Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

He said without a sponsor.

Also, that robot would have won a championship even without pretty lightening patterns. They could have handed a kid a hole saw and still won in 2008. At this point you're just not even trying to look at the bigger picture.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

The current rule is if a sponsor makes it, you don't have to account for the cost in your $4000 budget.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

So I'm assuming that the 'school' had a really nice metal shop?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Maybe the piece was a COTS part, or someone with a steady hand used a dremel and a cutoff wheel. They might even have in house CNC stuff. There's a saying about assuming and something something.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Most don't

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I've met the student who CAM-ed and ran that part on the school's rather unimpressive CNC mill. He was also their operator that year. Please stop with the libel.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I would assume that's why he said many, instead of most.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'm going to close this thread for a few hours to let people cool down and stop personally attacking other teams.

If they cannot refrain from doing so at that time, this discussion is no longer productive and the thread can stay closed.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

It was a nice try, because it's the truth. Those parts were made on our in house CNC. If you can't accept that, that's your own issue.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Thread is now open again. Keep it civil please.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Last year we acquired a waterjet sponsor and most of our robot was created by that sponsor from CAD files we generated. This year that sponsor could not support us, but I honestly feel like our robot is actually going to be more competitive. It's all about planning to your design / build resources. All of our robot is being made with a bandsaw and a drill press and I feel great about it. Either way, our students are inspired by the end product.

The best thing your team can do is plan. Download CAD, layout your design, get everyone on the same page. You'll learn a lot building your robot virtually before you ever cut metal in the shop.

Complaining about what others have is a waste of time. Step up and make your team better.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Having a Cnc machine is probably a great experience and helps teams greatly. That being said.

It is one of the sweetest feelings in all of creation to beat one of those teams.
Not because of the "underdog affect"
Because you worked harder
Because you innovated harder
Because you gave harder

I'm not saying this to attack teams that may have above average resources. To the contrary, more power to them because they more than likely went out and earned them. As said before having access to more equipment is just another tool to help teams win. But it's not the only one. If you want it enough no other teams will be able to stop you from winning. The only team that can stop you from succeeding is your own.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

As a team working in the back of a physics classroom, and then a garage, a barn (moving in February in Pennsylvania), and then being kicked from warehouse to warehouse literally for years, we raised the money to buy our own CNC. We also grew in many other ways (we learned CAD, bought and taught ourselves welding, started understanding drive trains, prototyping, constantly worked long summers). Won our first award, started making elims. We moved 12 times in 6 years, including during build season. Once we finally got the CNC set up in all that--years after we bought it--we started leveraging it. Our students do all our in-house CNCing. In fact, right now we don't have a mentor with their skill sets. We managed to pick up some small local machining sponsor's time also, but only after we started winning. I've honestly been surprised how much people like to sponsor success.

So to answer your question, we do have CNCing, we earned it tooth and nail, and we still consider ourselves lucky. Accidents of geography are a thing. Success without insanely hard work is not.

Actually, our finance team, to my knowledge, is pretty much entirely students. We have enough money each year to go to multiple competitions and buy things almost willy-nilly (although I try not to buy anything we don't need).
Dead horse thread though. Most people like more mentor involvement, and only a few people like completely student-run teams. We are the latter and do okay. Mostly it's because our programmers tend to be really good (as we come from a computer-heavy area) and don't need help, and there is a severe lack of mechanical adults (as we come from a computer-heavy area) so we can't even get mentors. I am looking for some during the summer though.

That being said, being able to design a robot and actually build it has played a huge role in my decision to become an engineer. Having more mentors would be nice to point out mistakes or suggest things would be fantastic, but I am more inspired by a robot that I know I had a say in actually moving around than one that I knew would work anyway. I never liked building from the Lego kits more than once.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I can understand the frustration here. FIRST Robotics is unlike any other sort of competition that high schoolers participate in. It can be very difficult for many to understand the disparity that they see on the field at an event.

Funding and resources play a huge part in our chosen sport - much more so than many other sports where rules work to even the playing field. ("Inflategate" aside, a regulation football is a regulation football wether it costs $25 or $500.)

The disparity between what teams can actually fabricate and then practice with varies extremely wildly. Budgets range at least two orders of magnitude and while some teams have full time access to a complete official competition field, many have a "practice field" consisting of a linoleum floor math classroom with the desks shoved to one side or a parking lot.

For teams working with hacksaws and hand drills, hearing other teams report that "parts are starting to come in" can be a bit frustrating.

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not a dead horse. This is a real issue that teams do face when they have to justify their existence to whomever might be influential enough to require it.

I'm sure we can continue this discussion in a thoughtful, gracious and professional manner.

Just some thoughts.

Have a great last weekend!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This is not the same thing. Take a look at example 1 in the blue box under R11:
This means if you send your parts to be made outside, whether by a sponsor or a paid service, if the employee of the company is not a member of the team, then the labor costs need to be included on the BoM.

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

So teams that "send" parts for powder coating, welding, laser cutting, etc. are reporting those costs on their BOM's correct? That's the way I assume it has worked.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I would say they would qualify as a team member if they are registered in TIMS and manufacture the parts without being paid for labor.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Contrary to what some people think, having access to CNC capabilities is not all rainbows and unicorns. The teams that have such capabilities either earned the trust and respect of a sponsoring company or they earned the cash to go buy the equipment themselves.

Hearing that "the parts are coming in" is nice but there is always risk that the parts don't come in when expected or they are made wrong. One of our local powerhouse teams received their parts the day before bag & tag. I recall them installing wheels and motors on the Practice Day of their first regional. The same sort of thing happens to my co-workers quite regularly but our total development time is much greater than 6 weeks so a few days late is not usually a disaster.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

Whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

You're correct, I should've read further in the examples.

I guess the point that such a duality can exist still stands, and I suppose it's up to the team to consider whether their sponsors are members or not.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Nothing wrong with proposing that team/sponsor labour be accounted for in the robot cost—as long as you're also willing to consider what the appropriate rates would be for all reasonable circumstances, and also evaluate whether the robot cost limit needs to be changed. So how, specifically, would you construct a more equitable cost model?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Every year, 1529 has had access to several machine shops. Plasma cutters, laser cutters, CNC lathes and mills, waterjet, you name it, they can fab it.

Current blue banner count: Zero.

It's not about the equipment, it's about the program.

edit: I'm not complaining. At all.
Nobody is claiming that UK is running roughshod over the NCAA MBB landscape because the rims on its practice court are shinier. They just have fantastic recruiting, a proven system, and effective mentoring strategies.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This x 1000.

So many teams blame their poor performance on not having money, equipment, time, you name the resource. Yet nobody looks at their process as the key to a successful output.

Change your process to change your product.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'm not in TIMS for my team. Guess I'm not really a member. Though I don't recall seeing a strict definition of Team Member in the rule book so I question the validity of your statement.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Ever heard of Baseball? There is no salary cap....

NASCAR? I seem to recall some dude named Hendrick and how he always seems to have faster equipment....Pretty sure they all use their own engine builders and the teams with the most money have access to the best engineers, drivers, and technicians, so I don't see your point.

Besides, to answer your question, our team doesn't have a CNC machine. A couple drill presses, a table-top mini-mill and a assortment of other things. It's called making due with what you have and if you don't have something that you want, start looking for help. ASK the teams in your area that YOU seem to think "have it all". I'm willing to bet, MORE than willing to bet, they would help by either getting you in contact with a sponsor or let you use their equipment. There's a host of great teams in your area you could reach out to. Of course, I'd be wary of how you do so now that you've come on a public forum and insulted many of them.

FIRST is about competition but it's also about helping the competition, that's what separates our program from the "Major Sports". You don't see the Red Sox and Yankees swapping coaching secrets.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I correct myself in a later post. FIRST doesn't have a set definition of "Team Member" in the manual, and instead uses the blue box under R11 to give a general sense of what is acceptable to put on the BoM vs what shouldn't need to be with regards to sponsors and external machining.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Ok, I'll bite. I'd be willing to bet you that I could build a robot that effectively plays this game for under $2000 (+KoP) with a chop saw, a drill press, and hand tools. And that robot should be within the capabilities of every single team in FRC.

But first I have to define what I mean by effectively. Would I be an Einstein contender? Nope. But I'd reliably move every match and I'd play in the afternoon at my events.

It's not about the tools, it's about the process. I have no doubt that 254 would build a 80th percentile robot using nothing but some 2x4's, a bandsaw, and a KoP chassis. But their machined stuff is more inspiring.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Last night a tough mentor-driven decision made last Fall came full circle, and it's paid dividends for our season.

Determining when to sacrifice some space for additional equipment is a very tough call. We did it this year after some grumbling and anxiety, and it's turned out to be a blessing. We lost an entire assembly bench to an in-house CNC, but wow - turning around a precision part in an hour is insane. The CNC was a DIY mentor project (with a waterjet sponsor doing some really nice plates...), sponsored by funds raised by students & mentors alike. The mentor who built the CNC learned a ton about a subject he didn't know, and in the process he himself grew to a new understanding of design process as it relates to precision parts.

Let's pause for a second.
While it isn't in FIRST's mission statement, IMO any adult who grows in their careers as a result of FIRST is a success for a team as much as an inspired student is. The nation is going through an educational re-structuring in some regions, and there are plenty of adults who need inspiring too.

Continuing:
Another adult heard of the CNC through that esoteric old-school 'Grape Vine', and he just so happened to know some CAM and how to drive a CNC. Now we have students going through the CAD/CAM/CNC design process on a regular basis (so long as we can find a USB thumb drive...). Without the original mentor to drive it, we would still have the same thought processes as we did last season and we would also lack another mentor with a whole new set of knowledge to bestow upon unsuspecting teenagers. On top of that, I have new late-season CAD students this year! More CAD students than ever :ahh:! The kids understand they can't use the shiny new toy without some pre-requisites, and that by itself is inspiring (to me).

Other musings...
The premium of all FRC luxuries, I think, is a dedicated space for practice that includes enough room for a good portion of the field and high ceilings. Teams with this get to see kinetic objects interact as if it were a real game. Teams who don't have access to enough practice space only shoot themselves in the foot when they blindly go after the trickiest of objectives in a game (1885, 2013-auto, cough cough).

This year's game doesn't require so much space. Get a patch of carpet, build the cheapest field piece I've ever seen (the bump) and some totes - voila! (Build a chute door if you're into that kind of thing)

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

There is a lot of truth to this statement. MentorDon, since it sounds like you are unfamiliar with the exact way that having access to this kind of equipment affects a build season, let me share some insight into my team, and how having access to some advanced fabrication equipment has impacted us.

Team 5400 is a rookie team. We are building our robot out of my garage. We are a community team, and have no direct affiliation with a school. We have about a dozen active students, and three technical mentors, only one of whom is able to be at our shop for about 80% of our meeting time. Our robot budget for the year is about $1000. A quick look at your team's website indicates that you have roughly twice as many sponsors as us.

By every metric, we should be a bottom-tier team, building a bottom-tier robot. You should be better at this than us.

But our team's culture refuses to accept mediocrity as a way of doing business, and we've done a number of things to change the quality of robot our team is capable of putting out.

• We have three incredibly passionate students from a team which folded last year, who bring an incredible amount of knowledge and dedication to the team.
• We meet for a ridiculous number of hours.
• Our garage has a 6" lathe, a 12" lathe, and a full size bridgeport series 1 clone. All of these tools are on loan from two of our mentors running a start-up business, also out of the garage we build our robot in. Our students also worked incredibly hard to install a full shop air system with ceiling drops, made from pneumatic components from the KOP, FIRST Choice, and a compressor, again on loan from one of our mentors.
• These tools go a long way towards making a quality robot. But we also have a precision sheet metal sponsor, with a 2500 watt laser cutter and 144 ton, 6 axis CNC press brake.

Why did we pursue this partnership with a sheet metal sponsor? We recognized that we would not be able to deliver the quality of experience to our students that we desired without one (more on this in a bit). How did we get them? We worked until we did.

Precision sheet metal companies are more common than you might think, and machine shops with CNC capabilities are even more common. How do I know this? Because I have on my hard drive a comprehensive spreadsheet of over 200 sheet metal companies and machine shops within a 40 mile radius of our shop, with contact information, capabilities, and various red/green flags we've observed as indicators for a likely company to sponsor a high school robotics team. We spent lots of time collecting this information, and lots of time approaching companies until we found one excited to work with us. It's really not that hard, no harder than any other type of sponsorship, and you certainly don't need to be a NASA house team to do it. A quick search shows that these guys may be a great partner for 1764. Or perhaps this company. This place looks promising as well. That's just a small sampling of what a couple minutes of googling got me.

Now, onto some of the things sheet metal does and does not do for us.

• It does not auto-win events. Even though we're a rookie team, this is actually my 3rd year working with a team with a sheet metal sponsor, having previously worked with FRC 1687. Never heard of them? Neither has most anyone outside New England -- 1687 has never made it past the semifinals in an official event, never been to champs, and certainly never made a robot of particular note on the world level. Their 2012 robot, which was not sheet metal, could be argued as being a better machine then either of their sheet metal efforts.
  
  
• It does not cost an inordinate amount of money. Even though we are not required to by FRC rules, we ask our sponsor to provide us with a quote each season, in order to determine sponsorship tiers. 1687's 2014 and 2013 robots were quoted at $1000 and $2000 respectively, with both robots having a majority of major structural components, and a few internal components, composed of sheet metal. The $1000 robot was dramatically more successful, in large part because we used our resources more efficiently. I expect 5400's 2015 robot to fall roughly in between these numbers. In all three cases, each of these robots would be legal under FRC budget rules even if we had to put all sheet metal labor costs on the BOM. It is not an option for us at the moment, but for a number of teams more fortunate in soliciting direct financial donations than ourselves, that's not an unreasonable amount to pay a company for work during the season, and certaintly not a "$1,000,000 robot."
  
  
• It does not necessarily improve your robot's level of functionality. Of the 47 unique parts we sent to our sheet metal sponsor this year, I cannot think of a single one which couldn't conceivably be functionally reproduced if one of the following sets of circumstances were true for our team: 50 students, 10 mentors, and triple the amount of manual machine tools in our shop, or 50 students, a $4000 robot budget, and a sizable stockplie of VexPro/Andymark COTS components like versaframe. Sure, there’s plenty of things which were made easier/faster by it, but I’m certain that we’re going to loose plenty of matches this year to teams without the kinds of resources we have.
  
  
• It ABSOLUTELY does not improve the quality of engineering on your robot. So many times, I hear people say "Company X builds team Y's robots," with the implication being that the team sends the company the game on kickoff, and picks up a functional robot on bag day. Couldn't be further from the case. Advanced fabrication techniques require people who know how to take full advantage of them in order for a team to be successful, and frankly, I’m not sure if my team is there yet. Our sheet metal sponsor takes our prints as they are. If there are mistakes on them, we get those mistakes back, and it’s on us. If the parts break, it’s our fault because we didn’t design them well enough. Generally by that time in build, it’s too late to do another sheet metal run, and we have to scramble to put together a replacement inhouse. This, again, is where mentorship is crucial. More than is normal, we really have one shot to get the vast majority of our robot right, and we have to have the engineering chops to back that up. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, and it affects how we design our robots in a big way. This year, for example, for all components of our robot which directly interact with gamepieces, we made a conscious choice to go zero sheet metal, because we knew the probability of needing to iterate these components several times as part of our withholding allowance was very high, and we wanted to make these parts in a way that lends itself to fast turnarounds.
  
  
• It does not necessarily result in you having a robot done in 4 weeks. Sheet metal makes CADding of every part of your robot a necessity, which takes a lot of time and effort. It builds a lead time period into your build season, something which is easy to waste sitting around twiddling your thumbs if you don’t plan it out (we make all our milled/turned parts during this period). This lead time can be unpredictable. This year, due to the snow that New England has received, our sheet metal was delayed. We were hoping to pick it up Friday of week 4. I am driving out to pick up the majority of it TODAY. Our robot right now is a series of shafts, spacers, and funky shaped plastic blocks sitting on a shelf, along with a couple of mostly-together mechanisms missing a few crucial structural members. We have complete confidence that it will go together real fast, since we have a dedicated core of students who basically plan to live at the shop until bag time, every single non sheet metal part machined, approved, sorted, and ready to go, have had the time to put together detailed assembly packets and instructions, and are confident in the absurd level of detail and engineering that was put into our robot CAD this year. That being said, it’s going to be a herculean effort to get it done, we’re going to have minimal practice time, and we’re all really, really hoping not a lot goes wrong. Trust me, although we’re still quietly confident over here, none of us are feeling like we have it easy right now.

So, why do we do it?

• It revolutionizes what our team is capable of building. As I said above, a team with 50 students and more manual machines or budget than us could absolutely build the robot we’re making. But we don’t have those things. We have 12 students, and a garage shop. With 12 students, prototyping all our concepts is not a short process, because mechanisms have to be prototyped sequentially rather than in parallel. With one mill, there’s no way we could crank out a majority of our robot with the precision we demand of it in six weeks. Sheet metal speeds up our fabrication process immensely, and allows us to focus on the parts that really matter, brainstorming, prototyping, detail engineering, and iteration, rather than having the bulk of our build season become a glorified shop class. It even allows us to focus on non-technical aspects that we probably couldn’t do otherwise, because we don’t have all of our students locked down drilling hole patterns all day long.
  
  
• It forces sound engineering. Again, with a manufacturing sponsor of any sort, what you send them is what you get. And I love it. Students come into our program with the mentality of building as you go along, and will leave understanding the value of sitting down and detailing a part out to the last corner fillet. If you’re making all your parts yourself, it’s easy to make changes as you realize that you “forgot” something. Designing the whole robot on CAD forces you to think everything through, and using sheet metal erases any thoughts of “do we have to do this?” from our student’s minds, a thought process which was pervasive in my former team prior to getting a sheet metal sponsor.
  
  
• It exposes students to the way parts are made in the real world. Related, an engineer’s job is not fabrication. Typically, they’re pretty far removed from the people actually making the parts. Why? Because for most companies, the way we make our parts is EXACTLY the way they make their parts. The engineer prototypes and designs, and sends the parts out for manufacture by a company that specializes in it. Often, the engineer isn’t even involved in the assembly process. If this program is supposed to inspire students to understand and respect engineering and technology, shouldn’t we try our best to make the way we design and build our robots reflect the real world?
  
  
• It gives our students pride in their work, that they made the robot happen. Wait, isn’t this usually an argument against external fabrication? Yes, but again, it stems from what I feel is a grave misunderstanding of engineering, which says that the part the “matters” is the actual fabrication. Of course, it’s good when your students are able to say things like “We made every part of this robot. We are experts in using files, hack saws, and cordless drills,” and even better when they are able to say things like “we learned how to read dimensioned drawings, and hold tolerances down to the thousandth of an inch on a mill and lathe,” or "I picked the perfect ratio for this versaplanetary" But, because so much of our fabrication was done externally, this freed up our students to work through several iterations of prototypes, and for the robot to be CADded for two weeks straight, to an absurd level of detail, with every single student on the team at least contributing to the process. And I’m downright thrilled that my students can say things like “I did the finite element analysis for this part. I can tell you what every single hole on this plate is for, and how it has changed over time. I took the time to read a junior level college textbook on cam design, and learned the math required to create a cycloidal profile for our cam driven elevator brake. I designed this gearbox from scratch, and optimized it to fit in the tight space we had for it, instead of just picking up the closest off the shelf part.” If not getting to drill a few holes is the sacrifice they have to make to get this experience, I'm okay with that.
  
  
• It does make our robot look nicer. We like it because we put a lot of work into our robot, and we want it to look like something to be proud of. We also do it because we believe in FRC as a spectator sport, and believe that professional looking machines are inspiring to other teams, sponsors, and spectators, and by building one, we are doing our part to further FIRST's goals to become a mainstream sport. But it doesn’t affect our performance in a more than trivial way. By my estimation, across our entire robot, our use of triangular lightening patterns, like the ones that allegedly won 1114 their 2008 world championship, are saving us three tenths of a pound compared to a kid with a hole saw. We’re probably loosing that and more by choosing to paint parts of our robot – is that an unfair advantage as well?

And it sounds weird, but we’re not doing the fancy lightening patterns instead of swiss cheese for those three tenths of a pound. We’re doing it because, with a small team that keeps everyone busy, a 2500 watt laser cutter is a more readily available resource to us than a kid, a hole saw, and several hours. We build our robots to our resources, even when writing those resources down seems very, very weird.

Sheet metal allows us to give our students a better experience. Not because we will win, but because the process is more valuable for them. And isn’t that what this program is about?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Wow, I had no idea this was the case, thanks for posting that rule. I'm kind of surprised by that. I was assuming that all sponsor time had to be accounted for in the BOM. We have accounted for all time spent machining parts by 'sponsors' in the past (only two parts, but still).

Can we stop including that cost if we refer to the machinists as "members of our team" to avoid this headache? That doesn't seem like the intent of the rule, but I get the impression that this is what larger/powerhouse teams do. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Our team uses close to zero sheet metal parts. We don't have anything water jetted or CNC'd. Almost all of our parts are made from box or flat stock aluminum. Everything we build is made on our machines in the school's engineering room by students including almost all of the welding on the robot. (With the exception of some very difficult welds)

We don't struggle with being competitive with the "elite" teams. You don't need all of the fancy equipment to do well. Yes, of course it helps but you can get by without it. All you need is a solid plan going into the build season and to build within your constraints. Using a little out of the box thinking doesn't hurt either.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/2137/2014

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

There are teams with more machining resources in their shops and out of their shops) who do better than us.

There are teams with more machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do worse than us.

There are teams with less machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do better than us.

There are teams with less machining resources (in their shops and out of their shops) who do worse than us.

You can easily exchange the word "machining" in any of the above statements for: students, mentors, engineers, money, time, etc. and it still remains true.

Its not about what you have its about what you do with it.

For every team that someone points a finger saying "They have more money" "They have a sheetmetal sponsor" "They have a company CNC everything for them" "They......" I can show you more who have those resources but don't know how to use them effectively.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

If I had one, I would give an CNC of your choice for a top notch CAD mentor. With good CAD the need for high end machining is less. Without good CAD, high end machining is difficult.

With Solidworks & Autodesk donating their products, the ability to model the robot is there for teams with the will to do it. Our team isn't there yet, but we are working on it. [sarcastic irony] BTW one of my favorite things to do is to walk around and say "The Mentors obviously cadded your robot" [/sarcastic irony]

With 80/20, modular gear boxes, plywood & VEX stuff you can build a competitive robot without a mill or a lathe.

A complete practice field is a huge advantage. That is why we actively encourage teams to come use ours.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This is really what the powerhouse teams others find inspiring have in common. Having extensive resources is a result of their attitude, culture and work ethic, not the other way around.


Joe is right on about how this program exposes student to the way things are done in the real world. All of these things that Joe says that having a sheet metal supplier does and does not do for his team can be applied to the company I work for, a large multinational manufacturer of industrial electrical equipment, with the appropriate substitutions.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Well, no, it says if the sponsor employee is team member, which is a very real distinction. Let's take a look at R11, example 5.

This clearly indicates that the machinists are not team members by default through the company's sponsorship of the team. Now, how you define who your team members are is up to you. But I for one am not sure that (in the extreme case) someone who, over the course of the entire season, spends two hours machining a few parts for the team should be considered a member of the team.

I would, however, agree that these rules are encouraging teams to build relationships with sponsors and to integrate those employees into their teams. But the way the rule is written does draw a line in the sand. Sponsor-machined parts are not by default free of labor costs.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Just going to offer a bit of perspective from a current mentor, former student. This is not some normative claim about how teams ought to be run, just a couple of observations based on my own experience.

Team 449 is a decidedly student-run team. The robots are designed and manufactured by the students - mentors provide valuable input, but they do not do the hands-on work. That approach was a conscious choice made by our head mentor, and I am exceedingly grateful for it. When I was in high school, I was already a nerd. I did not need "inspiration" in the form of "seeing people do cool things with technology." I knew that cool things could be done with technology. What I needed (and received) were hands-on lessons on how to do things. This is sorely lacking in high-school education (and even in many undergrad programs), and is exceedingly valuable. There is a huge disconnect between knowing some of the theory behind a problem and being able to actually construct a solution. FRC is far-and-away the best program I have encountered for learning how to do the latter. Robotics was probably more valuable to me than the rest of high school put together, all-told.

I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot. Does that mean there is nothing to be gained from that model, or that that is not an appropriate model for any team? No, of course not. But it does mean that there is something lost when you marginalize student involvement. It'd be nice if the atmosphere here were such that people could say this without inciting massive debates, because it's really not (or shouldn't be) a contentious claim. It does not immediately follow from this that "mentor-run teams are bad" or "student-run teams are good" - a team should try to maximize the return for the students, and this is only one factor in that calculation. If you think your team's effectiveness is maximized by an approach that does not emphasize students doing work, that is fine - but there should be no offense taken when someone points out that there are costs involved in that approach.

I understand fully why some teams choose to have mentors do much of the work. On 4464, I do far more work on getting the robot finished than would be permissible for a mentor on 449. They are different teams in different situations, and their needs are not identical. This does not mean that I won't admit that there is valuable experience that the students on 449 receive thanks to their approach that the students on 4464 do not. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out, nor does it reflect badly on anyone. It's just one piece in a much larger puzzle.

Re: the team resources discussion, it is amusing how discussion of this always progress nearly identically to political discussions on socioeconomic disparity. I think it'd be nice to see a bit more understanding of the facts that there are teams with limited resources who are not in that situation simply due to incompetence or lack of motivation, and that teams with more resources are, indeed, at a competitive advantage (in the most general sense - I am not going to argue the specifics of how big this advantage is and how it scales). There is no perfect meritocracy distributing support to FRC teams. This obviously does not justify bitterness towards successful teams - but I think a lot of the vitriol we see when this subject is brought up is as much a result of frustration at the perceived condescension towards disadvantaged teams as of the disparity in resources itself. I don't think I'm the only one who has noticed this.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This is a contentious topic because it's constantly presented as a straw man where teams have "teams of engineers building their robots" and students just driving it. This is not reality. In reality the teams (like 254) who get called out under that logical fallacy are trending towards or past 50% mentor/student work breakdown, not 99% mentor, 1% student.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Well said. I am FIRST alum and a FIRST mentor now. I have seen teams with huge budgets and teams with shoestring budgets. Even my team has had feast and famine years. The goal should be for teams to do the most they can with the resources they have. Socioeconomic disparity is a real thing in the real world so trying to stop it in FIRST seems counterproductive. Besides, if we start placing too many restrictions on teams we will lose the diversity and innovation that makes the program so great.

It reminds me of this campaign from Android.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

If someone claims that a specific team is "a team of engineers building a robot and students driving it," then that is an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim, yes.

However, it often seems on Chief Delphi that people treat any mention of student/mentor workload issues as if this were being claimed. These threads would not become so inflammatory without problems on both sides. In reality, this is a complicated issue and there are reasonable arguments to be made either way. The manner in which people usually post about it here does not usually reflect that.

It is very easy to argue against a caricature of a point rather than the point itself. This happens on both sides of this discussion with alarming regularity.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

The only reason I made that point was because the first line of your post said "I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot"

Obviously you didn't intend it that way, but the only interpretation of that statement is that the team of engineers is doing 100% of the work and a student would be sitting there watching and twiddling their thumbs. That was the construct you presented, which we both clearly agree is not the issue being debated.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

He probably did intend it that way, it's a pretty clear statement he made.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

That was a position taken to an extreme as a rhetorical device, not an accusation levied at a specific team. It is often useful to examine limiting cases of certain positions, specifically, the one quoted in the very first post of the thread:

There are two extremes here - the students doing all the work, and the mentors doing all the work. Observing differences between them provides useful insight into what happens when you trend in either direction. In this case, it can show why one maybe should care, in some capacity, about who does the work.

See above.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm having a hard time reconciling these two statements, unless your intent was to say that you were making an obnoxious and likely incorrect claim. // {I'm slow at posting, you and Cory addressed before I could hit send.}

Regardless, you make some very good points about resources. The level of a team's resources (finances, experience, shop access) goes a long way in defining a team's limits. Team's with more resources definitely have an easier time. However, if a team works intelligently and efficiently within small set of resources, I content that they are much more likely to be successful than a team who lacks a solid strategic plan and is inefficient within a large set of resources.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'll throw out a scenario to think about.

Take any of the top 5 teams in FIRST, remove all their resources (machines, facilities, money, sponsors, etc...) over the summer. They have to start from scratch resource wise.

I guarantee they'll still be in the running to win regionals (or districts) the next year, and likely worlds.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Could be.

What is the difference? It's not money, sponsors, machines, facilities.

Is it the students? They change every few years.

Is it the mentors?

Is it the coaches?

Is it where they live?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I don't see how it's contradictory to believe that "'claiming a specific team has all their work done by mentors' is obnoxious and incorrect" and also "I would not have gotten anything out of simply watching other people do work, from which I can conclude that there is value in students doing the work and so claims that 'it does not matter who does the work' are ill-founded."

If I had mentioned "like team 254" in that statement, yes, it would have been obnoxious and incorrect. I did not. I think it's worth noting that the "team of engineers" hypothetical has been used multiple times by people on both sides of this issue, often to the tune of "if a team wants to do that, then there's nothing wrong with it." That doesn't carry the implication that any teams necessarily do that.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I don't think I'm getting my point across...The rhetorical device you're taking to the extreme is a straw man and is what is confusing the issue. There are not two extremes...There is one extreme (students do everything) and one case to the right of 50/50, but to the left of the extreme of "mentors doing all the work".

We can't have reasonable discourse about two different methods of running teams when actually nobody is doing the second method as stated and it's an inflammatory construct designed to push public opinion to the opposite side of the spectrum.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

One of the issues that this brings up is how FRC events are perceived by the viewing public. Over and over again, I hear people in the stands say "There is no way students made that by themselves." In just about every case, they are correct.

But that's the point. This is what makes FRC unique (for the most part).

It's very hard for the vast majority of the public to translate "Robotics Competition between high schools" to mean "Robotics Competition between teams consisting of professional engineering mentors, sponsoring companies and high school students" instead of "between high school students".

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

The quote that started this entire discussion was:

"Who cares who truthfully does the work?"

If someone takes the view "I do not care who truthfully does the work," then that would entail that they would not see anything worthy of consideration in the extreme case of "a team of professional engineers does the work."

Pointing out something worthy of consideration that might be lost in such a situation is not a straw man, and serves valid rhetorical purpose even if there are no teams that realize the hypothetical.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I was writing a post very similar to Adam's just now because I think it addresses a topic that often goes ignored in these debates.

Some engineers are better than others. The criticism that gets leveled against teams like 254/1114/et al is often couched in terms like "resources" and "CNC," and often gets refuted with notions of working harder, but a simpler, more likely explanation is probably that the folks on those teams are better engineers and better mentors than most. That doesn't make other people bad mentors, it just means they're less effective in certain areas than others. That's okay.

You could give my team all the money, manufacturing support and time in the world and, in the end, I think we'd still produce a product that is inferior to these teams and that's because they're better at managing an FRC team than I am. I'm not bad at it; they're just better.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Could we have a discussion about the other extreme (Students do 100%)? I personally feel those teams are more against the spirit of FRC than the theoretical 100% Engineer Built team.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Sure. There are losses in both directions - I'm equally sure I wouldn't have gained anything if I had been on a team with no mentors at all that had hobbled together some barely-working box-on-wheels and not won any matches.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

That's true. But I think it is not nearly the whole story.

I've spent some time reading and watching mentors on elite teams describing their process, and their analyses of various things about games and robots, and I don't really learn much new. What I haven't seen from them, is a frank discussion about how to motivate a team. I don't even know if it's possible, because I think some people are just natural leaders, and they don't really know how they do it.

I've had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time hanging out with Fredi of 842. He seems to be one of those natural leaders, who can motivate a team to do things that no one thought possible. He's told me he doesn't really know how he does it. As food for thought....they didn't have an engineer mentor on their team until my son joined them in 2011.

I know we've had several coaches/faculty advisers over the years, but the same couple of mentors. Our robots and game playing have varied drastically from year to year, depending on who was coach, and which students were on the team. Our best performance was with a team heavy in seniors, who had been coached by a very enthusiastic coach their freshman and sophomore years. When they graduated, the team seemed to fall apart.

I talked about "magic" on the Einstein thread, and got no response. I still believe there is magic on some teams. I don't know what it is, and I doubt the folks on the teams know what it is, either.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Threads like these make you feel either terrible for building our program ground up on our own (no school support or regular education budget), OR very proud that while being in pretty much the most rural part of our State (and middle of the ocean) to be able to compete in FIRST Robotics.
I can understand why there would be frustration/misunderstandings/anger for other "better" teams. But I guess for us, we decided a long time ago that if we were going to continue, we better figure out how to keep getting better.
I think we arguably spend the most amount of money on Robotics.
I always complain about FIRST rules and issues that prevent us from competing like the other teams.......but its never been to dumb down the playing level so that we could compete.
For 16 years now, we keep trying to get better despite the dynamic challenges that we all face as FRC teams.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but when I look back at old robots, even some of the better teams...........I cant help but think they all look outdated. Raising the bar is what it's all about, and the best part of going to competitions is seeing all of the cool robot designs we never thought of.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Once we know how magic works it's no longer magic; it becomes science.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Why does FRC require that high school students drive the robots? After all, if you take the "inspiration" maxim to its logical conclusion, there's no particular reason that they should. The only real reason I've been able to think of is that it would look really bad to the viewing public if adults were driving the robots.

Here's something really controversial - has anyone ever dared to consider that, in this case, the great unwashed masses might have a point?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

We all stand on the shoulders of giants! This is how we learn and grow!

Sometimes what we try works, sometimes it doesn't - but this should be a learning opportunity for everyone, mentors and students. Who spends how much, who has what equipment, who built what part, who has access to this or that ... If that's your focus, you've missed the point. We say the robot is the bonus. The learning, however it happens, is why we are here.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

So, here's a thought. How is having a robot that is somewhat mentor-driven any different from a team full of students purchasing COTS items and utilizing great products such as the AM14U2? Many of the products from vendors like AndyMark, BaneBots, IR3 and VEXPro are designed by active FIRST mentors for the teams.

Food for thought. In the meantime, maybe we can work on building ourselves up to each other's levels rather than tearing each other down from them.

-Nick

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

One, I think you're exactly right. And two, the bolded statement blows my mind. For those of you not yet playing at home, the legendary HoF Team 842 did this:

2003 - SoCal Delphi Award & Semifinalists
2004 & 2005 - Arizona EI
2005 - World Championship EI
2006 - Arizona Chairman's, Worlds Chairman's HM
2007 - Arizona Finalists & Chairman's, Las Vegas EI
2008 - Hall of Fame, Championship Division Finalists, Las Vegas Finalists, Arizona Chairman's & Safety & Semis, Los Angeles & Las Vegas Entrepreneurship
2009 - Arizona Judges' & Safety
2010 - Las Vegas Creativity & Semis, Arizona GP & Semis

...without an engineering mentor.

With so many stories of current struggle, there are others who did in fact make it. Oh, and sometimes those guys end up with a feature-length movie about them starring George Lopez and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I think the crucial difference here is that these mentors are making the fruits of their labors available to all teams, rather than just one at a time. Granted, a new scarce resource (money) is then required to take advantage of this.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

One thing that makes this conversation difficult is that we are largely talking in absolutes. The fact of that matter is that there is a continuum of every factor that leads to a team's success (or lack thereof).

*No robot is 100% mentor built. Likewise, there is no robot that doesn't benefit, at some level, from mentor support.

* Let's face it, financial health is a PART of any successful team's health. Power tools, milling machines, waterjet cutting, machine shop sponsors etc. all give a teams the ability to expand their abilities and be more efficient - thus enhancing their abilities.

* At the same time, infinite finances cannot overcome a complete lack of technical knowledge.

And so on...

The relationship between the students and mentors is at the very heart of FIRST's mission. There is a reason we call these adults "mentors" and not "supervisors" or "babysitters." There is a reason we have mentor parades and go out of our way to thank them. Students are learners and are only going to learn the fundamentals of engineering if they are working side-by-side with their mentors.

The real question is, "What is the appropriate balance between mentor and student labor?" I think of this much like I do my math classrooms. Some students just need a little bit of guidance and they are ready to fly. Others need prolonged attention and repeated modeling of processes if they are to learn. In education each teacher is expected to learn and work with the very specific needs of each child and each classroom. How is mentoring different?

If the job is "build the robot" and you have a group of very inexperienced students who can barely turn a screwdriver, the mentors will have to be very "hands on" just to keep the kids safe and get something rolling. With the same job, if you have students who have been around robots for several years, the mentors have a choice: either turn it over to them and let them put their knowledge to use -or teach them more advanced engineering. The latter would require more hand-holding, but would result in a better robot. What's wrong with that?

I have seen the these "elite" teams - and their kids know the robot. I see the kids making repairs. I see the kids talking about its functionality. The kids are learning - and loving it. They are inspired.

I also don't believe that "just any team" can replicate their efforts. They have mentors who are not only strong engineers, but have many years of FIRST experience and have, thus, developed a very strong familiarity with FRC robots and can think of half a dozen ways to successfully accomplish "new" tasks very quickly. Sometimes I look at it like this: If one school hires the best and most experienced football coaching staff, do they have an "unfair" advantage? If they have a former NFL QB working individually with their QB's, is this unfair? No, it's just a fantastic resource that they have.

I am certain that if you took all the Cheesy Poofs mentors away, replacing them with equally as many mentors from other teams but otherwise left them with all their resources, their performance would slip - even if the other mentors had the same level of "involvement" in the build as the current mentors.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I honestly hadn't thought that was FIRST's intent, and I don't think that rule lends favor to that opinion, but I could certainly understand if that is what FIRST wants.

The rule in question : "and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply."

It specifically delineates the difference between "a company that is a sponsor" and "specific machinists who both works at the company and are members of the team". If the machinists is not considered a member of the team, then the machining cost must be accounted for correct? I'm mostly wondering for my own team where there is a single machinist who only a parent on our team has met and who has machined things for us. No team member (adult or student) has seen or spoken to this person, and I'm not sure how I could call them a "member of the team". If we create a relationship between them an our team, then it seems much more straight forward.


Just to be clear, I am fully in support of how you guys (and other powerhouse teams similar to you) run your teams. I think you provide a unique and inspiring experience. Teams absolutely should be able to use whatever industrial resources they are able to acquire. I'm just curious about the reporting of those costs because I had assumed something that appears to be very different from reality.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

We often felt like we were Team 842 in many ways with respect to the hardships, socio-economic background of our community and focuses early on in our program. We went through a long period of not having an engineering mentor on our construction team as well (I dont count myself as an engineer even with the degree). Our only engineering mentors today are young former students with respect to designing and building the robots with our students.
Team 842 provides many examples of how to build your program with great successes vs. the amount of resources they had to work with.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Wow, I walked right into that. Yes, of course, you guys too! I feel like we need a place to aggregate all these incredible stories, both to help people understand different philosophies about mentorship/sponsorship, and so that we can be inspired by the all different rocky roads to success. And you know, so I don't ignore HoF teams who are literally on an island and just posted about it.

I don't know much about the exact mentor/student relationship on most HoF or otherwise elite teams, but between the 842 story, Hawaiian Kids, and 103 (who literally started the FIRST rural support network), there must certainly be a lot of amazing underdog stories out there. It's hard to argue that a great team with an awesome robot that won every regional it went to might be getting something handed to them when said arm would have to be 2500 miles long.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I wasn't going to comment on this thread, but this point is an important one to me. Having been captain of a mostly student run team for all four years of high school, I can honestly say that I hated it. I had nobody on the team to learn from, no experience greater than my own to reference, and the only way the team learned was by seeing our mistakes finally unfold at the competition. I designed the robot, built the robot, and led the team, and I wish I could have had 50-50 mentor/student involvement more than anything. I would have happily sacrificed two of my four seasons to have someone more experienced in these areas work with me. When I see teams talk about how proud they are of their student-run team, I cannot help but feel sorry for them and the lies they keep telling themselves. I was not proud of my robot that scored 0 inner tubes my entire first season. I was not proud of red carding our alliance because we didn't know any better. I was not proud of resorting to defense at 8 of my 10 competitions because we couldn't score. I was not proud of losing. The FIRST program is about the students, but what makes or breaks a team is the mentors. I was very fortunate to have some of the best mentors in FIRST reach out to me via Chief Delphi and social networks and help me along the way, and the effect they had on me and my team showed in our 2014 robot, the first robot made by my team that I would consider "competitive" in our history since at least 2003. We went from an unsuccessful, non-inspiring team to one that inspired its students and built an effective, competitive design that performed well in competition, not because of me, but because of the amazing mentors from these other teams who were kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I see all of these people in this thread complaining about mentors being too involved and teams who have more resources than them, when I suffered through almost four years of brutal, uninspiring failure because my team matched the "ideal" that these other students and mentors claim FIRST should be more like. I've become a mentor now because I don't want any student to have to experience FRC the way I did. I remember coming home crying at some point in the build season each year, telling my parents how badly I wanted to quit because it was too much and we were too unprepared. This program is about the experience for students, and nobody should have to experience a team without sufficient mentor involvement. Nobody in FIRST should promote the type of team that lets these kinds of things happen, and to those who still think that sufficient mentor involvement is bad, HS freshman me would like to politely ask you to leave.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I was on a student-run team with a couple of technical mentors, and even though we never won anything, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Your personal experience (nor mine) is not representative of all participants, and the one part of your post that does upset me is where you equate losing with being a bad team. Yes, I know this is your own experience, and I myself hate losing as much as the next guy, but there's a whole lot you can get out of FIRST - arguably more - when you don't have a great robot or the immediately accessible resources to make one.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I wasn't going to comment either, however I am frankly quite upset reading all these comments. As a first year mentor of a rookie team I have been able to work closely with students and teach them the skills they need to succeed in FIRST. Without mentors students would not be able to compete/would compete very poorly, as at first they lack the necessary skills. Much like my first year. 3 years ago I was a rookie student and we had little mentor guidance, it was terrible as none of us knew what we were doing, and in the end I was the only one that carried on with robotics after that year (with another team, due to no teacher support with the old team). I am blessed to have been able to teach these students and it makes me feel great knowing I have taught them something new that will benefit them in the long run. I know that veteran teams have very experienced students within them, in this situation yes, the students are self sufficient....but everyone does need guidance and often a push in the right direction, which mentors can provide. I have also had experience with a mentor that was too involved, its hard to find a happy medium, every team has a different mentor:student ratio, and how they achieve that is whatever policy is in that teams handbook (if applicable). No two teams will be the same. However at the end of the day mentors make the FIRST experience, they allow the students to learn new skills, and most importantly be inspired. Win or lose on gameday, if your students are inspired and had a good time, thats a win in my books.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Here come the false equivalencies again. No one is arguing that teams should have minimal or no mentor involvement. Some people are arguing that some/many teams have too much mentor involvement.

Why do all of these threads inevitably turn into people arguing against a position that was never advanced?

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I'll also bite.

I'll speak for two teams in this post: Yep, and Yep.

For one simple reason: One of the teams has minimal to no CNC access, and drills/cuts/welds everything in shop, or if something is sent it's sent to a shop that a team member or mentor has access to use the machines in. The other has CNC access...Run by the shop owner, who is a team mentor, with students there! (If the manual machines weren't being used instead, that is.) Last I checked, the shop still supports an FRC team or two as a sponsor and mentor. Per FRC accounting rules, the only cost there is materials. And if they HAD to count CNC time, probably no more than $1K at $100/hr, easily.

Both teams make reasonably frequent trips to eliminations (and hopefully playoffs), I might add.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

What exactly you mean by this?

What "lies" do teams that are proud of being student-run tell themselves?

Are they lying to themselves when they say that students gain an invaluable learning experience leading the design and fabrication of a FRC robot. (Which is an experience almost impossible to get in a high school setting?)

Are they lying to themselves when Students recognize their team's failures, analyze and learn from said failures, and take the initiative to restructure the team, spend extra effort in the offseason, and start improving?

Are they deluding themselves when they are proud of the robot they build not because of how well it perform, but because they have sense of ownership and achievement of the machine that they have poured their (literal) blood sweat and tears into building.

Please tell me: what "lies" are these teams telling themselves and why exactly do you feel sorry for them.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Not everyone who is on a mainly student run team has these types of experiences. I know many many people from different FRC teams where students do 99 percent of the work and they are just as capable and as good of problem solvers as I am coming from a team that had some pretty inspirational mentors. I don't think there is anything wrong with being proud to be on a team where you struggled and persisted but learned a heck of a lot nor do I think they are lying to themselves. I would argue that you turned out pretty well despite this. And the alternative is would you rather of been on a struggling team or no team at all? I can't speak for FRC but I was on a struggling FLL team where basically our mentor was never around and I was the only one of three who even did anything productive and basically taught ourselves everything we needed. We didn't win anything and was very stressful especially with how young I was but I'd rather of at least had the opportunity than not. Not directed towards you but a general question people can ask themselves as a whole. Of course it's great to have mentors but if low mentor involvement is a team's thing, then let them do it I say. If the students are happy, inspired, and proud I can't see the fault. This isn't the case in every mainly student driven team but there are many out there.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This discussion has not change in the 6 years I have been involved with FIRST.
What it really comes down to is how you perceive success. Is it banner count, amount of resources, number of students, number of mentors? We are here to inspire. Some can do it with very little, others with lots of time and help.
There is a lot to learn out of admiration and emulation. I have yet to learn anything out of jealousy.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I don't think there's many people here who are arguing for a 100% student team... the whole point of the program is to get mentors and students together. That said, there is tremendous opportunity for a student-led team which has mentors to advise them as they go. My team is student-led. The students make almost all the decisions. Mentors do the purchases, are responsible for selecting team captains (with student input), determining who letters. Those are the only times we get to actually make decisions. The rest of the time, we give advise, we teach, we provide options or feedback on ideas, and we make sure everyone is safe.

I've seen teams that have only a single teacher "working" with them. While what they can accomplish with no professional help is impressive (seriously, you have to put it in perspective and not try to compare it to what teams with more resources have done at that point), I can only imagine what it's like going through the season without someone to lean on. Even as a mentor, if I was the only one working with my team, I would feel completely overwhelmed. If I come across one of those teams at an event I'm working at, I try to give them a little extra attention, assistance, and guidance throughout the event.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I feel sorry for "student-run" teams that delude themselves into thinking their way is the only way an FRC team can be run. Teams are run that way and think any alternative to it is lesser or invalid, regardless of any accomplishments these alternatives may have. I know from personal experience.

It's toxic, wrong, pathetic, and most importantly stupid.

The lies told?

1) from top to bottom, everything is controlled by a raucous band of teenagers revolving through the door of a four year high school. For example: if your school administrator is going to you for field trip information or handing you keys to a classroom, that person probably is in the wrong line of work. If your school administrator is not doing those things, you're not truly a "student-run" team and instead are loosely corralled by a contingent of adults monitoring the program instead of help giving it the guidance FIRST thinks it deserves.

2) that it's supposed to be that way. IT'S NOT! When I think of an ideal FIRST team, structurally, I don't actually think of 254 or 1114 or whatever team you might think of. I actually think of 190 for its partnership(I also think of 842 when it comes to building a Hall of Fame program). A 50/50 partnership between a sponsoring organization (Mass Academy) and Contributing Sponsor (WPI) that extends from funding down to leadership.

When FRC was the only program FIRST offered almost 25 years ago, the whole program was about an institution like Xerox or Motorola or Delphi Automotive or E-Systems or WPI adopting a school and showing them how cool it was to be an engineer. Obviously that kind of relationship is a rarity in FIRST ever since the program was retooled back before the 2 v 2 era. Still, 190 is a team that has existed that way successfully and uninterrupted every year since 1992. It's the way Dean Kamen saw teams coming to be, and I still think it's one of the best ways for a team to come together (there are many great ways to do it, this one just never gets enough credit).

As someone who was a student on a "student-run" team before I learned how to overcome inertia and turn the same program into a team that I consider to be a 50/50 partnership, I know the lies we told ourselves. I also know we built up a pretty strong inferiority complex.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Debate culture demands that people concede nothing, lest they lose face. It's much easier to not concede anything when you argue against a caricature.

Moreover, creating emotional distance between yourself and how your team is run is difficult, and so criticisms are taken personally and people get defensive.

Re: Team 254 Presents: CheesyVision
 

idk how i feel about this, its a competition and i grew up racing and one thing you learn about competition is if you can get an edge on someone by all means do what ever you cant to get that edge, would i be inspired watching mentors build a robot like 254 probably not, would i be inspired driving a robot like 254 on Einstein in front of thousands of people, and winning heck yeah.

now do i get do drive a robot like 254 in front of a thousands of people on Einstein and win........ no and most likely never will so do i feel its unfair absolutely so i think there is a curtain amount of criticism we are aloud to speak.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

No it doesn't...:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I feel for you. There are days when I want to throw in the towel and just quit, because I think we can't win.
And while it's very demoralizing to be unable to drive, or placing 50th out of 58th at a regional, it's fantastic when you get picked or end up in elims on your own.
And I've noticed, for rookies and veterans alike, the real joy comes not only from building a working robot but from the process itself; I have three rookies this year who all want to learn machining and CAD design after seeing how much I was working.
Winning used to be my drive, but lately I've found that as long as the team continues to get new members who can have this once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a robot, I'm okay with how things go. I feel the need to win to show the new people that we can win.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I disagree. I've seen students argue that teams ought to be run without mentors. Not a large amount, and not in this thread, but this is pretty much a discussion that comes up every six months or less, and a large part of the time either the OP or a poster early on talks about how great their student run, student built, no mentor team is and how it's exactly what FIRST wants. That's also when the thread usually takes the dive to dead horse emoticons and people complaining that we've had this discussion a million times before (big surprise).

// Meta thread discussion
Part of the reason I think many people are defaulting to arguing that point is that it's the point that has been brought up in the past. While I agree that it would be more constructive to focus on the grey in between, it's very understandable that some (especially veteran forum members) default to this line of argument. I've been on here for the last four seasons, and I already put these threads in the "not going to touch that with a HAZMAT suit and a 30-foot pole" category. I can't imagine how some of the people who have been on here for the last 10-15 years feel about it.

I'm actually a bit surprised (pleasantly) that there's been a higher ratio of constructive conversation in this thread than there usually is. I have some theories on why I think this might be the case but I'll probably post them in a thread with a more relevant topic later.
// End meta-discussion

End note: In these types of threads I try to always remind myself that the people posting almost always have the best intentions in mind-- inspiring students, changing culture, the whole shebang. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where people came that leads to their current perspective, but that difficulty makes it all the more important to try. Having been on the other side recently of someone assuming that I had poor intentions, it can be really bewildering and confusing when someone assumes you're out for blood on their ideas. For both sides of the coin, taking a step back and looking for alternative explanations to the first assumption can be very valuable towards having a constructive dialogue.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

As I see it, the goal of FIRST is to inspire and to teach.

Mentors are there to help guide kids in the right direction and allow them to use and understand tools they would otherwise not have access to. You can plop a kid in front of a mill or lathe and check that they don't kill themselves but they'll learn a lot more if you guide them.

That kid will also be a lot more inspired if they make something awesome instead of fumbling figuring out what was going on.

As I see it the best teams are the ones with the best process of guiding students into fields that they enjoy. Having more tools and resources allows students to learn more and make more awesome stuff. (I know 865 is going to continue using CNC despite being more competitive because it's a valuable learning tool, being competitive is an added benefit)

254 and 1114 are both teams with a lot of resources and as a result the kids that come out of them are some of the best that FRC has to offer. They are educated in engineering and very enthusiastic. It's worth it even if mentors helped along the way.

I don't like that we're discouraging devoted mentors from doing what they love. I want more students to learn more and I don't agree that less mentor involvement is going to do that.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Hey all,

I posted this sometime back, and wish to take a moment to speak to the mentors as this may be somewhat off topic from Mentor/Student involvement philosophies, but then... maybe it is on topic... you decide.

Firstly, I do not consider myself a leader as I don't think I am ready or want to take on this responsibility, and I do not claim to have all the answers... what I tell you here is what I've observed, experienced, and want to share it with you. This is about the picture posted here and what it means to me.

When you look at that picture... know that the guy who posted it is one of those followers has been with the same "leader" for the past 14 years, and is very happy where he is. Why is that? I admire my "boss/leader" and he's been a mentor to me (even though I do not tell him this). I get up every morning looking forward to going to work, and taking on the new challenges of the day... all the jobs prior to this where just a job... a boss, and something I dreaded going to.

I tell our students that mentors have mentors, and to find someone better that you at what you do and stay with them. This is what I've done... I know who is better than me and I learn as much as I can from them, and adopt some of their ways as a part of my own... I believe I will continue to learn for the rest of my life... when I'm old... I refuse to be set in my ways... still wanting to learn.

So let me try to bring this back on topic... I know what kind of leader I am committed to and what makes me happy each day. Can I offer this to the students? I don't know! I can say even though I don't claim to be a leader I have taken responsibility among the co-workers in our team and naturally take a lead of things here and there but in a cooperative nature. It is hard to explain, but I feel... as I've learned in the military a good follower can become a great leader.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

During my senior year of high school (2013), 469 had the drive team and one or two mentors in a car to St. Louis when the bus with the rest of the team broke down. We spent a significant part of that ride trying to figure out what we had done differently that year that lead to such a high degree of success compared to previous years. We never really figured it out.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Because we always bad mouth the teams that have "too much mentor involvement" (by some arbitrary metric that the poster decides) but I find the notion of student run teams, a topic that has been lauded by many on here as admirable, to be an abomination of the ideals and concepts of FIRST. There are many other competitions in which students do 100% of the work with limited mentor involvement, FRC is different. So I advanced the topic, because I've not seen any real discussion as to whether we should be as harshly critical to all student teams as people seem to be to "overly" mentored teams.

Are the two equal? No. One is, in my opinion, and according to many comments from FIRST HQ, doing FRC wrong. The other has mentors working with students.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Actually, could you name some of those student-run programs for me? I want to suggest some robotics programs to a few of the younger kids I know that aren't going to my HS, and I don't want to just tell them "FRC is the only one".

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

(sorry in advance for the essay)

Karthik agreed with you and called it "magic." Knufire said the same thing about 469. I disagree. I don't think it's called "magic." I think it's called "pressure."

I believe that FRC teams go through three stages on their road to powerhouse status:

1) A well-organized team structure and mentor base. This is the greatest benefit a mentor can give to a team in terms of seeing on-field results. 2056 and 3710 (and I'm sure many others) have mentors who do not touch the robot or fundraising package at all. Their job is to organize, fill out paperwork, keep everyone in the loop.

You need organization to actually develop from year to year. You can have passionate students (step two), but without the organization, your on-field results will be flashes in the pan, as opposed to a veritable gold rush.

2) Passionate students and excellent mentors. You can have really, really technically gifted mentors, but if you only have 3 students, and those students see the team more as after-school hangouts than a robotics team, then you're not going to have a competitive robot.

These students, when given the right resources (in FRC, these are mentors) grow. And they love FIRST. Adore it. Imagine a team of 10 Andrew Lawrences (you might not like his post in this thread, but the guy is so crazy about FIRST it blows my mind). This was actually a reality for the early days of 2056. The core group was so passionate about FIRST that they didn't just breathe it, they lived it. And we were lucky enough to have great mentors to fan the flames.

You don't have to work to motivate these students, because they'll actually be begging you to work longer hours, to open the shop early, to work on new drive trains.

This is where success first starts to happen. Your team might win a regional, or a chairman's award, or make consistent finals appearances. But eventually, your core of passionate students graduates and moves on. Which is where stage 3 comes in...

3) Pressure. 2056 has won 19 straight regional victories. Do you have any idea how much pressure the current team is under? There is a looming cloud that says "we can't be the group that broke the streak." But it's not a bad cloud - it's a motivator.

Many of the powerhouse teams do well because they are expected to. It's hard for newcomers to "get" the team until their first competition, but they usually get it shortly thereafter. Seeing exactly how your team is regarded is one motivator. Actually winning is a huge one - it's a great feeling, and you want to capture it.

So as a second-year student, you know the stakes. You know that the community sees you as a winner. And you will do anything, anything, to keep that mantle. This pushes students who are already passionate, or even just semi-passionate, to being uber-passionate. Powerhouse teams have students that buy into the team's culture of success. No need to externally motivate when the motivation to build on and surpass previous accomplishments is ingrained into every student by their own observations.

CASE STUDY: A great example is 1717. What's going on on D'Penguineers? All of their students have no prior FRC experience - the team is only made up of grade 12s. But they are consistently one of the best teams in FRC.

Well, they're well organized: they have a great education system that starts well before the students are on the team with VEX. They had a group of passionate team members who developed what is probably FIRST's best swerve drive. And now their current team has access to these previously developed systems, and they are pressured into using them to the best of their abilities (because they only get one shot at this, remember?). Boom, powerhouse team.

The tricky thing about continued success is that it's really, really hard. If you lose any of those three stages, your team's on-field performance will suffer. Your group of students can feel pressured, but if they aren't passionate, the pressure will break them. If your team loses its organization, it's harder to reallocate resources and succeed.

When you are part of these teams, you don't really feel the pressure. You feel a drive, and a passion, but you don't really know where it comes from. That's why Karthik and Las Guerillas couldn't put their fingers on it. I only realized it after I joined another team and bought into 3710's culture, and then talked to my siblings who were still on 2056.

But there is an element of Magic to these teams as well. Legendary mentor / drive coach John VNeun once described what it takes to win Championships: it's all about preparation and practice, refinement and iteration, so that if and when you hit that streak of luck, you are able to run with it as far as possible. Sometimes, if you're lucky enough, you get that perfect alliance, and the right opponents are eliminated, and your strategies work, and you win. That is a magic I hope to experience every time I go to competition.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

I think for the thread to have progress we need to agree on what "student-lead" means, because I do not think "student-lead" is even remotely close to "no mentors"

I believe that the defining factor of "student-lead" teams is that students ultimately have the responsibility to make executive decisions on a team. This does not preclude heavily involved mentors providing guidance and assistance, but it does mean that said mentors would ultimately defer to the students.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, much of the bad blood regarding this debate comes from only considering one extreme. (And of course, the resulting backlash from teams that feel they are being unfairly characterized because of this extreme position... case in point my own post earlier :o ).

I don't think it's hard to accept that when someone says "student-run", they by no means mean "100% students 0% mentors". (And vice-versa) Neither extreme is healthy for a team, neither extreme is an accurate portrayal of 99.99% of teams, and neither view is constructive to furthering this discussion.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Yes, it is a mistake to focus mostly on the extremes, since there is really a full spectrum of different ways that the mentor-student responsibilities ultimately end up being defined, allocated, and carried out, in the process of completing a First Robotics season.

When participants (students, teachers or mentors) become upset, within this process, it will nearly always relate in some way to unfulfilled expectations, thwarted intentions, or undelivered communications (and/or combinations of all three).

As head mentor for nearly 6 years at a K-12 school that does both the FTC and and FRC programs, and launched our 2nd FTC team this year, I have seen the full range of how these upsets develop and play out.

The collection of intentions and expectations that student participants bring with them to the program varies considerably, and these are most often never really clearly communicated at the start of a season. Many times, as these student intentions and expectations start being seen (by them) as thwarted or at risk, the mentor(s') roll(s) will start to be examined and questioned.

For example, in this FTC season the sophomore team member majorities of both our FTC teams decided they would learn best if mentor involvement was kept at an absolute minimum - as in => "we'll call you when we need you."
For them, in their opinion, the mentors had become an impediment to their robotics learning process.

They indicated they would rather make their own decisions and choices, even if they proved to be wrong and their robots failed to perform as expected.

Needless to say, such an approach did not really turn out so well, and other more veteran team members considered it absurd, especially when the time window pressures for meeting robot build deadlines made this more trial & error approach (ending up heavy on the errors count) an extremely unworkable one.

The mentor group was also not so pleased to hear that their mentoring efforts could be assessed with such a negative view, by this many students, However, in the end the middle ground between the extremes of viewpoints was eventually found.

Still, it had to be acknowledged by the team mentors that, the mere success of getting a decent performing and, competition ready robot on the field, if that effort required too much hands on mentor involvement, then such an approach was not necessarily the kind of result with which all student team members would consider an equally satisfying for them way to run the program.

-Dick Ledford

Re: Team 254 Presents: CheesyVision
 

Sorry I haven't been following through with this thread due to build season, but as a Student, I actually teach all of the lower classmen how to program. As someone with 3 years of experience, I actually don't touch the robot code for the most part, and instead I help all of the other kids understand how to do their part.

From my experience, all you really need is dedication and determination. My Rule #1 for programming team is "All Day Errey Day" and they really believe that, and that is what makes our team sucessful.

Re: Team 254 Presents: CheesyVision
 

Excellent. pretend you're a few years older now and are either in the process of getting your degree or have it. Congrats, you just described what most all mentors do. Here's your free corndog.
(though some mentors they may actively contribute to code too).

(as a side note, I hated in high school when my team leadership tried forcing me to teach others how to work with the control system. While I liked explaining it and helping others while they were interested, they wanted me to step back and let the underclassmen do most of the work. If I'm a student on a team, I want to be inspired, and I get my inspiration by doing the actual programming myself...)

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

Each team is different since the depending on the goals that the team sets for the students and the resources the team has. The following is a small listing of what is many items.

Goals for example could be to inspire, win, teach or any combination of what they want. Also in teaching what do you want to teach.

Resources include mentors, money, facilities, training time, students.

Mentors. This means how many, skill level, mindset (inspire, win, teach).
Money. How much and does it have strings.
Facilities. What tools, space, storage, or access to sponsor's facilities.
Training time. Does the team form before build and have no time to train, Is it an after school team and gets some training in the fall. Do they have a class and train year around.
Students. Is the team struggling to get members or is it more popular then the football team. Do you have students that can train the rookies in correct use of the tools and teach them how to design and build.

Now you take all of the above and much more and you make a team and that is is why there are so many different types of teams. This is why I try to not judge other teams on their program. A good robot does not mean a good program and a bad robot does not mean a bad program. If the team meets the goals set out for the students then it is a good program.

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

This is probably the most important thing said here.

The Game (winning and losing) is primarily a game of mentors. The experience of doing the whole thing is something completely different - something we often forget to focus on here on CD with our emphasis on OPR, blue banners, trips to Einstein, etc.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies
 

^
|
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This and what you do to have a positive impact in your community. That is why I think FIRST made the Chairman's Award more coveted than winning on Einstein.

Re: Team 254 Presents: CheesyVision
 

I can appreciate your position; as a student on 11, I taught underclassmen to use Solidworks, as well as basic machining. Programming was the same, upperclassmen teaching underclassmen. There are limitations though. When I started gearbox design for example, VEXpro didn't exist, WCP was in its very early stages. Everything I learned I either taught myself using wikipedia articles, or asked mentors on teams with more experience.

Older students teaching younger students is an elegant, mutually beneficial dynamic that should be encouraged whenever possible but as I said above, there are limitations. I taught Solidworks, but I wasn't CSWA certified and there were professional conventions I knew nothing about from teaching myself.

I don't doubt that when you get to college (assuming you are doing Comp. Sci.), you will be ahead of the majority of your peers. You can't claim though to have the depth of knowledge to teach other students to write camera code for a 5 ball 2012 auton that is 85% accurate. If you could write code that could get you 70% of the way there, and have a mentor assist and debug the remaining 30% to get it working, would you honestly say "No, I don't want that. A mentor helping me would devalue the learning experience more than the gained knowledge and inspiration from winning could offset"?

I don't mean to come across as snarky, just consider the effects on the student base in each hypothetical situation before deciding one is better.