"?
That just seems like a huge false dichotomy that's been used as the crux of a lot of arguments.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I've yet to hear about one, though I hear of many complaining of them. Truth is, if there ever was a team like that, it likely disbanded the year following. You need students to continue to have a team, and most students are probably not as enthusiastic about just watching others.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Back to the original point of this thread, at what point does it become unacceptable? I have read both sides of this issue and I propose an easy solution. During elimination matches...only students may touch the robot and mentors may get no closer than 5 feet away. This rule would virtually eliminate the design/build conflict, since maintainability will rely strictly with the students. If they didn't design/build it...it would almost be impossible for them to repair it.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

A few years back I visited a team asking for assistance. When the conversation turned to how last years bot was built, the students told me "the mentors built it and dropped it off to us just before our competition"

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Kusha,
This debate has been around ever since the beginning. There will never be a defined line. It is a team decision, not a personal or even a FIRST decision. The team decision will change from year to year. Mentors will come and go as do the students. Skill level and enthusiasm changes with each person.

Remember there is always something to learn in every situation.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Off topic but...happened in my shop two days ago...just saying :eek:

Glad I'm not the only one yelling across the room 'bad idea in action...' :yikes:

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

You're going to find yourself by yourself if you're in support of that. What would happen if a student couldn't diagnose what was wrong? What if the repair involves work that students aren't trained to do (Welding, etc.)? It's not black and white, and you can't just place a blanket rule like that. Everyone will suffer from a rule like this. Shunning your mentors means you are getting rid of your most valuable resources.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Our team has struggled with some of the issues you all have been talking about. One thing with student involvement, is that the students themselves must have the desire to commit to the team, and all of its operations. I am currently a student, and I've see those around me complain about not having enough student involvement (particularly last year), but there have been cleanup meetings after stop build day when i was one of only a few students to attend.

This year, we've been running the team entirely differently, where students have been doing almost all of the prototyping, with mentor assistance on machining. When we have to make a design decision, we discuss it in an open meeting, where our committed students and mentors voice their opinions, and we come to a collective agreement. So far, this has settle all of our problems, instead of polarizing the team on multiple different ideas, and getting hung up on the decision making.

Last year, I think everyone, including our own mentors, realized that we needed to become a more student oriented team. That being said, the students need to take it upon themselves to come in and build their prototypes, get their ideas heard, build a strong knowledge base of FIRST, and understand what is feasible during a 6 week build season.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

A friend of mine from a team near ours told me that they receive the bot whole without so much as a strategy meeting. while he may be exaggerating most of his teammates (95%) could not answer simple design questions about their bot.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

That should be on you and them. What if they're not very good at driving the robot, does that mean you should do it? And if you have to do welding or other similar work during elimination matches, then you probably have bigger problems... Not saying I'm in favor of the suggestion, but I don't think these are particularly compelling counterpoints.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

This might not be one either, as it depends on the student/mentors in question, but a mentor not being allowed to work on the robot could be the difference between an orderly but hurried major repair (of quality better than "It should work for this match") and a panicky, chaotic major repair of poor quality. Just that calming presence and experience troubleshooting that a good mentor can bring (or fake, if need be) could be the difference.


I agree, it depends on the team. For me personally, if a student is politely asking a mentor to let them do the job, and the mentor is entirely refusing for no reason, that is right about the unacceptable point (mentors refusing because the student doesn't know how to do the job yet and failing to teach is also unacceptable to me--I don't call that mentoring). To any student I happen to work with, that happens to read this, if I'm doing a job you can do, feel free to push me out of the way (though asking first is encouraged in case I'm doing something that needs a safe shutdown).

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Yes, although exceedingly rare based on the people I've talked to that were on one. I would be willing to be there are a much larger proportion of teams where students feel disenfranchised by the amount of work done by mentors, and an even larger proportion of teams that get accused of being "just watch the mentors" when they are in fact a happy partnership. The first step is always to talk to them as if students are off gossiping in the corner most of the mentors I know are content to continue working without you -- but we'd like it even more if you'd help us! Plenty of adults would love to teach you, but are hesitant to tell kids to get back to work that they did not raise.

When 1276 won BAE in 2006 (my then HS team), we got accused of being mentor built on CD (I can't find the thread, it was an implication but clearly us)! I can assure you that we were in fact a happy 50/50 partnership, and as I begin the journey into being a mentor I find myself eternally grateful to my Dad, Keith, Joe, Phil, and others that volunteered their valuable time to teach me things I didn't even know I was learning until I have had to apply them later.

It is my opinion that teams should refer to their robot as "our" robot. It is not the "kid's" robot, and it is not the "mentor's" robot, it is "our" robot. Successful FRC teams build partnerships and people that many companies would pay good money for. Working at a big company I've taken classes and listen to plenty of talks about leadership, and have friends taking MBA classes. IFI and AM have figured this out...

I think a lot of companies give FIRST/FIRST teams money for not-quite-the-right reason. They consider it training for their future workforce, but they miss out on all the off-hours lessons their current employees could benefit from. I am 100% certain I would not be where I am today with FIRST.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

TL;DR skip to the 3rd paragraph...

I have been both a student and a mentor, and have seen the over bearing mentor archetype from both perspectives. I, as a student, fought frequently with the mentors on my FRC team to allow other students to become more involved with the robot, instead of relegating them to tasks like button making. As a sophomore, I gave away my own assigned jobs to two or three people and stood by and filled the role of mentor, so that they at least could go home and tell their parents that they did something that day. I used every approach known to man to confront the mentors, each time trying to limit as much damage to my fellow students as possible. It got to the point that, I was asked to leave the team by the mentors because other students were starting to take up arms as well. I was viewed as a troublemaker who was trying to instigate a hostile takeover of the team. The same team where it was common place for students to watch a group of mentors huddled in another room talking design. No attempt by the mentors to include the students; every so often a student would attempt to push their way in, but to only be treated like they didn't exists.

As an FLL mentor, I watched as other mentors and head coaches would simply change code or redesign the whole robot and not explain it to the students. When parents would enter the room, at the end of meetings to pick up their kids, these mentors would act quite differently. Any attempt to talk to these colleagues about their actions would end in their denial the events ever happened.

For me the line is right where those who are on the outside looking in think it should be. Where parents who are not involved, sponsors who hear a team's presentation, even just the innocent bystander on the street who wanders into a competition think it should be. While they may not understand all of the trials and tribulations of the process of "inspiration," they are the ones who ultimately judge the success or failure of the team. How would they view the team in its current state, if they could be a fly on the wall at meetings? How would they view FIRST at large if all they had was a snapshot of this one team?

Try and do this for something you're not even remotely involved in. Then come back and try and look at your team in the same way you did that thing. It can be quite eye opening...

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

My dad's friend's cousin's neighbor said she knew a guy who woke up in NYC in a bathtub full of ice and missing a kidney.

There's a lot of conjecture based on hearsay, and I've yet to see any incontrovertible proof that purely adult teams exist (outside of DARPA challenges and the like).

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

The good thing about FIRST is that you really only have to run one team: your own team. You don't have to worry about what other people are doing with their team or with how their team is organized. If it is really not about the robot, then why should anyone care about what another team does? The competition is merely the vehicle that is used to get student excited about science and technology.

Within your own team, you must have a discussion among all team members and determine what is right for you. Find out what your team wants to do. Remember that mentors are an integral part of what FIRST is about; it's what makes this different from something like a science fair or a math team. Students and mentors are supposed to work TOGETHER to have a meaningful experience and to have a successful season. Open communication is truly the best way to solve most of the problems that exist in any relationship, not just mentor/student.

Does anyone disagree with this? How so? Please let me know, because this is how I've thought of the program my entire FIRST career.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I have also seen this at FLL competitions and rumbles. Although comparing FLL mentor involvement and FRC mentor involvement is like comparing apples to oranges. In FLL mentors are supposed to, I don't have my handbook in front of me to actually quote it, step back and let the students do the work but help them work through issues and challenges. Just look at one of their core values "We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors." It doesn't happen often but in our region we actually disqualify FLL team if we see mentors/coaches doing the work for the students.

FRC mentor involvement, as everyone has said, is a fine line. These students are working with tools and parts that can be dangerous if not used properly and sometimes there is a need for a mentor to do some of the work. Each team is different find the balance that fits your team and keeps every single one of the students engaged in the program. If we don't allow students to learn anything or be inspired we have not met what FIRST strives to do. We want to promote STEM fields and teach life/career/business skills. How can we achieve this by shutting students completely out of the process?

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Yeah, what Don said !!

This is an old thread in a new bottle. Teams ( student/mentors ) need to have an understanding of what success looks like. Having a winning robot is fun, but not necessarily success.

Teams need to have an understanding of what the off-season accomplishes in order to be ready for the on-season.

Knowing what success looks like, what you are trying to accomplish and focusing on that will help a lot. Solving team dynamics problems (forming, storming, norming, performing) before the on-season before kickoff helps a lot.

Team goals just collided with team dynamics !!

This is my 8th year doing this and we have had years with maybe 75% mentor involvement, 50%, 25%, and now about 1%. Next year will be maybe 33%. If we can keep it to 20 or 30% over the long haul I will be happy with that.

It is really nice getting things to the place to where the mentors can step forward or backward into the process as necessary.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Speaking from my team's experience, the students are the ones who design, build, and test everything. What we as mentors try to do is help the students better understand why somethings work and others don't. We help them with learning the fundamentals of how things are created. As a former team member and now a mentor I feel like it is the students who should be doing the work and the mentor is there to guide them. If mentors were to take the aspect of robotics that students enjoy the most we would be missing the whole idea of FIRST, which is to inspire students in the fields of math and science through application

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I wanted to come back with a great example from my team last night, and to reiterate that the tipping point really is when the mentors stop listening to the students. If the students say "you design it", then go for it - that's what they want. But if they want to design it, step back and let them!

Two nights ago, we realized there was a problem with our climbing mechanism. Without going into too many design details, we realized that reaching for the next bar was geometrically impossible given the current setup and all of the parts we had constructed so far.

Yesterday, the build mentors spent time thinking and e-mailing, trying to come up with a good solution. We ended up going to the meeting with 3 possible solutions in our back pocket, all of which we didn't really like.

So, we started the meeting by gathering everyone around the robot, and having the student leading that portion of the construction explain the problem. She went on to list two possible solutions she had thought of (both of which we had discussed over e-mail and had ready for the team if needed), and why she really didn't like one of them. One of the students in charge of another part of the robot then explained why she really didn't like the other one, as it would have significantly impacted what she was trying to accomplish.

Like I said, we had solutions, but we really didn't like any of them.

So, then another student chimed in. Basically, she reversed the way the arm worked (only requiring software updates, the construction would stay exactly the same), and suddenly the problem was solved.

We never even pulled out the third solution we had in reserve. There was no need. In fact, as mentors we didn't propose any solutions to this critical issue (although at other points in the build we have proposed solutions when needed).

So, the moral of the story is... Listen to your students! They'll have ideas, and some of them will be great ideas. They'll tell you if you're doing too much, or if they need more help. There's nothing wrong with doing some prep work and coming to the meeting prepared to spoon-feed them. But listen to them first, and determine if its really needed!

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Here's a personal example of a little too much mentor involvement, by myself, on my own team. Student designed gearbox plates -- very nicely done. I needed to make a couple minor changes/additions, broke his CAD model, and ended up re-doing it from scratch. When we go to look at the final plates (all 12 of them), oops, they're too big, and will drag on the ground. Now we need to go in and rework them. Moral of the story here? Students, trust your mentors, but only so far. Check their work. Even those of this who have been in it over a decade can still make mistakes.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

The argument seems to frequently stem from the appearance of some of those top tier robots.

"It looks professionally built, there's no way high school students built that."

I've heard it dozens of times, mostly aimed at 1114 and 2056, since the Canadian regionals are my stomping grounds.

I know because I've dealt with these teams many times, that the students are no less involved in the process, its just that their process is different to the average team.

In many cases, the competition robot appears professionally built, because it is. I know that several of the more recent 1114 machines (starting in 2009, IIRC), the production of many parts for the final machine happened at their sponsor's facility by a machine. Those parts look professional, because a machine produced them from a CAD drawing. Often though, the students DID assemble the final product.

The difference is in the focus of their program compared to the argued "student-built" machine. The "professionally-built" teams focus more on the prototyping and design and engineering process, often outsourcing the manufacture of the final product parts to a sponsor, while the "student-built" teams focus on manufacturing the robot. Both have merit, they're just different.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

So what we need is for the KOP to include a mill, laser jet, lathe, and 3D printer (all CnC, of course), so that everyone can do everything exactly the same way! Yay, uniformity!

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I do.

Sometimes my students just watch me while I'm trying to debug a particularly hard problem. The process is more important than the actual details of solving the problem.

What makes this program awesome is that more often I sit back and watch them.

Maybe instead of basing judgements on who they see doing the work people should not be so quick to judge.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Including all that in the KOP wouldn't make any difference to the high-caliber teams. They probably wouldn't even open it, all their manufacturing is outsourced anyway. Like 1075guy said, their emphasis is on the design and engineering, not the manufacturing. If you can do the engineering, there's thousands of machine shops that can do the manufacturing for you.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Our process closely resembles what actually happens in engineering design shops. We prototype, design, prototype, design, building the final product from the parts that was designed, with many parts produced in a fab shop. Just like the real world deal.

Our robot may or may not be effective, I hope it is. It looks like it was professionally designed and produced, with a lot of mentor support.

We will probably get blistered this year with criticism because of how it looks and not how it really happened. I don't really know how to counter that and I don't want to waste the time.

We are also working with a low experience, low resource team and we are working to create a robot to see how effective it can be. Using limited talent and training, and hand tools and a hacksaw. It will be interesting.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

[Irony]Sorry, should have used these.[/Irony]

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

While Im hesitant to weigh in on a thread like this (and my views don't necessarily reflect my team's :yikes: ), someone a while back put this nicely.

With us, mentors basically function as students. Its quite a nice balance. Mentors are there to mentor, but Id say that doesnt really place them far above all the students on our team. We all work together, and while Ive learned alot from our mentors, and Im very thankful for that, Ive taught them a few things too, as well as our mentors learning from each other. Not all mentors are super experts. This segways (Ha...Ha ha... Segway :yikes: ) into our brainstorming. I find it hard to believe that some teams automatically put their mentors ideas before the student's purely because it came from an adult. Most of the ideas our team is using came from students, and when they come up, are evaluated the same way as mentor's ideas. You have it, now explain its feasibility, function, ect. to us. I mess up on our team, but our mentor's arn't infallible either.

I believe I got this from Karthik's (Sorry if I butchered that) from 1114 strategy video. Dont take people's word on things. Get the explanation, and have it make sense before you accept it as fact. It will help you more in the long run anyhow if you know why or how something occurs.

I love it, getting to work alongside real world engineers, and while I believe that having the mentors completely out of the building, more as observers and guiders, there is something to be said for working with these great people. Guess what (and though this isn't the goal of being a mentor), mentors like FRC too, its really fun to go through an engineering process so fast and have a working model (hopefully) in only six weeks. Our mentors want to design, build, and succeed just as much as us students do. I hate to do say it with these words but...We're all in this together.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

If your mentors don't like FRC, I don't know why they would ever continue to be in it. It has to be fun and engaging for everyone on the team to keep it surviving. Just as a team with no students can't survive, a team without mentors to bridge between the generations of students won't either.

I don't really have a whole lot to add to this discussion, but I will mention that sometimes mentors get very involved in the design or build because they themselves are not yet at a point to mentor effectively. Just as an anecdotal example, all of the engineering mentors on the team I am currently with come from an Electrical, Computer, or Systems Engineering background. Since Mechanical Engineering is not in any of our backgrounds we're sometimes learning ourselves during build season, which obviously makes it more difficult to effectively teach this information to the students as well. Maybe that's an aspect I like about FRC as well though... I don't get to work on mechanical designs in my job, and doing so in FRC is a good way to continue learning.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Kusha and others,
I agree with Libby. There is something interesting I have observed while participating in FLL and my time so far in FRC this year (this is my first year in FRC). I wish EVERYONE would have a professional mentor like my FLL mentor who is an engineer at a large agricultural company here in Iowa. He is one of the few that lead by posing questions for us students to answer. I envision FTC to be kind of the same way as FLL since everything is pretty much plug and play. But when it comes to FRC, this is a much more complicated challenge that teams are only given 6 weeks to solve. If you don't like how something is done, don't be afraid to speak up. I encourage you to try to get your team members to start leading instead of the mentors, and once you have team member ownership and leadership, the team can adjust along the scale as they see fit. Another option is to try to join a youth organization like 4-H where we actually encourage this kind of learning and youth-adult partnerships.

Hope this helps and good luck!
David

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

This is an excellent comment and deserves its own thread. A healthy discussion on the topic of mentoring effectively - and what that means - would be an excellent discussion, I trust.

Jane

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I was just having a similar discussion with Chris Picone the other day. We were saying how one of the best compliments we could get on our teams (this may not be the case for all teams, and that is perfectly okay) is when people make the comment that something is "mentor built." I think that's when we've done our jobs well. Now, obviously these comments can be repetitive and annoying for students/mentors to hear overtime (1114, 254..etc.) but I think for new mentors it might be considered an accomplishment depending on how your team is run.

Hope that wasn't off-topic. Carry on.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Definitely. If anyone comments on how well made our robot may be this year, or how much us mentors seem to have built, I will be very flattered. Truth be told, it's the students that work the hardest on these robots. The students I work with are taking the initiative not only to design completely, but also make the robot aesthetically presentable and pleasing.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Mentor design and build of a robot becomes unacceptable when this excludes the team from meeting all of its goals, both on the field and off the field. This is largely up to the team, but many teams have performance goals as well as general goals. It's safe to say that any team in FIRST strives to inspire its members and others. The level of mentor involvement or control is unacceptable when it stops inspiration from happening. There is definitely a balance, and it might be different for each team. If students on the team are thinking "Wow, this robot stuff is really cool!" or "<Mentor> is really awesome, I want to do things like him/her!" then you're doing something right.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Of course, sometimes "Mentor Built" means the exact opposite of what some people think... One of our students has been doing an awesome job of designing and building one of our mechanisms this year. Well, last night a shaft got stuck and we needed to pull it out. After about half an hour of hammering, twisting, and otherwise abusing the robot, myself and another mentor finally got it out (the shaft actually still has the bearing stuck on the end). The students did nothing but complain the rest of the night about how "the mentors dented the robot!" Sometimes "Mentor Built" isn't all that pretty :)

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

On a less serious note, last week our controls mentor picked up a hand drill to make some new holes for repositioning a piston.

It was a scary sight, and halfway through the process I said "Wait, why does he have a drill in his hands?"

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

We try to maintain a very good balance. Our teacher sponsor described it very well once as kinda like an apprenticeship program.

Just like I can't turn a 1st year loose inside a piece of 480V switch gear to rack breakers or play with the protective relaying we can't have freshmen running a muck with a plasma torch. ::ouch::

For potentially dangerous tasks the students have to watch a mentor do it a few times and listen and learn, for must stuff we work next to the students and explain and teach as they go and learn. offering advice and pointing out potential issues, better options, whatever.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Simply asking the question shows that there is a frustration with "mentor" built robots. Mentors must be aware when students are potentially being overlooked. Students by nature have a lot to contuibute and are more responsive to new ideas and designs. What they may lack in engineering skills is made up for in creativity. Not all design ideas are practical, but that goes for mentor ideas also. Mentors should always be open to student ideas and nurture their desire to be involved. If student members are not active involved in the robots construction we will lose their commitment to FIRST an possibly move on to other activities in which they feel that they are active participants. This would be a great loss to the FIRST program. I have never been a fan of comparing FIRST to Sports, it's like comparing apples to oranges. It would appear that we all have to work harder to keep our apples from becoming oranges

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I think that every time this thread comes up, everyone on Chief Delphi should reply with:

"You worry about your team. Let other people worry about their own teams."

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Is is permissible if students just step back and watch the mentors beat the dead horse?

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

It's best to decide that on a team-by-team basis. ;)

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I disagree. If there is a team that is doing a disservice to its own students by not giving them as much as FIRST should be giving them, I don't think the rest of the community should ignore it. Most students aren't able to choose their own teams or do anything about a situation in which mentors are doing much more than they should.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I think the crux of the argument here is that students can and should speak up when they feel the team isn't running in a way that's in everyone's best interests. While that can be difficult, parents and teachers are certainly in a position to help. Students and mentors are both responsible for ensuring the team fulfills its mission.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

By and large you aren't "their" community, and neither am I.

Sticking our collective noses into how other people choose to run their teams is almost definitely destructive in terms of the larger culture, and I can't imagine how it would accomplish anything whatsoever in terms of how that team chooses to organize itself...

ESPECIALLY given the undeniable fact that you'd be operating on extremely incomplete information.

We don't all have to agree on what's best in order to do our best.

Edit:

Who the heck are you or I to presume to say to another team that their team isn't giving them "as much as FIRST should be giving them"? Even assuming perfect information--which assuredly we do not have--why is our definition of what's best for their team better than their definition of what's best for their team?

To whit, if we as a community can't even agree on whether or not sticking our noses into one another's business is a good idea, we're certainly not going to agree on how much to do so, or how.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

No, that's not fair. Some teams can't afford a horse, and most students don't know how to kill one. :-)

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

TL;DR: It is actually HEALTHY for debates like this to happen. Let syncretism happen.

I'm going to assume that my audience is engineers who have never really looked at how culture is looked at by people who study it. If this is wrong I am sorry. (this is not meant to sound condescending or snooty)

There are two ways in which an idea or custom is controlled in society, in the simplest sense: by a governing authority or by social pressure. With the debate of primarily mentors built vs primarily student built, FIRST proper (aka dean, woody, etc.) has never issued any sort of ruling on the matter. It is rather safe to say that they are the governing authority of FIRST at large. Their silence means that it is up to the rest of the FIRST community to form some sort of tacit or un-tacit construct that controls this idea among the community at-large. This will happen either with a conscious community effort or naturally without any conscious control of it by the community.

Conscious control requires a way for people from all over the community to be able to communicate with one another. Hence why threads like this crop up every season on chief delphi. This is the method that the FIRST community has chosen to "take the temperature" of where the social construct currently stands. Threads like this re-evaluate what is thought of as "acceptable" on the larger scale of FIRST. It is actually HEALTHY for debates like this to happen. If they do not, a general community consensus is not reached and their become sub-groups within the larger FIRST community. This is bad because when these groups need to work together on something (like the concept of GP, spread of the district system, or the spread of STEM to the rest of society) they will focus on their differences and get nothing accomplished. If you would like examples of this PM me, because history is rife with them. The alternative is the tacit acceptance of the ideas laid in the past that are either accepted or the person/group is shunned. Let syncretism happen.

If you want to talk about something that is harmful to FIRST culture at large, talk about the different approaches that the community takes with regard to mentor involvement at the different levels of FIRST. 3/4 levels, the less mentor involvement the better the team is viewed; you get to FRC and its chaos. No wonder students who have progressed through all the stages of FIRST are confused about what a mentor's role is. The proof for that is looking at who asks the initial question in threads like this, often it's current or former students.

FIRST is a culture. Start thinking about it in terms of a culture and less as an organization.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I teach physics and American Sign Language. My minors in college are math and linguistics. I'm not an engineer, but I do quite a bit with culture in my daily curriculum. :)

The debate is fine -- the implication that there's one right answer, or that anyone has the moral authority to point at anyone else and say, "you're doing it wrong" is not.

I stand by the argument that worrying about your own behavior and your own team is much, much more constructive.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

And that is where I stand as well. As I told some rookie teams last year: "It might look like mentors built it. It might look like students built it. You don't know for sure; if you're curious go talk to the team. But whatever you do, please bear in mind that there is nothing saying that either method is wrong."

Now, if someone on a team thinks that a mentor(s) are going too far or not far enough, and asks for help, that means that they want someone to help them. In that case, I would advise, but only in a general, "this is something that might help" or "this is the way we do it, maybe it'll work for you" way. Beyond that, I go back to focusing on my own team/work.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

The following is a quote from Dave Lavery from the 2008 kickoff. The full transcript is here: http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/...transcript.php

While he doesn't address how much mentor vs how much student, it's very clear that no mentor involvement is not the correct answer.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Is there anything more inspirational than a dynasty? If you can can compete at such a high level year after year I don't think that there is any other outcome than everyone having learned an incredible amount in the process.

In my opinion, dynasty is probably the highest complement someone can pay.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Sure. In a town where the average graduating class is 60 kids and you struggle to get 20 on a team, with no engineering mentors and nothing even approaching engineering within 20 miles of the school, you strive to become dynastic, but aren't so impressed by dynasties.

Personally, I'm impressed by people being the best they can be, regardless of how well they actually do.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I don't think you need engineers to build one. I would wager that a typical fourth year FRC mentor or student is MUCH more useful than a typical recently graduated engineer. If you improve year on year, the sky is the limit. Building the dynasty is key.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

One of my favorite quotes, Ian.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

You know, every year I wonder if the mentors on my team are doing too much for the kids we have that year. Each year, the students change (they're all in FTC/VRC Freshmen-Juniors) and we just might get a Junior or two who will be around next year. The only knowledge continuity is via the mentors. I've grown accustomed to using my time keeping the students busy by pairing them up with each other and with mentors on various sub teams.

Then every year, around the end of Week 4, I realize that the students are starting to take charge. The students get it. They realize what to do for the next iteration of the design and how to make it better. They realize that choices have consequences for any given design, even if the consequences aren't immediate. Then it doesn't matter how hands on we were in Week 1. One or two days early on, sure we carried the students (someone had to order long-lead parts!) -- yet if we hadn't, who knows when the 'aha' moment would have happened. Now, even the (historically) lazy kids are very motivated and working hard.

That's the point: they're becoming problem solvers, rather than whiners filled with regretful ambivalence.

It took a sharp boot and big shoulders to get to this point, but who cares? To each team its own, IMO.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Nice find, I vaguely remember hearing this as a student that year. Have they ever come closer to making a ruling on the age old question?

This is what makes FIRST so much more successful, most times, compared to other programs like it; but, I don't think anyone will argue for zero mentor involvement. The question that needs to be answered, and is why this thread is actually constructive: how much is too much mentor?

This isn't some all or nothing question, it's going to be somewhere in the middle. It's also not going to be a one size fits all solution either. But, the end result of this debate should express the unofficial ruling of the community on the subject. Basically set the median point of what is a generally accepted "okay" level of mentorship. A point that can be pointed to, for those who have no clue what FIRST is about, and say "hey start here and adjust to what works best for you." It is not meant to be perfect for anyone, but that is kinda of the point. FIRST the society is not about any one individual team, but rather something that is separate from the sum of its parts.

This is your (who ever is reading this) opportunity to discuss a subject that has the potential to shift how FIRST looks at itself. Take this opportunity to discuss it and not judge others, or think that others are judging you. Be critical, but not destructive to the conversation and don't be to shy or afraid to express how you view things. Nullifying this discussion by taking stances that each individual team should make their own decision is as destructive to the conversation as screaming that someone is wrong. This isn't specifically about your team, but the community at large. You are a part of FIRST and your ideas count, but others have just as much say as you do in this matter.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

http://web.archive.org/web/200502052.../DEKA1998.html Yes... They said they don't care. Mind you, that was over 15 years ago...

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I have only one thing to bring up that hasn't been said yet. When a person describes a robot as being "mentor built" they are rudely stating that the students were completly imcapable of desiging, building, and programing a quality robot. It is a rude comment that only insults the students and makes the speaker sound like a Missouri Mule. I say this because unless you have knowledge of how a particular team operates then you have no right to claim this. It greatly upsets me when I hear that Team xxxx has a mentor built robot. Then I ask the person how they know that for certain, then that speaker says erll the robot is just beyond student quality. Encounters like this turn my face :mad: . Encounters like these can change if teams instead of complaining about "mentor built robots" go and learn about these inspiring robots. You might just learn a lot about what it takes to build a fantastic robot.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

The only people who care about who builds the robot are the people on the sideline. FIRST is just happy someone showed up with a quality product to put on a good show.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Is this such a bad thing? Yes, the "do whatever works" is a cop out but it's also better than the alternative. Inspiration comes in many forms and legislating how we are permitted to inspire will remove some of them.

I miss when we used to call Championships the Superbowl of Smarts. Players don't go to the Superbowl to learn. They go to showcase their best. And we watch not to learn how to throw a ball 40 yards to a receiver. We watch to see incredibly athletes performing at their peak. To see the limits of their strength, their drive, their will, and their talent. If we are supposed to be the Superbowl of Smarts people aren't going to watch us to learn how to use a CNC mill. They are going to watch us to see what we are capable of doing with our skill, drive, and passion. We need to put on a good show so that instead of saying "I can be Tim Tebow" (I honestly don't know anything about football and NEED to get a better example) they say "I can be the next Dean Kamen".

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

People focus way too much on the robot in FIRST.
When Dean talks about it's more than about the robot People think he's saying "I don't care about the competition" but actually I think he saying the best teams are good not just because of what they built but the whole organization surrounding the operation of the robot at the competitions. They meticulously plan every aspect of what they do, how they go about their business and what they plan to do to win the competition. As a lead que I can have gained an appreciation of these teams. For the most part they are very professional and cooperative to deal with. Disrupting the event keeps them from wining so it's in their best interest to not disrupt the event.
The teams that freak me out are the teams who show up with a barely functioning brick and wheels and that's the least of their problems.It's not that they are incompetent they have no sense of urgency in anything they do. It doesn't really matter if the robot performs well they made a robot (sort of) wasn't that the point? Nevermind that they are letting down every team who gets stuck with them during the competition and dragging them down to the bottom of the standings with them (that's why I label them Anchor Teams). I remember one team in particular at Midwest a couple of years ago. They were in the first qualification match on Saturday and were no where to be found. The national anthem is playing and they were going to start the match when it was over. They come waltzing in during the last stanza like nothing was all that big a deal while I'm trying to rush them to the field. The lead mentor looks casually down at the robot and shrugs and tells the kids "i guess we can put the robot on the cart". I had to leave so I didn't go nuts.
Elites show up early and get down to business ready to hit the field. They are aware of what's going on with the schedule and the event and unless something drastic has happened to the robot are almost always on time. That's part of the secret of their success is making sure the robot is ready to be in a position to dominate on the field before it gets to the field. A quarter of the teams have already raised the white flag before they even got to the arena and it has nothing to do with who built the robot.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I personally think mentors should sit behind two-way mirrors and hold a kill switch for all power tools. ;)

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I support Mentors changing students' ideas, as long as they provide an explanation for why. If they just change an idea someone has without giving reason, the students don't learn from it. If an explanation is provided, it's ok, because the student is learning from a "mistake" they made (I put quotations around mistake because it isn't really a mistake, I don't know another word to call it).
If the student learns from the mentor who changed their idea, they will remember the reasoning for why it wouldn't work, or why it wouldn't be as effective as this other idea. Then the next year, when it comes time to build another robot, the student will remember the concept he was taught the previous year, and incorporate that into their new design.

I was building an electrical enclosure for my train set (not related to robotics, but the story relates, trust me). I was proud and showed my Dad, who has a lot of knowledge about electrical enclosures (as the company he works for, ABB, has both a robotics division (in which he works), and an electrical division, which he comes into contact with frequently). He pointed out that my enclosure wasn't grounded. So I listened to his advice, remembered it for future reference, and grounded my enclosure. A month later (last week, to be exact), I was making an electrical panel to mount switches on (also for my train set). I went to show my Dad my work, and he asked if it was grounded. Fortunately, I remembered his advice, and had already grounded it.

In this build season, I was making spacers for our robot. I went on making it, and got two done, when my mentor Gary showed me a more effective way to make it (it had to be cut, have holes drilled on each side, and be threaded). Yesterday I was remaking shafts for our wheels. They were made nearly the same way as the spacers, just three times as long. I remembered Gary's method for making the spacers, and used that method while making the shafts.

I do not represent my team in this post, I represent myself and my own ideas.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I would suggest that instead of "changing", mentors should "challenge". That is, they should ask the students "Why did you do it this way?" and "Have you considered the following items...?" This does not change an idea for someone, it opens that person's eyes to things they may not have considered and allows them to change their idea. It also opens the door for them to say, "I didn't see that, how would you deal with it?" and let mentoring take place. Even more effective, as the students now know some hazards to look for.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

My only regret is that I have but one greenie to give. This should be stapled to the doors at the events.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

They are also like apprentices in the fact that sometimes they get uppity, back talk and think they know everything.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

That sounds a lot better, I didn't think of it that way. It sounds like something an engineer would say (rather than "That idea is stupid, it will never work"). Our lead build mentor will typically ask, "Why?" when we propose an idea to him, and then coach us on a simpler or more effective way to accomplish what they are trying to do.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

I'm gonna say something that will probably be hilariously controversial, but here it goes:

As a student on a team that is supposed to build robots, you need to build a robot. Even on a team with 90% mentor-driven design and build, you as the student have a responsibility to try and learn from these guys. I feel like my time as a student in FRC was productive because I grabbed the bull by the horns and forced my way into the design and build process. Taking the initiative and actively showing the mentors of a team that you want to BUILD ROBOTS is the only way to move beyond simple inspiration. I have seen too many teams accused of being mentor-driven when the problem is actually students not participating. Sure, it would be ideal if the mentors could just teach and not actually do any hands on design/building, but let's face it: you'd have to extend the season by about 4 weeks to make that happen.

So, my opinion is, it is always acceptable for the mentors to work on the design and build of the robot, as long as they aren't actively pushing students away. It is always unacceptable as a student to just throw up your hands and not try to help out. This argument is a 2-way road, double-edged sword, etc., but just blaming the mentors helps nothing.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Why is this thread still going? Chris nailed it on the first page.

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Funny... I just voted this thread as a 5 star thread.

There are some excellent posts on this last page, for example.

I enjoyed reading the posts by jwallace15 and Astrokid248. Wisdom.

Jane

Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
 

Adding this quote to my collection of FRC quotes every student should be exposed to.