Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

I am part of a team that had no technical advisors for the first year. We completely designed and built OUR robot. We were proud of it and had no complaints and no regrets. We saw the competition as a learning experience, not Solely as a competition. I have found through my travels that the mentors are not just mentors. They help with the design, building, and troubleshooting of a robot. I saw one team whose robot had an electrical issue, and the mentors were the one fixing the robot, while the students were fooling around. I could say that that first year we were them ones fixing our robot when an error occurred, no matter what system it affected, in fact because we had designed our own system, the adults had no idea how to fix it. The FRC is a high school event, made to bring out new engineers and techs for today's world, not a place for ADULT engineers to duke out robots against each other.They are there only to help the teams out, not to completely design the robot which most of the time happens with a team that has technical advisors.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

I think you need a little more exposure to the entire FIRST community, if this is your impression of what happens most of the time.

Over the years I have noticed that rookie teams often fall into a pattern where the sponsor and mentors think FIRST is a robot competition - they think they have to build a really spiffy and competitive robot so the higher-ups in the company will not be embarrassed to have the corporate name on it

very often rookie teams will end up with an all-mentor designed and built robot. Then they get to their first FIRST regional, meet other teams, talk to other students and mentors, and somewhere over the 3 days it clicks

and then they 'get it'.

Getting back to the rest of your post: sometimes in our human experience there are things that we dont know, and we also dont know that we dont know - there are many things that are only learned as we bump along through life, through experience, then over the years we understand what it was that happened.

and heres the thing: no matter how intelligent you are, you cant forsee these things - you can possibly anticipate them - they come out of nowhere - you dont know that you dont know about these things

thats one of the real values of mentorship. Throughout most of human history young people learned by apprenticeship, working side by side with someone who had years of experience and training.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

There is definitely something to be said for the teams with students who know every in and out of their robot because they built it themselves. However, at the same time, I think they are cheating themselves out of the rewarding experience of working with real professionals.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

From the FIRST website...

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way.

The program is not intended to be a high school event. It is intended to be a partnership between students and adults.

I had a college professor that once said there are three kinds of knowledge -

What you know
What you know you don't know
and
What you don't know you don't know

I think teams trying to work with no mentoring are in that third category and don't know what benefit they would receive from a good technical mentor.

**

FIRST is a great representation of many technical companies. Just like the FIRST plan of an engineer mentoring a student, we would never hand a new engineer a clean sheet of paper and say 'go design a new compressor, I will be back in a few weeks'. We would have that new engineer work with an experienced design engineer and learn what to do and how to do it. Corporate knowledge is passed on and the knowledge base continues to grow and that is how technical advancements continue.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

Chris, I agree with your post. However, there are other kinds of "Adult Mentors" besides technical ones. There have been many successful teams without engineers on board, and there are many many many people who mentor in this program who are not engineers. No team can be run without adults; high school students can not manage a team without credit and other things that adults take care of "behind the scenes".

I agree that engineers are a wonderful thing in this program, however, I personally feel that some of them do not know where to "draw the line" and let the students get involved. I speak from personal experience.

However, in the end, it doesn't really matter. I was able to be inspired from being on a team dominated by paid engineers, and my students are inspired on my team which has none. As it has been said countless times in this thread, please understand that teams run things differently for specific and very valid reasons. And, this is OK as long as the students are inspired.

I have a high respect for engineers in this program. Many of the people whom I work with would never be able to dedicate half the time that people like you do to this program. Thanks for keeping us inspired guys!

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

The fact that thread is still raging speaks volumes. Obviously, there is a serious rift in the F.I.R.S.T. community. It seems (to me) to break down in to two real stances pragmatically, regardless of which of the (numerous) supporting rationales are being used:

1. It is acceptable and commendable for teams to feild a robot that is, in part or in whole, designed by non-student team members.
2. F.I.R.S.T. robots should be designed by students, with non-students in supporting roles that are not-directly involved in design.

Questions of manufacturing are a whole other debate (is buying sub-assembiles from AndyMark kosher?) and should remain seperate from this issue. In my view what it comes down to is the balance between "inspiration" and "recognition". So there are two questions here:

1. Does allowing engineers to design FIRST robots further the goal of inspiring students to pursue Math/Science/Engineering careers?
2. Does allowing engineers to design FIRST robots further the goal of recognizing student accomplishments in the engineering challenge that is FIRST?

I think the former question is debatable, students being corrected by engineers or observing the thought process of engineers as they engineer solutions to these (fairly easy) problems is arguably more or less inspiring then allowing students to do it alone (with engineers providing lessons at a higher level, or not at all). But I can see no argument in the latter question! How can you recognize students for the performance of a robot they were only paritally responsible for? It robs non-engineer teams of any sort of fair competition. How can I be expected to beat out a professional engineers robot (I still intend to, mind you ;))? Should a debatable vehicle for inspiration come at the price of recognition?

Working as an intern in what is now our primary sponsor has given me the chance to work closely with engineers, having my designs critiqued because I (as a mere high-school student) cannot be unsupervised in implementing production code. No doubt, this is a valuable experience. But working on my team, which has no engineering mentors, has been an equally valuable experience in an entirely different way. The team sinks or swims based on how well the students work together and know their stuff. I derive a great deal of pride whenever our team wins, because it really is us, the students, winning. Our (non-engineering) mentors are fantastic, plying us with sage wisdom and keeping us organized to some extent, but I'm glad it stops there. Our mentors are there to bounce ideas off of, not to dictate designs from on high.

Some have advocated that each team should be allowed to run things as they wish. I feel that sort of liberty should always be strived for. However the pro-engineer design teams limit the freedom of the opposing camp by altering the nature of the competition. You simply cannot have a fair competition of student wits with engineer designed robots on the feild. FIRST needs engineers, not engineer designed robots.

It's the nature of that partnership that is all important, and to my knowledge, unspecified by FIRST. If it is, I'd love to hear it, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for change. FIRST is it's participants, and should change as the people change.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

In My Opinion a team should be run by the students. The students should begin the design and the Mentors job should be to keep the students on the right path and provide ideas/suggestions when the students dont know what they should do. I as a student dont like to see a team that has had no help from there mentors or has no mentors to ask for help. What also bothers me is when it is the mentors that do everything and the students only know from what the mentors have told them about the robot.

Our team is a small one(20 something students getting near 30 now) with only 2 real mentors, as well as some parents that help out when we need them. I like our team the way that it is larger teams cause each student to have less and less to do, as it is during build season we always have at least 2 people sitting and doing nothing at any particular point in time.

Well I've said my piece but feel free to think what you want,
Cuog

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

I guess I have to jump on this thread band wagon like everyone else even though it's a few months late but I guess I should at least voice my opinion.

First of all, everyone should just take deep breath and relax since some people seem to be too adamant about their views on this issue. Remember that most of us mentors here are volunteers and we're participating in this to help give back to our community while having FUN doing it! (If I didn't have fun or enjoy meeting all the FIRST participants do you think I'd be spending more time on this program than work and my family put togther?) Every team has their own way of making their team work due to different environments and resources. There is no one right way. Balance is the key based on what's available.

Second, Keep in mind the main point of FIRST and it's motto "to inspire" and "partner with professionals". As long as your team even achieves to inspire a single person into a technological field or not that's great! NOT you say! what the hell am I talking about? Well I for one believe life is one big decision making process and if I can inspire someone to become an engineer Awesome but if that person realizes that this is not for him/her that's great too. I want to give the students at least the choice prior to college to make that decision instead of wasting time and $$$ and then find out it was not for them and switch majors completely or not even go to college. FIRST is just another program to give students more experience to allow them to make the right decisions for themselves.

As for "partnerships", I can care less if it's with engineers from a high tech company or your local machine shop. They are professionals none-the-less. I would have killed to get this opportunity when I was in HS but I had to wait till I got to college to really find out, and I'm glad I actually love what I do as a mechanical engineer. It's another reason why internships in many careers are available. If I didn't intern at the Federal State Supreme court one summer for a judge I wouldn't have known how boring it really was to me. But at least I worked within the legal system and professionals to gain the experiece to make up my mind.

As far as who designs and builds the robot I say as long as the whole team is involved in the process it doesn't really matter. Our team motto includes that we are a "back to basics team". Out of the 14 years of doing this (7 years personally) we've always focused on "Fit Form & function" and the FIRST objective. As a team you have to choose what path you want to take based on the ever changing resources to reach your goals.

If all our students are able to take every responsibility from every mentor on the team and prove to be the driving force I'd welcome it whole heartedly. I wouldn't mind just showing up to meetings and just answering questions with my feet up on the table but that is not the case pending the type of students and their personalilties. We actively recruit students who we believe would receive the most benefit from this program. For example if someone is already set on a particular career path then they will not be ultimately benefited by this program.

Oh well I could babble on and on about this and the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything but I realized I've become too overly engrossed in this thread which I really shouldn't be.

Ellery

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

he forgot two:

what you think you know, but you dont
what you think you dont know, but you actually do :^)

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

There is also something that a student run team gets that heavily mentored teams will never have and will never understand.
I have been told, the best way to learn is to learn through mistakes.
the mentors that are active in the pits are depriving the students from the experience that is needed to be successful.

i will now make 2 killer analogies. Ready?

1. Besides Robotics my other life is what we call in our school sound and light(we are the people in the back of the theater balancing the Mic's and programing the lights) my "mentor" allows us (the students) to do the balancing of the Mic's so we develop the hearing that allows us to hear subtle rings in the voices before the audience does. This prepares us to be the mentors someday and be able to work without him guiding us every second.
which brings me to #2

2. When parents are raising a child or teachers teaching young students in preschool and kindergarten[or a councler at camp (in my case)] they allow the kids to explore their world and to figure out how to open doors and tie their shoes. If the teacher does not give them that freedom the child will become dependent on the teacher.

I hope you see the parallels.

Not only do engineer teams loose the trial/error aspect they most likely loose the pride i feel when i see our creation out there on the field.
everybody on the team knows how everything works and what it took to get it there in the first place. it's our "Blood Sweat and Tears" out there on the field.

I hope when we are done on this thread all teams will find a happy medium where the students do the building and have the mistakes that prepare them all while under the watchful and experienced mentor who wants the best learning experience for the students.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

Keep in mind that "sub-assemblies from AndyMark" could be replaced with "screws from Fastenal", "wheels from MSC" or "car jacks from your local junkyard". Why single out AndyMark, Inc.?

If all participating FIRST students were like you, Bjorn, then I would agree with your logic. You already "get" the fact that you need to further your education and you already know that you will end up in some sort of technical career when you enter the workplace. You probably score between 700 and 800 on the math portion of your SAT's. You have good work experience and are probably graduating high in your class. Colleges are lining up to recruit you to come study on their campus. Also, in order to build a competitive FIRST robot, you don't depend on any adult professionals. You really don't need FIRST to inspire you to become a technical whiz.

Believe it or not, many students are not like you. They actually need help to build a competitive robot. To many of them (and us adult mentors), this is a difficult design challenge. They need resources in fabrication, design, and team leadership. They don't have a dad who owns his own engineering firm. Some of these students don't even know what an engineer is. Their only heros are sports figures. For many, FIRST is introducing engineering to them for the first time. I estimate that most FIRST students fit into this category.

As quoted many time by the FIRST founders, FIRST is a partnership between students and adults. It is also defined here. The fact that you don't agree with this does not justify your demand that FIRST should change to meet your likes. This partnership and involvement from adult engineers is the foundation of FIRST. This is not a competition to only pit students' wits against each other. It never has been. If that is what you seek there are plenty of other great programs offered to satisfy your needs. I suggest you look into these programs instead of changing FIRST for your liking.


Andy B.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

Having a fully built student robot is very commendable in my opinion.
I personally would be happier with a robot that was built by the students at Wheeler High School and the help of the students at GT that didn't do so hot vs. a robot that was built by a set of engineers that did well.

Would I personally be inspired by engineers building my teams bot? Not really.

Would I be inspired by the fact that a group of students could put together a functioning robot. Yes. Maybe thats just me.

To me, as long as I am having fun, then everything is fine with me.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

Jordan,
I have said my piece earlier in this thread but I had to jump in and give a little bit more.
The best way to learn is not through mistakes. It is far better ( and more efficient) to learn through other's mistakes and that's what mentors are doing. They are providing the benefit of their experience and passing it on to the students. If you were to exist just on trial and error without any benefit of past experience you could "wander around in the desert" forever and never come up with the solution. Man has made it this far by not reinventing the wheel every time a new idea comes into his head.
On the subject of mic mixing and feedback prevention, a mentor who lets you "do it yourself" so that you can hear the subtleties leading to feedback has fallen far short of a very complex discussion on the subject. Things that affect feedback are not only mix related but include the acoustics of the hall, mic selection, room equalization and a little thing known as NOM. There are spaces in existence that can never be corrected and there are mic that can be used in a great acoustic space that cannot be "mixed" to sound good or guarantee no feedback. As a student of this art for a very long time, I can tell you that I am still learning as are most of my peers, because sound science is still in it's infancy.
Finally, all teams take pride in their robot, but it is easy to become down heartened when you think you have done everything correctly and the robot still does not act or react as you think. Over the years, many teams without engineer mentors have asked for my help at competitions. They did have most of the problems solved but missed one or two minor points in design or implementation. Oh, if an engineer had just spent one or two hours with that team before competition, their experience could have been more positive. (for instance, when the FIRST tranny came out, it was very sensitive to friction caused by misalignment of gears and shafts) This advice did not need to come from an engineer, just someone with the experience to identify the problem.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

A couple of years ago, a sophomore team in our area was having a problem building their robot. They put out a call for help here on CD. After several e-mails back and forth over a period of several days, I was still unable to visualize the problem and they still had not solved it. So I arranged to go out to their shop to actually see what the problem was and what their resources were.

Within ten minutes of my arrival, we had used equipment they had in a way they hadn't thought of to accomplish the solution. I spent another hour or so there and helped them with two or three more minor issues, mostly because it was an hour each way and I really didn't feel like getting back in the car yet.

If I hadn't helped them they would have been dead in the water. No progress had been made for several days while they tried to work out this problem. Some how at that point I don't think they needed to spend anymore trial and error time. They did have an alternate solution, which probably would have rendered CNC'd parts useless. I'll bet they wouldn't have forgotten that lesson either ...

BTW they won the Xerox award for their robot at our regional. Somehow I don't think the aid I rendered made it any less their robot.

Re: Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?
 

Your point is well taken and you have said more or less what i was alluding to in the usefulness of an experienced mentor.
I don't believe you need to make the mistakes for yourself i mean more along the lines of a mentor being responsible enough to tell why something does not work and what will go wrong to make sure the student understands the inner workings.

It is ludicrous to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is made :yikes: but when inventing a new wheel it is better to do it with the experience of your peers and mentors

I have a larger problem when a team talks about sending the gearboxes to be professionally machined

It is nice to see a fellow Sound Technician here. You got me wrong in my explanation of how he teaches us. He is a physics teacher and spares no gruesome detail in explaining what sound is and what effects it(hall, Mic, and room equalization) we do talk about what could cause a problem like the hiss of a bad cable or a bad Mic or the Tin Can syndrome as we call it. I just did not feel the need to go into the technical aspects of it but it is true you can never finish learning.