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UNgracious UNprofessionalism
I have been watching a plethora of YouTube videos lately that are showcase and reveal videos that are posted by many teams at the end of build season. There are videos of good robots, not so good robots, and some absolutely incredible robots! The topic I want to discuss is the amount of ungracious and unprofessional comments left by some FIRST participants accusing these incredibly hard working and productive teams of having robots that are mostly built by corporate sponsors, or robots that are barely built by students. These comments are extremely negative, uninspiring, and most of all, ignorant. When I look at a team with a well built, beautiful robot, like Team 254 or Team 118 (Winners of SVR 2013 by the way, congrats!) I can only be inspired at how they are doing FIRST right!
The reason I say that these type of teams are doing FIRST right, is because they work with sponsors and engineers so much that it is an integral part of how their team is run. What is interesting as well is how these high performance teams usually have a huge number of students, and they are being accused that their students don't do enough or even anything, which is highly illogical. I'd hate to say that FRC teams that work within their high school which lack a decent amount of engineer mentors who work in the industry and are forced to make robots that are completely student built (Team 701 is guilty of that) are not doing FIRST right, but they really aren't. FIRST was originally started so students were not limited to the resources of their schools or parents. They are ideally supposed to be teams that are formed with students who may be from different schools who work with an industry partner and can work in that partner's facilities and use that partner's resources. I find it a huge issue that some people in FIRST now think that this type of partnership is "cheating," "unfair," or "too easy." I want these people to know that this type of attitude is not in the spirit of FIRST, and is completely ignorant, because what they consider "cheating" is how an FRC team should work. Team 701 has been running for 13 years now without the industry resources such as engineer mentors or large amounts of expensive professional machinery, and by seeing these high performance teams I wish we could do FIRST right. This year, some FIRST participants have assumed that our 2013 robot isn't made by students because of how well built and aesthetically pleasing it is, when it actually is 100% built by our students, aside from powder coating, which isn't actually part of the building. The only thing our few mentors actually do is supervise, teach, and give advice. I get how stupid these kinds of comments can actually be now. I actually find it a compliment that a 100% student built robot can be mistaken for an industry built robot. A 100% student built robot is a great thing, but it certainly isn't something to brag about. The whole point is, that I want all FIRST participants to understand that it is normal and should be praised that a team can work with an industry partner to construct a phenomenal robot, and if they aren't working with industries, they haven't done FIRST right just yet. They should feel inspired by high performance teams to do better, rather than being envious and making ignorant and incorrect statements. I think that a team of students can fully take advantage of the FIRST experience if they do work with industries. I wish my team did that, and I know that if Team 701 did, and if more teams did as well, we would have more exciting and competitive events, and students that are even more inspired and passionate than they are already. |
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Are the comments on Chiefdelphi or on Youtube?
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At Bridgewater our team had a run in with 2 teams who i will not mention. One is one team would walk by our robot and laugh at it. The other team while we were waiting for our next match, we overheard them say to attempt to give us a foul because we were taller than 84" in our autozone attempting to block the full court shooter. That is just not in the spirit of FIRST and not right. being the better team they were in need of a dremel so we offered it to them and when we did they didn't even say thanks, but we knew we were the better team
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Any advice on how to limit reactions like this within a team?
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Libby Kamen says it well: Quote:
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They think that being anonymous gives them the right to say whatever suits them and there is little to no moderator control (they are more concerned about copyrights then offensive comments). I have no answer for you about what to do about the comment except to simply rise above it. |
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Curious what teams do to discourage these counter-productive notions throughout a team. |
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1. Rise above the hate
2. Ignore obnoxious cesspool that is YouTube 3. Go to championships 4. Keep running your team as well as you currently are, but recognize room for improvements. 5. Make improvements 6. ??? 7. PROFIT (or inspire; this is a non-profit organization) |
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If I was a team receiving hateful comments like that I would go the route that 148 has, and just making videos uncommentable, but that's just me. That being said, a majority of the comments on 118 video do defend them, and attack others who are posting things described in the OP. |
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I always find it best to start with the presumption that "the other guy" has the best intentions at heart.
Last year was my first with FIRST and I did wonder how in the world other teams built such awesome robots if the kids were doing the building... Instead of getting upset, though, I asked questions, got to know the other teams and learned what they were doing well. Being very gracious overall, they were more than happy to share. This year, we incorporated some of their strategies into our seaons and.... our robot is one of the awesome ones now! Yes, it is student-built. One of the most important things to learn is balance: Once you realize that it's not "alll about the robots," but rather about learning, mentorship and gracious professionalism, you find that every team needs a different balance amongst mentor and student responsiblities. for instance, a rookie team of three with only freshman will need a lot more direct input from mentors than a well-established team with 40 students, half of whom have been in FIRST since Lego League.... Moreover, no team will be able to establish itself long-term if the kids are not doing the work. What teenager is going to just sit around for six weeks and watch some old guy build a robot? For those who would doubt the work the kids on our team do, I would invite them to our pits - where they would see mentors standing back and watching the kids work: proof that the kids know the robot quite well and have been very involved in the building process. Regarding the 84" and stopping the full court shooter comments... My team has a FCS and, at our regionals, we would walk through the pits and watch many other teams put up last-minute blocking devices. I'd chat with teams as they did - usually (with a smile) advising them to make their blockers a lot shorter. As the mentor who works with the drive team, we would talk about how to deal with the blocker - the kids worked hard on our robot for weeks and were not going to let a simple pool noodle and some duct tape stop us. Yes, one option was to drive forward - to the autoline - and shoot from there. Yes, we discussed whether or not the tall defender would be able to push us back or would find itself shoved across the autoline for a foul. We also discussed whether or not the blocking contraption would be robust enough to stop more than a Frisbee or two and were not opposed to shooting until their blocker gave out. I don't view this as unprofessional or ungracious. We were simply looking at the opponents' attempts to stop us and discussing what we could do about it. If a blocking robot is not strong enough to stand its ground as we push forward clearing a shot, that is a weakness in its design and something, in a spirited competition, we would be exploiting. Likewise, if an opponnent puts up a blocking thingy that cannot handle the repeated abuse it will take from 50+ mph flying disks, then it shoudl be exploited. At one of our regionals this year, our robot had a flaw - it was a little too top-heavy. Entering the weekend, we had thought we had dealt with it well-enough - and were feeling quite confident about the issue until our first match in the semi-finals. Then, we took a hit at a funny angle and went down - our first tip (or even close) of the weekened - and we were out for the match. Many of the younger students on the opposing alliance hollered and cheered at our misfortune - and probably said some things they shouldn't have. This happens: we are working with kids and it is all meant to be a learnign process. Instead of letting this bother them, our kids handled with grace. We were the big-bad FCS beast and we had been beaten fair-and-square. We did have an engineering flaw and it was exploited (albeit by pure chance). Later, a mentor form that team apologized to us for the behavior of his kids: they had turned it into a learning opporunity for their students. So, my point? FIRST, if we always assume the best of others, we won't see ungraciousness where it may not be. Second, FIRST is all about learning Gracious Professionalism and if all our students had it down, they would not need FIRST. Third, when another team's students are struggling with Grace and Professionalism, recognize that their mentors most likely realize there is an issues and are working on it behind the scenes - just don't expect them to lambast their kids publicly. All of our teams, at some point or another, have (or will have) moments of which we are none-too-proud. Heck - even the mentors will. (Personally, I said some things to an Expedia agent that were neither graceful nor professional when trying to make flight reservations for my team last week....:o ) So, what to do about YouTube comments? Graciously and Professionally let it go. |
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As for pushing 84" robots into the auto zone to get fouls, it's just a strategy that is completely fine in the spirit of FIRST. If the bot can be pushed in the auto zone, it's a flaw of the design and the drivers, and is nothing against the opposing team. We had to do that at our latest regional so our full court shooter could score. Usually, the fouls were not even on purpose, but consequential since the only way the opposing blocker was ineffective was if it was out of the auto zone |
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It makes me so sad when teams post and say things that just bring other teams down. Our team has just recently become competitive with the robot and thanks to some really amazing mentors who have taught us everything they know, a full machine shop at our school, and some really dedicated students, we have been recognized at competitions for our work. We've gone from being in the lower half at competitions, to being in the top 15, and we are so proud of that fact.
At one event we went to I had an adult come up to me, look at our robot, then ask me where we send our parts to have them made. He was blown away when I said that we, the students, do it at our school. I take a lot of pride in the fact that students are making jaws drop and that students are able to do work that looks like it was made professionally. And I think all students do. Students built our robot, but we couldn't have done it without the knowledge of our mentors who have taught us almost everything we know about machining, SolidWorks, and CAMWorks. At another event we attended a student from another team came up to me while the majority of our team was working on the robot (with a mentor helping theses students). This student from the other team asked me "why I was just standing there while my mentor built our robot". This really hurt me, and the other students who heard the comment. It brought our whole attitude down for a little bit. I just hope the people who say things like this realize that they are devauling the work that students have put in. My team takes pride in everything we do. One of our big slogans is that if your are going to do it, you need to do it right and to the best of your ability. You have to take pride in your work. I completely agree with Libby Kamen on the topic. If what your team is doing is inspiring students, I don't care how you do it. If your team is completely student built, built by mentors, sent somewhere to be machined, designed by mentors, designed at school, whatever. If your students can take pride in what they have in their pit and can say that they want to pursue STEM because of it, that is up to you. I just hope that teams who say these hurtful things know their words can hurt the students on teams, as to the teams that face these comments, like so many others have been saying, you be the Graious Professionals and rise above it and let it go. |
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The goal of First is to inspire students into STEM. Your team could do it with a mentor built robot or a student built or some where in between. If you succeed in inspiring students then you have a good program. Some programs are about building the best robot and some are about teaching engineering more then the robot. You could have a program that does both. You make a program that works with the people you have and the resources that you have. Make the best program that you can and let others make the best the way they can. Different is good.
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This thread is getting off topic. My whole point was that teams who work with industries aren't cheating, and that I would like to progress my 100% student run team with 100% student built robots to work with industries in order to develop them into more multi-faceted individuals and that they can have the opportunity to find a career or scholarships with the company or companies that we may work with in the future.
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You cannot be a leader if you don't know the how and all you see is the end result. The point of FIRST is to have mentors (advisers) to advise and train. And in addition there are the life capabilities. I see FIRST as way deeper than inspiring students into STEM. I don't think FIRST's mission is as simple as that. Also there are many other programs that inspire students into STEM and are way more efficient but not into becoming STEM leaders. Edit: I should clarify when I see mentor-built I think mentor designed and built. I don't have any problems with mentors physically building due to lack of students, lack of students' knowledge or ESPECIALLY safety. Our team doesn't have a CNC but even if we did our students wouldn't know how to use it. However, our students found a water-jetting company and drew parts to send over to them. I would have not allowed a mentor to draw the parts. |
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Aloha,
Sorry for the size of what you are or are not about to read. As I agree with many of the comments in this thread, there are some I do not. There are many threads about this that I have read. Negative remarks are in no way gracious or professional. Sadly they still occur.. That said.... There is nothing wrong with a student built robot. A great example would be our team, coming from a rural island in the middle of the pacific ocean that has no high tech industry on it. There are a few industries here, farming / ranching and tourism. The closest industrial area is a few islands away. We have been operating since joining FIRST in 2011 with 3 mentors. None of us are engineers nor high tech industry professionals. We consist of a school CTE coordinator / teacher acting as our team management mentor, a metal shop / agriculture teacher that is our fabrication mentor and a middle school technology coordinator that handles the rest. We constantly work to expand our mentorship with out much luck, but we never give up looking. Any programming mentors on the west side of the Big Island? Come on by, Please! We are inspired by the FIRST ideals. We as mentors are constantly trying to learn as much as possible to pass on to our students. Our drive has shown our students that just because you don't necessarily have the best resources available, that you can design, create and build a competitive robot. We as mentors are here to help guide the students through the entire process, giving advise on what has and can work. As well as helping the students imagination in designs become reality. We have done so much within the community to raise awareness of STEM. Starting many new programs and classes within the school and community. Our community outreach is what defines our team. We inspire the students to go beyond what they know of the island life. I am proud to say that the students welded the entire robot, wired the electronics, wrote the code. They are fiercely proud of it as well, and should be. Does that make it the best robot? No. Does that make it any more or less of an accomplishment? No. Should they be thought of any less because of it. No. When we take the students to the competition and they see some of the highly engineered and refined robots, it inspires them. It inspires the mentors too. They are many skills as mentors we have learned because of our participation in FIRST that we would have never bothered to learn otherwise. CAD for example. Through my own drive to learn and teach the students CAD it has inspired the students to reach for and do more. They have designed this years VEX and FIRST robots in CAD. This has helped reduce the amount of wasted time and materials prototyping. This has been extremely valuable to the program. As an example, one of our sophomore students was inspired by many designs seen in last years competition. He went though designing in CAD and doing the math to verify the proper use of motors and gearing. His dedication to designing the robot in more of an industry approach was directly attributed becoming inspired by FIRST ideals. He brought his design and gave a presentation to the team. After some input from team members and mentors the general design and concept was accepted and building commenced. How to inspire students will vary from team to team. From all mentor built to all student built and everything in-between. There is nothing wrong with any of them and there should never be animosity from one to the other. The important thing is... FIRST IS INSPIRATION! Be inspired, show inspiration, and nurture inspiration. It is what FIRST is all about. Thanks for your patience. |
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I never said there is anything wrong about student built robots. I said it was great, and now I say it can even be something to take pride in, but it isn't something to literally brag about. I only mentioned the student built robot because that is how my team is run, and I would like to integrate more engineering experienced mentors in the team because that is what I wanted when I was a student, and would like that for the future students of the team. My team is completely student run as well, with every decision being based on the student leaders. Most of the time, our head coach has no idea what the students are doing since they are so independent. Our team has its share of outreach just like yours. We've started and mentored over 7 other local FRC teams and 3 FLL teams, hosted FLL and VEX competitions, and keep looking to spread FIRST. We have done so much in our community, that if I continue, I might as well copy and paste our chairman's essay. We are even collaborating with our local police department in building a scouting robot for them. Our team started as an outlandish idea that became reality in a single shed as our shop in 2000, and has since grown into a multiple-room operation ranging from our machine shop, to design room, to our electronics room, all because of the work of our students. All I wanted to say was that well sponsored, and well assisted teams are not cheating, and that I want to add more mentorship to my student run team so we can be just like those high performance teams. It's that simple. |
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I read a bunch of the comments about 118 and I think quite a few crossed the line. I think it's OK for the community to be critical of each other and have these type debates but some of the youtube comments were just disrespectful and unconstructive. Our team had a chance to meet some of 118's mentors in Lubbock and we feel like we can email or call them anytime for help/advice/mentoring --and at the end of the day that's what FRC is about.
In Dallas we did have some people from the general public sit near us in the stands on Saturday and they asked me wether or not I thought team 148 cheated based off the quality of their robot (in Dallas the robots seem to drop off sharply in quality after best 5-6 teams every year compared to other regions). Their perception of FIRST is that it's a high school competition with robots built by HS students. Explaining to them that there are different philosophies with how teams define mentor and student roles was challenging and I don't know if they walked away with a good understanding (and in the case of 148 I have no clue how they operate so my answer was partially "you should go ask them"). In this case I wish there was a good short explanation regardless of personal opinion because it was a struggle to put together good answer. |
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Until you know that things are not right, then you shouldn't really say. Also my reply would have been they have lots of resources and then gone into a spcheel about how part of the teams' task is getting sponsorship which students have to do..blah..blah..blah. |
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I have noticed a significant number of similar threads, and to be honest similar posts in this thread about how many of these comments are ungracious, unprofessional, and sometimes seem predatory and rude. And your probably right. Responding to the original poster from team 701, I am from team 159 and I was also at Colorado this weekend (which I think may be part of the reason why you are posting this). I must also say that we are coming off of a very tough regional, so I apologize in advance if this sounds overly harsh. I think what you must realize (for most of your teams if I'm honest) is that your are in the upper echelon of FIRST teams. Many robots at any given regional have trouble scoring any points at all. In our case, our robot only moved in 3 matches the entire weekend (yes that includes practice, all of which we attended). And yes we are a student built robot, and are almost fanatically proud about being so. While it sounds great in practice, and in principle I agree that going around accusing teams that their robot was built by their mentors is unprofessional and can be rude. But I just had the experience of having to look at 30 depressed and distraught faces about a regional where our robot barely moved. Do you want me to look at them and tell them that our robot lost because the other teams were just way better than us and all of their hard work and pain wasn't good enough? Sometimes to keep a group of kids to not just quit out of anger you have to console them. Sometimes that means telling them that those other teams were a bunch of mentor bots just to keep the peace. Is it the nicest thing to do? No. Is it the most gracious thing to do? No. But at that point it is one of the only ways to keep inspiring that group of kids. And as Libbey Kamen said, you cannot judge other teams for the way they inspire the kids. So in that case as the better team, the one who is having the more successful regional, be the better team and realize that it is very hard for a group of high school students to look at failure in the face, especially in a competition where the differences in performance can be so vast. Understand what you would feel like if some other team has a more beautiful, more successful robot even after you worked so hard and understand sometimes you just need to blow off some steam. And as for the smashing other robots, I can say that I am guilty of that as well. We smashed the robot of one of the best teams at our regional (in one of only 3 matches we functioned). I am proud to say that I cheered, because it was at that point it was the only real thing our robot had done. Was it perhaps a little callous? Yes. But they were still able to repair it before the next match, and they are now going to nationals, so honestly they can't complain too much. But that moment was what really defined our entire season of work, and if that cost another team some hard work and stress then so be it. Again, this may sound a little angry, and it is probably a little too soon after such a hard loss to see this clearly, but I still think that both sides of this issue need to be observed.
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Today I was talking to a parent. She began, "And if you noticed, when the Cheesy Poof's arm broke, it was all the mentors working on it." What do you say? "Actually, I was there when that happened - and it was all the students working on the 'bot." This kind of reaction is a fundamental human tendency. There isn't a magic solution that cures it. I simply try to maintain and display a confidence that we could in fact be like them if we had the same level of passion and energy. |
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[edit]Unless the smashing was intentional, in which case you should be ashamed, and you should apologize. If it were up to me, I'd issue each member of your team his or her own personal yellow card for such an action.[/edit] Quote:
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I can't say for sure if you were part of 159 for all this time, or joined more recently (say, in 2012), but wow. You need a really big attitude check, and to take a serious look at the lessons you are (intentionally, or unintentionally) teaching the students in your care. |
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I do not want to debate the mentor vs student built topic here, but I can assure you that many mentors that assist in the construction of their teams robot do it so that the students on the team can feel as successful as possible. There is nothing worse than watching a student pour their heart and soul into a project just to watch it fail in a high profile environment and knowing that some little thing could have been done to make that successful. |
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Alan, I would argue that you SHOULD be ashamed of "smashing" another robot. Senseless destruction of material is not something we should tolerate. You can play effective defense without damaging the other robots. (Arguably, you can play MORE effective defense without damaging them). As someone who has had our robot banged around a fair bit this year I can say that teams that make dirty hits with the intent of doing damage just irk me. Regarding the other part I quoted. I'm going to channel my inner IKE for a bit and recommend that the poster read a book called Tribal Leadership. There's an interesting bit in it about about the language used by groups in various stages. Sounds like the person you quoted is in the "I'm great (and you're not)" stage. I suggest they observe other teams and how they operate. Emulate them and see if we can realize that we can all be great. |
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You know, I had written a long reply to this with all sorts of pointed comments about the flawed logic here. But, when I tried to preview it, I lost it. This was probably for the best.
I'll say that it sure seems like flargen507 sees FIRST as a zero sum game. That one team's success is due to another team's failure. And, that justifies teaching high school kids that there's no reason to improve because those better "mentor bots" are somehow illegitimate. I've been there. I've been with the team when their robot didn't move AT ALL for a regional. I've been there with the team that poured their heart and soul into their robot and didn't get to play on Saturday afternoon. But, as they have reminded me, I told them that they did hard work, they learned, and they made progress to being a better team. That's what really counts. And, for the remainder of my comments, I refer you to JVN: http://blog.iamjvn.com/2011/02/open-...to-haters.html http://blog.iamjvn.com/2011/03/anoth...re-change.html |
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I have been involved with teams that can trace their greatest successes by learning from glaring failures that resulted in ineffective robots. Let's try working on self-evaluation and suggesting a positive, constant pursuit of the impossible goal of perfection and not fighting over the same pound of flesh that has been picked at by the hivemind for years.
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I think that if you are sheltering students with the notion that teams around them have unfair advantages, you are underestimating the resolve of a truly competitive student. Don't babysit students and tell them there's nothing wrong with how things went down, mentors and students all need criticism to learn. In a few years, 3929's students and mentors will have learned from mistakes and will look to other teams to grab positive ideals from others to make themselves better. In the end, I don't mind too much who has what amount of involvement in the production of a machine, it is just a machine, I do care that the mentors are teaching their students about the desire to be better by correcting flaws within the team. |
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I should probably reply to this outpouring of apparent anger at my previous post. I want you all to understand something. I don't like hurting other teams. I do not try to say that all the other teams who are better than us are evil mentor bots who cheat their way through the competition. And I do not condone the unerring right to destroy others' hard work. That being said, I still think that what I said was accurate and not unFIRST-like. Coming off a tough loss, I try to console people by saying that we did do a good job, and they worked hard, and we should strive to beat that team next year. That can lead to some villianization. It's not intentional, but that's what can come up. I would also like to say that I in no way represent the rest of 159, who may disagree with my opinions. I simply think that teams who are in the situation the original poster described should try to be understanding of the hardships other teams undergo. The situation is usually a lot more complicated than it appears. I do regret the amount of anger that came out in that last post, as I said it was probably a bad time to pick up this thread. But I still think that some of those principles are sound and that I do the best I can to motivate and inspire the kids on my team. For those of you who are angry about the way I handled the situation, please let me know how you think I should handle it, and I will take it under serious consideration. I am by no means the greatest individual, but I do try to improve myself. That being said, I encourage all of you to try and understand the situation I am coming from, and at least give my point some thought, even if you don't agree with it.
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Breaking the mold of the beat your opponent into the ground attitude that pervades many sporting environments is a daunting task. This is a good data point for situations to watch out for and intervene in, if such intervention is possible. |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...kEVgQ#t=27 5s (Starts at 4:34, becomes super relevant at 7:08) What is there to be gained by discrediting your opponent? There are two types of people in this world. Those who are inspired be excellence, and those who are put off by it. Those who see excellence and are inspired by it are the ones who will eventually achieve it. Those who see excellence and feel the need to discredit it in effort to shield themselves from their own shortcomings are the ones who will have an almost impossible time trying to improve themselves. You are right, no one is in any position to judge how you choose to inspire your team. I just hope that you can see that there may be some flaws in the path you're choosing. |
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That sucks, but that's how it goes sometimes. You are doing the kids on your team a tremendous disservice by lying to them and you're minimizing the hard work of others at the same time. This is a lousy attitude. We're a good team and we had a bad season. I had to deal with some pretty upset kids after things ended for us at our second event, but I did the best I could to explain that we still accomplished a lot of good and the only reason we didn't go further and do better was because we got some things wrong. It was our fault. These kids are a few years away from living and working in a real world where nobody is going to lie to them to protect their feelings and, sometimes, no matter how hard they work at something, someone is going to do it better. When we lose; when we have a bad time at things on the field, we can choose to blame that on others or we can use that experience to teach our students to understand what went wrong and to use that knowledge in the future to make things for us and for others better than they are today. |
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In my relatively short time in the FIRST community it seems like we are stuck listening in on a broken record, constantly slinging the phrases of "mentor-built robots" and "x was un-GP to y, see how GP I am for telling you?" and then the ensuing chorus that barks at those posters. It's clear that as a community we are not adequately addressing the problem because it results in good teams with bright, talented, and driven students and mentors erecting glass ceilings for themselves while the community at large jumps on top of the ceilings and generates a lot of noise without saying anything. However, I think this is whole FIRST thing is the kind of organization designed to make me feel like no one, myself included, is ever doing enough to help the program reach its true potential. It will never peak, we will never fix everything, we'll always try to make it perfect, and I wouldn't have it any other way. |
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That's precisely what you are doing, you are consoling yourself with the thought that, while you failed at achieving the game challenge you are still better than those punks who had their mentors build it all for them! You are celebrating failure. And that's on top of the fact that you are demonizing the very teams that get what FIRST is about. And you know what? Your students need to hear that. They need to hear that they need to get their butts out there and fundraise and make partnerships with industry. When 79 didn't play in eliminations at CMP last year after seeding 9th I didn't console our kids. They asked why we didn't play and I told them honestly, "because we sucked, we didn't work hard enough. We felt entitled to success. This is what that kind of attitude gets". And yes, it angered some students. And I'm sure quite a few parents didn't particularly enjoy me telling their kids that. But we hit the ground running this year and most of the kids I told that to? They worked their butts off. I guess my entire point is, I won't consider your thought process because it is dangerous. It is poisonous. I will never accept failure and you shouldn't either. |
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I sincerely apologize on behalf of 159. I hope that everybody knows that flargen507's posts do NOT reflect the overall attitude of the team. I am disappointed that this view exists at all, especially on my team. I will work hard to correct this attitude towards other teams. It is not okay to accuse a robot of being mentor-built, especially if it is out of spite because of losing. There is so much to learn from other teams (I learned a lot from 701 at the CO Regional), and these accusations do nothing to foster the relationships that should be built at competition.
701, great job at CO and good luck at St. Louis! |
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In all the threads that discuss mentor-built robots, not once have I read an explanation as to WHY this is bad. It is just generally assumed to be wrong by most, and the debate becomes whether or not the mentor-built accusations are true.
I am (personally) more concerned with a mentor-designed robot than mentor-built robot (where you look at the robot and have no idea how someone of your experience could design a machine of this high complexity, much less high school students), but this side of the coin never seems to be addressed. Is design just something that is assumed to be mentor guided? |
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I personally could care less who build the robot, as long as the students are learning. But that's me, and I'm not the people who persistently deny said accusations. |
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None of our mentors are teachers at the school system and have careers outside the school district. Our build season is in a machine shop (our main sponsor) where we work nights and weekends for six weeks straight (+/-) some days off. The students brainstorm and design their robot and game strategy right after kickoff. The mentors and students build prototypes and mock-ups and come up with a working model of what we want to build. Then, using engineering practices and concepts provided by the mentors, the mentors and students build the robot. Yes the mentors need to do the more complicated things, but with students helping or watching. For the most part, our robot is about 30% mentor, 70% student built. If possible, we will have the students do even more if they have the ability and/or desire. Our students are proud of what we bring to the field, they all had a hand in it's design and construction, and they all had fun during pre-build and build season, and all learned something. As I said, we're always trying to improve the system, encouraging the students to take more of a lead role for the team. |
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"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Andrew Schreiber again."
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I don't think a mentor designed robot is a bad thing in the slightest. I do agree that all the focus on who cuts the metal is kind of missing the point - if a hypothetical dissenter wanted students to be "doing the engineering", a student designed and mentor built robot would be closer to that than the opposite. However, I really think that this detailed design stuff is rather hard, and to expect every team of students to do it without significant help is silly. Quote:
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Mentors are at the foundation of FRC. Students shouldn't be expected to design and build amazing machines without working side by side with engineers and toolmakers and skilled technicians (and teachers and business professionals and experienced administrators and...). The best teams I know of have robots that are designed and built by the team. |
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I'm going to disagree with you, and then agree with you. I know you don't mean it, but this is one of those issues that has such a fine line that wording is important.
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There is an important distinction between mentor-designed and mentor-built. I do absolutely see concerns with a mentor-designed robot, as stated above. But for many teams that are trying to advance the knowledge they have, it absolutely requires mentors to assist in physically building. I hardly doubt that any team has a 100% student-built and/or student-designed robot (I absolutely can be wrong) but that is the point of FIRST. Mentors are supposed to help students develop the ideas, and as a result the idea is no longer 100% that of a students'. Mentors are supposed to teach students how to work with tools, parts, and materials, meaning that robots aren't always 100% student-built. Sorry for nitpicking, but it's important. Significant help and mentor-designed are not the same in my book, and as we discuss this I want to establish that (from my viewpoint). |
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Nice to see that someone on 159 'gets it'. I would have expected as much from such a team. I only hope you can get the message across to the others.
I know how much I've struggled internally in my own teams to get them to stop looking at 1114/2056 like they have an unfair advantage. Yes, they have an advantage, but the important question is why do they have that advantage? (they worked hard for it) and how do we acquire similar things such that we can compete on the same level? (work hard). Quote:
Let's set that aside for a minute anyway. The goals of the program are to inspire young people to get involved in STEM fields. Does participating on a team with a mentor-built, winning robot do that? Yes, it does. I agree, that it is likely not the most effective way, but it DOES achieve the goals. I know of exactly ZERO teams that operate this way. Much less the most successful teams among us. Every example of those top echelon of teams that get painted with the 'mentor-built' brush that I can think of, in actuality, are the teams who've fostered some of the strongest relationships with their sponsors, and have students and mentors working together better than any other teams. I would count 67, 118, 148, 217, 254, 1114, 2056, and many more in this group. I speak all this as an 11 year participant in FRC that has never won a blue banner in 17 regional events + 1 FIRST Championship (registered through the waitlist) of competition (attended 20 regionals+CMP+6xOffseasons). 1075 won 2 offseasons, both in 2008, with a robot that was, for all intents and purposes, a clone of Simbot SS. I feel this taught us an important lesson: that with our relatively modest fabrication abilities, we were able to successfully build a machine with a proven winning design, and then go and win with it. What we needed to do to have more success at the official events was to iron out the design process. I'm still learning. First with 1075, and now with 4343. I watch 1114 and 2056 (and the others like them) incessantly. I occasionally engage their members to learn about the inner workings of their teams. I DO agree with many posters that find some members of 1114 and 2056 seem cold and uninterested in conversation, but I suspect that this is an artifact of being bombarded by constant accusations of not playing fair. Some of their members are much better at 'rising above the hate' than others, to which I say: They're humans. They're not perfect. Additionally, talking to them at competitions, while easiest, is also the highest stress time for them. They have high expectations, and a reputation of being the best to uphold. Catch them on a lunch break, or in the offseason, and they're much more approachable. Like Karthik frequently quotes: Quote:
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I'm going to toot my own horn for a bit and point to an interview we did with 1114 a while back. It breaks down their entire process in their own words. They were incredibly open with us. I've never felt they were cold at all. http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-98466/TS-509845.mp3 Reminds me that I should continue that series of Inside Look casts... |
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I had very high hopes for this thread because it was actually a different topic than the classic students and mentor built robots. But after reading page four of this thread, all I can think of is this image:
![]() As for dealings with members of 'elite' teams, if you are attending Championships, I would highly suggest just having a chat with some of them and trying to learn from them. On Thursday night last year, I went to 2056's pit just to admire their robot and didn't find any of the students or adults in their pit to be cold in any way, just a nice bunch of people who were completely willing to talk about how their team and their robot works. |
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After reading through to rules for the umpteenth time ::rtm:: , I could NOT find anything talking about the relationship of mentor vs student design or manufacture. So I will give my opinion.
This program is about building relationship WITH sponsors, mentors, and students. It is to help students work WITH the professionals not FOR the professional. Professionals can and are both students and mentors. Some students are absolutely capable of teaching adults. I personally have seen students who design and manufacture circles around me and tip my cap to them. So each team should evaluate their own capabilities and leave others capabilities to them. |
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I know for most of you seeing this that you are sick of seeing this name tag come up, but I hope you are a bit happier by the end. First, I would like to apologize to the entire FIRST Community for what I said yesterday. I want you all to know that I am doing this of my own accord, and it has nothing to do with any affiliation with 159. To that end, I will no longer be using my Chief Delphi account in any manner, so you will not have to worry about seeing something like this from me again. I think it is to the point of this post and the original thread topic that during a very long and stressful competition, people can forget what they are doing and say stupid things. I hope you all realize that this stupidity on my part was entirely mine, and had nothing to do with 159. Again I am sorry, but I hope someday we can see past this and the goal of FIRST to bring people together may be fully realized.
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I know I wasn't angry at your posts. I disagreed on a very emotional level with them, but I was not angry at you. Your posts showed a frustration at something. That's understandable, FIRST is stressful. Heck, it's even admirable. Looking out for your students is important. But so is doing it in the right way. You were taking wrong actions for the right reasons. So, kudos for your heart being in the right place... Lurk a little, observe, ask some questions. This is a community and our job is to help each other be better as students, mentors, and as people. |
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Everyone screws up every now and then.
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I think the first 70 posts of this oldie-but-goodie "Dealing with disapointments [sic]" are worth reading. (gets off topic after that)
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For the teams that miss out on the regional win, "We weren't good enough" is likely a great motivator. For the teams that struggled to move, that's probably rubbing salt in an open wound, and your gang of teenagers may be seconds away from giving you a death glare normally reserved for their parents. For 1778, last year the kids were in the "struggled to move" bucket, and that is no fun for anyone. This year, we were in the "disappointed to miss the big dance" bucket but the team made huge strides. We put a working robot in the bag for the first time in living memory, and had scored more points 7 seconds into autonomous mode of our first match than we had the entire preceding season! Attached is the graph I made of our progress by CCWM (extrapolation is never dangerous ::safety::) We weren't good enough. You never can be. But I'm very excited about next year, and you can bet we'll be better. :) Quote:
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Real talk - I learned a ton from the responses in that thread. Notice that I was just a student on 11 back then and read the post I made in this thread. You learn a lot about how to respond and deal with disappointment if you just leave yourself open to learning from others. I tend to no longer make judgements on other teams and I tend to avoid making assumptions about those who do better than me, it is just not productive. Learning to reach out and asking for help is probably the best way to grow as leader. |
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Right, and that doesn't just go for teams who have never had success, it also applies for veteran teams who have had a "slump" for a few years. Team 1806 has had it's share of off years (Granted, it's a good thing when you can call years in the 70+ percentile of robot performance a slump), and it's taken the utmost dedication of our mentors and students to pull ourselves out of it. Adversity and failure needs to become a challenge to better yourself for the future, not an excuse to continue to have issues. As a team from a small town in Missouri that doesn't (yet) have access to CNC Mills, 3-D Printers, Water Jets, etc. we can honestly say that you don't have to be the team who has NASA-designed, powder-coated robots to be competitive in FRC. You just need a group of motivated, intelligent people who can make great design choices and then execute on that design with the resources available to them. Also, fun fact: The protective lexan lattice on our 2013 robot is actually recycled from the hopper on our 2009 robot. |
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The bots that are created by 1806 are always bots that I could see myself possessing the skills to create and can be much more inspiring (especially to students) as compared to even more "elite" teams. note: While 1806's success speaks for itself, I still want to say this isn't an attempt to belittle it at all. |
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this video is what i was discussing about. about one minute in we were forced out and then our robot died on the field.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3AXM...yQz SWZoiaBrK |
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In the years since that time I have come to respect all FIRST teams equally no matter what they bring to competition. We all dedicate obscene amounts of sweat, blood, tears, and time to what we do. As a lone coach it has taken me 6 years to get my foot in the door at a top engineering facility in my town (i.e. they have huge corporate sponsorship of FIRST but the local plant manager was unwilling to meet with me until now). But doggone it we are finally in the door and had their mentorship this year. The other big firm in my town came on board last year and again through hard work of dedicated people we are now a fixture at their corporation this year. What I have realized over the past six years is that in the end it does not matter who works on the bots (it does but it doesn't if you get my meaning). What matters is what you can learn not just from your mentors but from other teams as well to make your team better. This year when the Robotnauts released their video (which we hotly anticipated :yikes: ) several of my new students tried to fuss and say, 'That's not fair, there is no way we can win!'. My response was, 'First of all if you cannot respect and admire the work of engineering art that their robot represents you are on the wrong team. Second, it is an honor and a privlege to compete with teams of that caliber. What you ought to be seeing is what you can learn from them to make us better.' These are my true feelings on the matter. I believe that the attitude of the team starts with the mentors. If the mentors encourage UNgracious professionalism that is what the students will give them. If the mentors encourage gracious professionalism and accept nothing less that is what they will get from the team. As far as CD or YouTube we cannot control what our students or mentors say; however, through anonymous posts we can tell who truly 'gets it' and who doesn't. If you are stating your true feelings then be 'man' enough to say it with your name tacked to it. Support your feelings with facts and logic not emotion and temper tantrum throwing. There are things I would absolutely like to see changed within FIRST and I have sent my thoughts to FIRST HQ. What they do with them is their decision. I am only one team coach and they are trying to work with 2000+ other coaches who are just as passionate and dedicated as I am. They will never be able to make everyone happy but no organization ever will. OP, I guess the short story is that I completely agree with you. Please remember, it starts with the expectations of the mentors and how firm they will hold their team to those standards. Having been a student and now a mentor you offer a unique perspective that the students will appreciate and emmulate. As long as you remember that you can't go wrong. :cool: |
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Ok... time for me to throw in my $0.02
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1) 701 has a dedicated software engineer who comes 2-4 times a week to work with the team (Duane Murphy has been doing this for 9 years). Just because he is not contributing to the manufacturing of the robot, his insights and industry experience guide a lot of our team's decisions. Which is the point, right? Students learning first hand from a professional engineer how to solve a unique problem. 2) This year we had Kevin Mueller (engineering analyst for UTAS) come back to the team he help start and guided the students through the design issues with our "arm shooter". It was a great experience and worked amazingly well. (two blue banners next to me...) 3) We have large amounts of expensive machinery... at least compared to 90% of the FRC teams out there. We have 2 CNC mills, 1 CNC router, 1 Mill, 1 Lathe, Metal Chop saw, Band Saw, Sander, and had 2 Miller TIG welders this Build Season. So they aren't found in a sponsors shop, but because they are here at school, the team gets to work with them almost daily. That enable us to fabricate parts within hours instead days. "Doing FIRST right" as bEdhE describes is not a single recipe that can be prescribed to every team. But every team can strive to achieve FIRST goals, seek out engineering mentorship, work hard, and change our community and culture. Quote:
I can't emphasize enough to everyone, talk to these teams that do what you cannot!! Find out how they got there. You will be surprised and inspired more often than not. In 2002, our team was so amazed by team 60 (Kingman, AZ), we couldn't believe it was built by students. Then in 2003, several of my students hung out with them at the LA regional and were quite surprised by how they designed such amazing robots. Similar thoughts can be made about 254. But after you get to know them, you will find out that they are an amazing team and an amazing organization of really hard working mentors, parents, and students. The size of their organization still boggles my mind and each time I get to spend with them, I learn something new. Yes, this seems like an inevitable thread each year, but remember, CD users are sometimes newbies. Thanks bEdhE for getting us all fired up! |
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Probably doesnt need to be said but our team didn't get to where we are this year overnight. we have gradually improved over many years and it's been a pleasure to watch this transformation. To aspiring teams who have yet to find great success. take pride in what you have and try and improve each year.
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Equipment doesn't make a team. Our team is probably the best equipped team in Canada if not the all of First. We have in our school 5 CNC mills, 2 CNC lathes, CNC plasma cutter, 10 mills, 12 lathes,6 foot sheet metal tools, 2 industrial robotic arms with a spot welder attachment and a full welding shop with a number of migs and tigs.
Yet at our last regional we came in dead last. We have been in massive slump since 06 when we made the championships but we are slowly pulling out of it. edit: BTW we are setting up days next year where other teams can come and use our equipment |
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I'm going to agree with Karthik and his John Abele quote and take it one step further, the only kids who lose in FIRST are those who don't participate. Regardless of having a record like 254 or being that team that has never brought home a single banner the students the kids are better for having participated in a program like this.
Every program teaches it student's different things 254's kids come out of that program with a truly impressive skill set but look at a group of kids like two time(!) rookie-all-star winning Apollo 4354 maybe they can't CAD to industry standards but any one who thinks FIRST hasn't changed their lives for the better is crazy. I don't think any one can say which program is "better" we(FIRST) just need to as a whole need to get better in seeing the wonderful things about every program. The powerhouse teams, get held up under a microscope, and not shockingly occasionally kids/mentors/parents fall short. These occasions seem to be all anyone wants to remember not that time that a powerhouse helped them out or hosted a workshop ect. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record at champs or your next regional off season event or even just send the powerhouse teams an email talk to them. Use common sense (if they are just leaving for a match come back later, if it is clearly broken come back later, ect be polite) you will find all of the powerhouse or HOF teams would love to help if they can. There is no shame in admitting someone is better than you at something doesn't make them a better person just means they have skill you haven't figured out yet. The only shame is if you are too proud to ask for help and to learn. |
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I think if a FIRST student is commenting on another FIRST teams robot video they need to think who else is going to see it. Yes, you may be upset because their robot is way cooler than yours but that gives you no right to be rude or falsely accuse them of not designing and or building their robot. Of course the purpose of FIRST is to have the student design and build it and that is usually what happens, but we need mentor help. (that is also why the mentors are there) Mentors are key to success because they offer more wisdom and insight for example if your mentor is an engineer, they may have tried to create something like what you want to do and it may not have worked. It is important to have communication between mentors and students. Students should not be so quick to shut mentors down and vise versa. In conclusion, mentors are great, some teams may be better than you but its ok, and watch what you say because you never know who is going to read it! :)
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okay, so here is my two cents. i have mentored FLL teams for 3 years and i have seen mentors from other teams at that level of FIRST be way too involved with the building of the robot. I have also seen teams at a regional where there are more mentors then students working on the robot or even at the regional. My team personally has had problems in the past with some over bearing mentors. I'm just saying mentor built robots do happen and should not be written off as a complete lie or myth.
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Plain and simple: you don't know how another team runs. Just end this looping discussion. It always leads to nowhere. |
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This is VERY different from FRC, where mentors & coaches are supposed to take a more active role. And, depending on your interpretation & how your team works, possible hands-on role. It really comes down to individual teams, and many people's tendency to assume things. Unless you're actually working with a team for a while you really shouldn't decide that a mentor holding a pair of pliers at a regional translates to "mentor-built robot". And even if it did, it's probably irrelevant. We need to remember that FRC isn't about the robots. |
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Year in and year out this comes up. I have my opinion but I will hold it for now.
As a coach the biggest problem I have is explaining a percived inequity by parents. They often do not believe that mentors should be building the robot. They also question me about mentors setting the robot in the arena. I had one parent say to me that if we are using sports as the model what is the coach doing on the arena floor being the quarter back. I believe only students should be allowed on the arena floor. |
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The OP had a pretty good point, and I'd hate to see the thread devolve into an argument about mentors vs students. On topic: I personally think FIRST should come out again and say that FRC is meant to be about inspiration, no matter who touches the final product. I don't know how effective the last time Woody said it was, but maybe people need a reminder during kickoff and during the pre-regional video that they record for every event. That, or instead of working on getting more FRC teams, we should work on getting much needed mentors and resources to those teams that exist today. |
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That's why I think new team formation should be more amoeba-like than a collection of pieces being mixed together to make a team. Those teams able to make a "practice" robot should just split that machine off to make another team, taking some of the talent that created it along. Oh yeah, it's not about the robot. aw, snaaaappppp! ;) :D
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