Mentors
 

How do I convince my team that we need mentors ?? We had one come yesterday while building our EduBot (just to check our design and everything) and some of my team thought that it was pointless .. I realise that the EduBot is fairly simple to build but at the Canadian Kickoff there is an optional challenge for the teams to compete in to give us a slight idea of what the actual season is going to be like.

However yesterday a couple of the team members were complaining saying that we dont need a mentor and that we will do fine without them and things like that which make absolutely no sense. They have also said (in reference to the normal build season) that we only need mentors as guides and we can do everythign ourselves. I found this to be THE dumbest thing i have heard in a long time (and ive heard some pretty dumb stuff) because i know that we need mentors to help us.

we are a rookie team this year and i am the only on it who has ever been part of a FIRST competition. so i realize that they have a lot to learn about gracious professionalism and everything that comes with gracious professionalism, but to say that we dont need mentors, imo thats just plain stupid ...

so my question to you is this ... How did you convince your team that you need mentors and do you have any tips for me on how to do it ??

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,

The best possible thing you can do to convince your team of the importance of having mentors is through this very forum. Throughout my years I have seen hundreds of rookie teams come into FIRST thinking that the competition was going to be a breeze, only to get caught up with major problems because they underestimated the challenge of the design and build process. Your team also needs to understand that though the EduBot is an excelent tool for learning the programing language and getting the basics of autonomous control down, it is the basics of robot design which are the main downfalls of rookie teams. Most rookie teams who have major problems are those teams who mismanaged time, or underestimated the difficulty of building a quality drive train. This is where mentors come in. If you look at the top contending teams each year, they are in most cases, stacked with engineers or teachers with extensive knowledge of engineering and the effort it takes to squeeze out something on a short deadline. I hope your team reads this post and the other posts on this board and realizes that engineers and other mentors are not part of FIRST to take over teams, they are there to enhance the experience of the students involved in the program through passing experience learned over the many years of performing tasks as difficult as this one.

Good Luck!
-Andy Grady

convince your team they don't know everything
 

I think the biggest reason your team is convinced they don't need any mentors is because the students are believe that they already know everything and don't need help. It's a common feeling for high schoolers. They're stubborn & rebellious. They're old enough to think for themselves and they want to prove it to the world.

They need to understand that their experience can be greatly improved by having a knowledgeable mentor on the team. The mentor will help keep them on task & make sure the project gets done, will point out obvious problems or mistakes that would otherwise delay or destroy the project, will give real world examples of what works or why a certain concept is important, will force the students to design complete solutions before building instead of the typical student method of a half-baked solution with layers of bandaids on top, will make students think about engineering instead of simply thinking about fabrication. Hopefully that's a good list of what mentors bring to the team.

If that's not enough, ask them how far they'd get in baseball if they didn't have coaches to teach them how to properly throw the ball or swing the bat. Or how much math they'd know if they didn't have someone to walk them through difficult exercises. They may get a basic understanding of baseball or math, but they gain more knowledge & skills when they have proper coaches & teachers. The same is true with designing, engineering, and building robots.

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,
#1 reason for mentors, KNOWLEDGE!!!!! As intellegent as I'm sure that your teammates are, they are going to get a serious slap in the face once build season comes and they need to build a robot from scratch. Without mentors, your team will be completely lost. I guarantee you that.

As for trying to convince them of this, I would say that you're definately in a tricky spot. You do have a couple of things going for you though. You said that you had a potential mentor with you the other day. My advice is to talk to those people that would consider mentoring your group, explain the situation to them, and see if they also have any ideas. Ask them to please understand the situation, and if they would be willing to hang on just a little bit longer until the team starts the build season and realizes how much they need the mentors. The only other thing is to talk to your team, and see if a team that's close to yours would be willing to have a, well, confrence with yours. A vetren team that would be willing to talk to your team and kind of tell them what the entire thing is like, and maybe put in a plug for mentors may convince them as well. I'm not sure where you're at, but if you need it, we're in south-east Michigan, and would be more than willing to help if you need it. Hope that helped!

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,

Mike and Andy have some great thoughts. I'll add a few.

It may be painful for you (and for the rest of us) being the only one on the team with any FIRST experience, but the team members need to "see the need" in order for them to buy in and fully undestand. First, identify if it is indeed the whole team who wants no mentors. Provide mentors for those who want them. Those who are adamant about not needing mentors - I'd be sure they got the responsibility they claim to be ready for. Those "other" duties would include things like Consent/Release forms from all team members for regionals, shipping arrangements, travel, bill of materials/tracking cost, monitoring rules updates, etc.

Perhaps some will need to make it all the way to a regional for your team to see others teams and fully understand the type of collaboration necessary. In the end the whole experience will be one everyone can learn from. Good luck and let us know how we may be able to help.

Re: Mentors
 

Can opened. Worms everywhere.

Re: Mentors
 

Sorry. I was being a bit brusque. I was trying to say that their is a vast amount of information to be learned from robotics. It can be compared to learning calculus for the first time. Looking at the text-book and trying to deceiper the information can make a person feel really dumb. It becomes easier if you have someone to teach you about it along the way. I hate it when people look a gifthorse in the mouth and when they instantly assume they know everything. Unless they have built a robot before then they could use all the help they can get. Btw I have no idea what it means to open a can of worms.

Re: Mentors
 

An Engineer's ego is a delicate thing. If you know how to stroke it, there shall be no problems. It's more of a maturity issue at the moment if anything. Plus the Babybot didn't require much mentor help. Things will be different once the Botfather design begins.

Re: Mentors
 

Well, I've got one major suggestion...

Show them some of the incredible FIRST robots from past years. Show them Wildstang and Chief swerving all over the field. Show them Beatty walking through all opposition in 2002. Show them the Technokats and their massive tanktread drive systems. Show them 60 and 308 lifting the goals in 2002.

Ask them... "Would we be able to do this without a mentor? Don't you think our chances of success are better if we have REAL ENGINEERING help? Don't you guys want to LEARN?"

See what they think.

John
www.firstrobotics.net is your best friend.

Re: Mentors
 

thanks everyone for taking the time to help my team with this ... means a lot to me. personally i think bursting their egos would get the idea across the best, but that wouldnt work because it would cause problems within the team that can be avoided. i think that the autonomous idea on the edubot is a good idea and i will have us try that asap ... i have shown videos of old games from last year .. but i think that showing them the 2002 bots might be a good idea because from what i have heard they had some pretty spectacular designs ...

the mentor that we had the other day was just helping us for that day because he has to go back to university soon which is 4 hours away ( or something like that ) and in all actuality he was doing me a favour because i know him outside of robotics ... so having him to help us during the build season is not a possibility

thank you to everyone once again for replying and for the ideas .. i would greatly appreciate it if you kept them coming and i will give all of these a try .. thanks once again

-- shyra

Re: Mentors
 

Oh and the BabyBot is the BetaBot while the Botfather is the Real Bot, mmkay?

Re: Mentors
 

True, and you just insulted about 2-300 of them.

The engineers who just read your jab of a post are people who designed your cell phones, created components on your car, designed the robot rovers about to land on mars, or the production lines that made your shampoo. These people are not only folks that are mentoring FIRST teams you will be competing with during the upcoming year, but they also may be looking to hire people within the next 5 years. I suggest not ticking them off.

Andy B.

Re: Mentors
 

Good thing most of us are thick skinned.

Painful as it may be, you may need to let the team take the direction the majority of the team wants to go. It could very well be that you can build a successful robot without mentors involved. It could be that about week two the entire team will say "DUH!" and then begin a scramble to find willing and able adults to help. Either way, it needs to be the team deciding. Either way, the team WILL learn and grow from the decision.

If you bring someone in on your own, it will be difficult / impossible for them to help lead the team because the others will have already decided that you mento is not needed. That would not be good for you, the team or the person you bring in. It would be a rare individual who could step in and be successful in this situation.

The goal of FIRST is to increase knowledge and generate an interest in engineering and technology. One of those ways is thru the mentoring relationship - hopefully you team-mates will see that value and ask for the guidance. Asking for help isn't a sign of failure, but a recognition that others have knowledge and are willing to share it to enhance the experience.

Good Luck.

***

I got this from a college professor (Fluid dynamics):

There are three kinds of knowledge -

1) What you know
2) What you know you don't know
3) What you don't know you don't know

For most of us, group 3 is the largest category.

Re: Mentors
 

Just another thought for you Shyra...

Sometimes it is a good idea to bring in outside influences with experience to talk to your team about what they should expect. Your team may have an easier time grasping the concept of what is to come when it comes from someone they don't see every day. There are plenty of people on this board with alot of experience. I'm sure you could find someone in your area who would be willing to help you out.

Though Chris is right in the fact that if the team decides on no mentor, its going to be difficult to get them convinced of your way, I also think its very important for you to at least try. Year, after year, after year, I see rookies falling into the same pitfalls. If you can convince your team to get a little professional help, it will give you a one up on many of the other young teams out there. Its worth a shot!

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

Re: Mentors
 

Perhaps you could bring in a prospective mentor just to give the students a mini lesson on something they will undoubtedly encounter and possibly struggle with over the six week period (i.e. drive trains). Once they see just how complex things can be and get just a taste of the kind of knowledge they can obtain from experienced professionals they just might change their minds about the virtues of having mentors.

Maybe the students are under the impression that mentor is synonymous with teacher. They may think that a mentor will just be one more person to lecture at them while they are trying to have fun. What they must realize is that a FIRST mentor is so much more. Granted they are there partly to teach but mostly to inspire. So few people get an opportunity like this that it is a shame to see any possible part of the experience not taken advantage of.

Re: Mentors
 

To add to Andy's comment. I graduated in May from the University of Maryland at College Park with my degree in Electrical Engineering. I got hired by someone (THANKS CHIP!) who was impressed with my work with a FIRST team as an E-mentor. I wasn't expecting him to offer me a job, but I'm sure glad he did! Of all the jobs I was looking at, this is the most technically challenging job that was available.

Mentors provide a great deal more than the tools and knowledge of building a robot. Transferable Skills like networking, teamwork, project management, and problem solving are just a few. Competitions are also a great place to practice these skills with mentors there to help and teach. I wouldn't be where I am without a number of very good mentors while in high school and then having them teach me how to mentor while in college.

Sorry this is slightly off topic, but this is what I personally feel are the real benefits of having mentors. There are many competitive student-created bots out there. I feel that mentors really bring the transferable skills to the table. Those are the skills that no matter what kind of job, relationships or anything else will help you through your life.

Happy New Year!

Steve

Re: Mentors
 

Somehow your team has gotten the (mistaken) impression that FIRST is some sort of contest to see who can build the best robot

its not

its a program intended to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering and science, by given them the opportunity to work with professionals for six weeks

and to see FIRST-hand how cool these careers are.

So... if your team thinks they dont NEED any mentors

uhmm....

whats wrong with this picture?!

if all they want to do is build a robot, I recommend you form a BattleBots team instead. :^)

Re: Mentors
 

once again i would like to thank everyone for their replies ...

i think that my team does not know what they are getting themselves into .. i know that some of them are in it just to build the robot and not for the overall experience, and i am hoping that kickoff will change that ... but i do not want a Battlebots team because i am in it for the experience and not the robot ...

kpugh: some of my team members have been to workshops on certain things like pneumatics and drive trains and so on ... but they still do not think that we need mentors ...

Andy B.: i want to apologize on behalf of Dmitri i do not think he meant to insult anyone with what he said ....

i dont want my team to "waste" a year because we do not have mentors ..

once again thanks everyone for their suggestions

--shyra

Re: Mentors
 

If you find me at the CR kick-off I would be willing to meet a few of your team members for a few minutes of Q&A or info sharing. If you think seeing a robot up close would be good I could see about bringing ours to the kick-off. Let me know.

Re: Mentors
 

I agree. I'm sorry I never intended to insult anyone if I did.

Re: Mentors
 

I would replace the 'and' in that statment with 'to'

FIRST only has one purpose, not two. the knowledge we are increasing is knowledge of what a technology based career is like.

We are not teaching anyone to be mini engineers - FIRST connects the math and science you have learned in HS with the applications that it can be used for

I will tell you a secret. The technology we use on the FIRST team is scraping edge - that box of junk they give you at the kickoff, compared to what is available for commercial and military engineering projects, NONE of it would be usable - you would never see a probe landing on Mars with drill motors or Victor speed controllers

(not to take away anything from what Innovation FIRST has done - the equipement we get is excellent for educational purposes - but NASA would laugh at you if you proposed to use it on their projects)

The amount of money we spend on FIRST robots wouldnt fund any of the projects I have worked on for even one week.

FIRST is here to give students a taste of engineering and science, like the retired lady at the supermarket passing out 3 grams of cheese on a cracker

FIRST is not here to feed you, or to teach you - its here to make you hungry for more :c)

or from another perspective - FIRST is like we have traveled to the future, and we dont like what we saw when we got there. So we came back and now we are attempting to alter the future

alter YOUR future!

FIRST is a journey (or in the language of the '60's, FIRST is a trip man!) We are on an adventure traveling into the future together, changing it as we go along, one day at time.

Re: Mentors
 

Heh. You said it!! Last year was our teams rookie year and our team had no mentors. We were more or less a student run team. We were fortunate in that each of us was strong in some area or another and we more or less had no trouble with the technical side of things, but we were totally lost. We were lost not because of a lack of technical knowledge(not to say there isn't a lot we could have learned), but rather because of a loss of management knowledge. None of us had ever overseen or managed anything, and we were clueless in this area.

Re: Mentors
 

Jeez Ken,
All you need to do is shout "Change the Culture!" at me, and throw in some flashy lights/text, and I'd believe I was watching a Chairman's propaganda video... ;)

John

Re: Mentors
 

Management Knowledge is the most important thing a mentor can help your team with. Management of an engineering project is not something that a high school student would generally have had experience with. After all, the most common equivalent project that comes close, that a high school student might have done is an Eagle Scout project (or the Girl Scout equivalent), and not all of those. So, since high schoolers in general have not had experience in managing projects, how could they expect to be any good at it? Especially when they are competing against pros who do it every day?

Even most teachers, who understand classroom management, do not understand engineering project management. But Project Management is one of the keys to a successful robot.

So yes you do need help, but Keith is right when he says that the team needs to figure that out for themselves. Unfortunately, some lessons are best learned through hard experience. One of the best lessons I ever learned was spending a day digging a ditch. But it came with lots of blisters! Don't be discouraged if your team winds up "wasting" a year. If they figure out what they did wrong by not accepting help when they needed it, then at least they will have learned something, and it may be a far more valuable lesson than anything a mentor would have taught them about building a robot!

Re: Mentors
 

Actually, I think you are comparing apples to oranges. The equipment that we receive is just designed for hobby use and it is pretty high tech in that regard.

Re: Mentors
 

thanks everyone for replying .. and thank you Andy Grady for the autonomous idea ... it worked and it convinced my team that we do need programming mentors which at least is a start ...

i know that we also need mentors to help with the organizational side of things .. i am currently the main one running things as that was the deal that was agreed upon so that we could have a team in the first place .. however i do not know who to ask or where to look for someone who could help me manage the team ...

please can we try to keep this thread on topic because my team really does need the help ?? thank you ...

thank you everyone once again

--shyra

Re: Mentors
 

I believe you can find a list on the FIRST website of teams in your area that are willing to mentor rookie teams - that sometimes includes lending engineers to new teams and also sharing resources.

Re: Mentors
 

Umm, I have a question, do you guys plan to go to Nats or any far away regionals because not only can mentors help with the robot and guiding the build season, but companys and buissnesses would respect an adults word more than a teenager from highschool. This could be just another factor you can point out. Unless everyone is willing to pay for their own ticket and regiristration, and hotel, ur gonna need sponsors.

Re: Mentors
 

nats is a dream for us .. but realistically it probably wont happen this year ... we are lucky enough to be only 15 minutes away approximately from the arena where the Canadian Regional is being held so we don't have to worry about hotels and plane tickets for that .. and yes businesses and companies do respect an adults word over a teenagers, but the stipulation for the team was that it would be student-run, however during phone calls, i do make sure the company knows that they can speak to our principal to make sure that we are actually a team

Re: Mentors
 

Can you clearly define for me what you mean by "student-run"?

From everything I have read, the students are running around with no "adults" other than yourself. This is, in my opinion, similar to letting the lunatics run the asylum simply because students have not necessarily learned many of the skills that are needed to effectively run the team on their own.

I also believe, that it is this definition of "student-run" that has led to the students on your team thinking that they do not need any mentors. It could have been the mere "implication" that planted the seeds within the students minds. However, in order to know if this is even a possiblity, it is necessary to know the definition of "student-run".

indieFan

Re: Mentors
 

There are two aspects to a FIRST team

one is the part of the team that is very much like a HS club, like a chess club or ski club. There are meetings to schedule, uniforms, public service - and many other considerations that bond the students together as a unit, as a club, as a team - these things should definately be 'run' by the students

the other part is the engineering aspect of the robot design and build cycle. Unless your HS students have earned BSEE and BSME degreees already, how can they lead or run an engineering team?

If we could throw a box of parts at HS students and let them build a robot on their own, and have them somehow discover what engineering careers are like, then FIRST wouldnt be going through all this trouble to find corporate sponsers and thousands of mentors.

I think letting the students run and control the club/team aspect is excellent. But to let the students think they can compete against teams that have adult engineeing mentors would be cruel and pointless - all you are doing is setting them up to fail - and then they will come to the conclusion that engineering is complicated, too hard for them, something they are not good at - in other words, they will decide engineering sucks!

Re: Mentors
 

when i say "student run" i mean that all the management and everything is done by me .. our staff sponsor simply gives us his room to use at lunchtime for our lunchtime meetings and thats about it .. he is also our main contact for FIRST, but he just prints out all of the emails that he receives and gives them to me .. so we are in all sense a student-run team .. from your post i got the impression that you think that i am an adult .. i am still only a 15 year old junior in high school so i do not have all the skills that an adult does ...

i agree with you with pretty much all that you have said there .. we are at a major disadvantage to other teams because of this however all of the students on the team are interested in engineering and most of them have done some sort of engineering project in the past (even the freshmans) ... i have told them to not have any expectations for this season because it will be hard .. they know that engineering is a hard subject and thats why they are on the team .. for the challenge

as an update on the mentor situation .. i have found some mentors who are willing to mentor us and while some of the team disagrees with us having mentors ( some agree that we need them ) we are going to have them regardless because they are a necessity and i can only hope that within the next 2 weeks the part of the team that disagrees with mentors will come around to see why we need them and that they are not there to do everything for us .. and instead to guide us and help us when we are wrong

Re: Mentors
 

As a team with no adult engineering help, I'd like to think that this type of team is very possible. I don't believe that a team without the availability of adult engineers is 'cruel and pointless' by any means, and if anything, motivates the students to learn more about the subject to compete effectively.

Teams that are run by students are not necessarily destined to fail. Just because a team does not have mentors of its own does not mean that other teams cannot intervene and help. There are many successfully run student-led teams, and there are success stories from all over. While you are correct in saying that students should be in charge of the organizational matters of the team, a team is not being set up for failure in the instance that they do not have adult mentors.

No team in FIRST fails, engineerless or plentiful.

Re: Mentors
 

there are many ways and degrees of failure for a FIRST team.

one I have (unfortunately) seen several times is a team that either cannot get their bot to run at all, cant get it to pass inspection, or they could not ship it by the deadline - remember the placebo bot from previous years?

its devistating to the students on a team if they goto a regional and there bot doent move in any of its matches

another level of failure would be if the students have great ideas, but are unable to implement any of them, because they dont have the knowhow - Ive said before, the technology we use in FIRST is not leading edge state of the art, its scraping edge :c) - but even still, if the students can implement their ideas they will only become frustrated, not inspired.

Over the years I have seen more and more help from one team to another - I believe you could post a request on CD to have someone write all your SW for you, or to design a 6 speed auto shifting tranny for you, and someone would step up and do it for your team

and I have seen teams completely rebuild another teams robot for them on thursday at a regional

but then, you DO have mentors helping you, they just arnt officially a part of your team - If a team is willing to accept help then you dont have to yell very loud - its available from all directions.

Re: Mentors
 

2001 our team was student run, very crazy stuff going on, a student who built a robot on his own, the rest of the team building a robot that didn't make it to the competition. National championship won that year.

2002 a lot of division and fighting.

2003 2 families teamed up to make sure the program didn't die. Lots more mentors showed up. Lots of wonderful huge steps for our team in so many many ways.

A student this year is so inspired by a mentor, that on his own he's pursuing the Woodie Flowers Award for the mentor. That mentor has inspired others on the team, to join in on the nomination.

I don't think it'll be a waste of a year for your team. It'll be part of the journey. It will be a learning experience. There was a rookie team last year that did beautifully with little mentorship. There was a rookie team that adamantly wanted no mentors and didn't do well.

We are experiencing mentors coming out of the woodwork excited to be a part of this whole experience.

2002 taught our team a lot, and gave us goals for 2003, springing us forward in giant leaps.

There are some words from Dean Kamen

about mentors

Re: Mentors
 

And their was a rookie team in 2003 that did beautifully with a large assortment of devoted mentors.

Last year and this year most of our mentor were and are non-technical mentors. We had mentors that worked on logistics, paperwork, fundraising, the big one--food, and PR. Without mentors we would have starved.

On the technical side. Although they had some say, most all the design was student thought of, proto-typed, and built.

Teams work without mentors but do not have the time, skill, or connections that are needed to make the differences FIRST wants to make.

I would make a bet that every team that has won the National Chairman's Award had mentors on their team. As much as FIRST gives us to do, it is impossible to do it well without mentors support and knowledge.

Re: Mentors
 

I'm shocked, really. I know that without our mentors, our team would be sitting on the floor of our shop, the kit of parts strewn haphazard about the room saying, "So, it's week 5. We need a robot. How 'bout that? Maybe if we put one of us in a box on wheels, we could pass that off as a robot?":rolleyes: Last year, our team was 5 freshmen with ZERO experience and two amazing mentors, who I realize now, don't get nearly enough credit. Without them, we would never even know how to put together a frame, let alone create a running robot.

I came into robotics with an ego that wouldn't die, convinced that I alone held the key to the universe. Okay, so maybe I wasn't that bad, but I would never ask for help. Imagine my shock when technobabble terms got thrown around a few times. :confused: Uhhmm...yeah. I took to writing things that i didn't know on my hand and I would go look them up later, refusing to 'look stupid' by asking. That lasted me about a week, and only when I asked my mentors could any real learning begin.

I suggest you just search around Chief Delphi in the Technical forum and find the hardest, most confusing question or five on the board, print them out, and hand it to your team. Tell them "If I leave, and come back in an hour, and every single person on this team understands the answer to that question and can explain it in detail to me, then I'll accept that we don't need mentors." I can almost guarantee that your team will stand staring at you, blinking ever so perplexed at the questions, and will admit defeat in about 4.3 seconds. Good luck!

(Sorry for being long-winded. I'll shut up now. :o )

Re: Mentors
 

Mentors provide shared Experience and earned Wisdom
through having been through the trenches. (learned lessons)

Learned lessons come hard.

Mentorless teams unfortunately but frequently have tough experiences ...

Mentors can help inexperienced youth learn & apply
standard industry practices
to produce a robot more likely to achieve the desired functions, reliably,
and employing KISS
to survive through the beating received in test then
in a couple regionals and a national.

(assumes youth respectful, willing even eager to learn and apply for success)

Still I believe there should be FIRST competition tiers:

The stand alone students deserve to compete against like peer's

(especially those that have EARNED it thru prior FIRST experience)

1. Wholly student designed & built
2. Industry Mentored co-built designs & built (apprentice - mentor)
3. Wholly Industry designed & built
4. Some other TBD tier

Assuming 84 teams / tier for the Nationals....

WHAT A REVELATION
IF IN THE NATIONAL PLAYOFFs

Tier 1 trimphs over tiers 2 & 3... to take it all !!!!

Maybe that would boost FIRST viewer appeal
and more commercial station coverage buy-in
and feed proceeds back to FIRST for exponential growth !

(2004 = my 6th yr incl Nat/Reg Champ, Region runner-up, awards Esthetics, Engr Insp, Sportmanship)

Re: Mentors
 

here is the deal with the mentors now .. i didnt post it earlier though i should have ...

we have a few amazing mentors from one of our sponsors whom we all get along very well with. no one is no longer complaining, and we are all having a great time and learning a great deal.

we (as in the students) came up with a design ... it got scrapped (by us) ... we came up with another one .. presented it to our mentors .. little details were added / changed .. and we are now building that design.

as to who is building .. we students are doing everything we can, but we are not allowed to use certain machines (completely understandable) so things such as welding gets down by the mentors.

overall, we are a pretty happy team and we work well with our mentors and everyone has realized that we wouldnt be even close to where we are without them.

Thanks to everyone for their input

--shyra