Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

and they are the only team to ever win the national chairmans award twice, which (I think) says that they are an excellent team, they have their priorities straight, and have influenced the lives of thousands of HS students directly over the years!

THE debate that continues year after year on CD is whats best for the team vs whats best for the students - professional highly competitive robots or student build, student designed...... Im not going to open that debate in this thread

but I only want to point out (and I dont think many will disagree with this part of it): what is best for the students as individuals is not the path you will take if your primary goal is to win a regional or the championship.

for examples: to reach the most students possible you would not allow any student to be on the team for more than one year, so other students would have the opportunity to participate. To reach the most number of students you would keep branching off new teams, streaching your resources and mentor involvement as thin as possible. To give the students the best exposure to engineering you would have them do different things each year, instead of allowing them to specialize in one aspect of the robot design/build. You would let the students be responsible for as much of the design and build as they could handle, and then push them further out of their comfort zone.

If you disagree with this please dont jump in and turn this thread into another Mentor or Student... debate

My point is, if you are not winning the regionals that does not mean you have a lousy team. It could be a clear indication that you have an excellent team.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

i'm almost afraid this year. with so many teams, and all of our 4-year seniors going, about 1/2 our team is gone. makes me wonder if we'll be able to step up to the plate and get our success going. yikes.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

Don't be so worried about it. We lost 12 seniors after the 2004 game. The following year we built an excellent robot that we are all proud of. It didn't win any competitions, but it was a lot better than the previous year's robot.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

I have been bashed repeatedly on my team for saying this so I wonder if you will agree:

"Last year we tried building something that was beyond our means. We didn't poses the resources or the know-how to achieve what it was we wanted to build. As a result, the end-result was a disaster."

"Do we dare build something as complex this year? Build it because we shall learn from the experience? Or, should we learn from our mistake last year and pursue a simpler design? Maybe we won't learn as much from the simpler design, but hey! At least we've learned from our mistakes!"

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

I am not Ken Wittlief, but I do agree with you. :)

Engineering is all about drawing upon past failures to prevent future ones. This is how we, as human beings, learn. You did this as a child, learning how to walk. You do this as an adult, learning how to make your way through the world.

After realizing that the complexity of last year's design was beyond your team's means, the best engineering decision your team can make is to go for something simpler next year. While some members of the team may claim that designing too complex will be a learning experience, it is not a good model for the real world of engineering. A good engineer recognizes design limitations (the more complex a project is, the more time and resources it demands), and stays within those limitations. One can't go over budget or miss the deadlines.

Your team has limits too, whether it is time, money, or people. All teams do - and each team should recognize those limits in order to be successful and minimalize the stress on each of the members.

And remember, many times, the simple design is the best design. You will be less constrained, and less likely to break down. An elegant, yet simple design is good material for judges awards - many of the award winning designs from my old team were fairly simple mechanisms.

Good luck!
-- Jaine

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

The primary component of engineering is the engineering design cycle. The first step is to clearly identify the problem you are going to solve (in our case, understanding how to play the game)

the second step is brainstorming ways to solve that problem. you come up with a big picture solution, then you break that down into smaller parts (subsystems)

this should all be done within the first week after the kickoff. Working out the details of the subsystems might run into the second week.

If you are sitting there at the end of the first week and you dont have a clear plan (a design goal, a schedule, manning and resources, and something like an overall block diagram) then you have walked your team into a project with a task right in the middle called "A miracle happens here".

There is no time for research in the 6 week FIRST design cycle. If you dont know how you will implement (design and build) something at the end of the first week, you still wont know how to do it at the end of the 6th week.

Serious research and invention heavy designs should be done in the off season.

What you went through is exactly why the engineering design cycle exists - you cant wing it - you have to follow a clear process with well defined steps.

Risk assessment is crucial in this program. If you have a great idea but have no idea how to build it, then your risk is 100% - you could get halfway through the 4th week and discover its impossible to do what you wanted - then you have to start over. There is no time for that.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

This is similat to what we did this year. The team decided as a group to try a number of new things this year, simply because we wanted to push our limits and capabilities. The end result: 27th seed (not picked for finals) at SVR and 83rd (of 86) in Galileo.

Was the team discourage? No, in fact, they were quite pleased. Sure we probably could have done better, but the experience we gained offset most disappointment.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

So you're saying that with good planing and time management anything is possible (no sarcasm intended)? I'll buy that.



This seems like the start of a new thread.... Maybe we ought to get back on topic...

And so I'll ask a more relevant question. This one has puzzled me as well.

Do winning teams really exemplify the high standards of FIRST? Are the teams that win the most awards really those that best live up to FIRST's mission? Or do you feel that there are plenty of teams that deserve these awards just as much if not more? (plz, no names or numbers, just your opinion).

Very relevant to droughts.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

we are dancing on the edge of THE DEBATE with this: there are teams that feel the best way to inspire the students is to lean heavily in the Mentor Designed direction - building a super machine that will wow the team, and everyone else who see it in action

and there are teams who lean more towards Student Designed / student built... with the mindset that having the students involved in every aspect, as much as possible, will inspire them the most.

The PC thing to say is that both methods are within the spirit of FIRST, there are advantages to both philosophies.

Without getting into THE DEBATE, I think its clear that two teams with equal resources, and equally skilled mentors, the one that takes the Mentor Designed path is most likely to show up with the state of the art, professional designed and manufactured robot - with the best odds of winning.

Do they deserve to win? That feels like a loaded question. There have been many discussions over the years on this: should we have different classes of competition? Student-only built robots and mentor built robots, mixed design, rookie vs rookie teams....

I cant answer that question, I can only offer my opinions. I can only tell you my preferences for the way I would want my team to function.

I guess the bottom line is that FIRST decides what the awards are. You get what you reward. Engineering is about striving for the best system possible, so it would be weird if FIRST was like T-ball, we all play the game but no body keeps score, then we all get a trophy at the end.

If FIRST didnt think winning the regional was something to be acknowledged and rewarded, then we would not have the type of competitions that FIRST created - they would come up with something different.

good planning means you have a schedule and a path, and you know how you are going to get from start to finish. So, I guess yes, a good plan would have to be a real plan, a realistic sequence of steps that your team can follow.

So if you can generate a good plan for it, then anything is possible.

Re: Longest droughts in FIRST history
 

116 was created at SLHS in 1996. We moved to HHS in 1999. We didn't win our first award until Week 5 of the 2003 season (at an event we didn't actually attend, crazy old animation rules), when we won our first Autodesk Award for Visualization at the Lonestar Regional. In our first 11 years, we still lack a regional championship. In fact we lack ANY form of championship (no NAT, CMP, or even Off-Season sucess).