I don't think a consensus on this matter will ever be reached.

Teams that are student built say "Student Built, Student Pride, Student Inspired, Student Performed"
Engineer built teams say "It doesn't matter who builds, they love winning, Student Inspired, Student Performed"

I see very little variations of the above, unless there are rule changes (which there won't be, too hard to govern) there will never be a consensus on the matter.

That's ok though. As long as every team is taking advantage of this competition to do something worth while, and made a positive difference on their student's life, then FIRST definitely did their job right.

Take a look at this thread by M. Krass about success of FIRST: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=15040


Its ok to have your own opinion for these sort of things, just don't tell others with a different opinion they are wrong without getting to know them and understand their point of view.

Ken:
Your point is well said. Unfortunately, no one is interested. We try, we fail. There is literally one teacher at our school that's interested. Not even the Fat Man (technology teacher) wants to work on it. It's just the way it is, I suppose. And no, we haven't really tried building a network. Every person available is either working on the robot or the one guy out scouting. That's about it. We can only afford to send 10 people to regionals, and even then we probably will only get 7 again this year. I suppose we should try, although I only get to be a mentor next year--and it might not be here in Vegas, if I'm lucky.
Shawn: Ha! And take me away from work. I'd like to see someone pull that over on my physics teacher. I couldn't even slip out for half an hour of Magic last year. Although I suppose we could GO eat somewhere--both of our teams. Again, make the offer to the boss (Mr. Johnson). If you need an email for him, I'll give it to you. I do indeed enjoy arguing with you, and would like to more. What I'd like even more is to hold this conversation with one of your students, there don't seem to be that many here from your team.
Oh yeah, and I got an answer on the machine shop thing--I just can't remember what it was.

Bono

Most of our students don't worry about it too much. They like what we do and aren't too worried about all the political garbage. They just worry about making our team better than it was in the past.

I have a theory. It is only mine so take it for what it is worth. I have seen it both ways. This is my second team to be an adviser for.

Why can't some teams get enough adult help? Why do they have a ton of dedicated engineers/teachers/machinists? I know why we do and why I did at my last team. It is because we do not DEMAND that the robot be 100% student built.

With team 60 we work with the machinists and teachers on our team as PARTNERS. We give up some of the control to learn from some 50+ years of "real life" engineering/machining experience. We allow the adults to have fun, to be challenged, to feel frustrated, sad, happy, angry, and every other feeling that goes into building a FIRST robot. We ALLOW the adults to have as much fun as the students. Not too many adults want to give up their free time to sit and watch students "play". They want to "play" also.

When my students (at my previous team) and I were able to let go of some of the control we were able to attract more adults (engineers, machinists, teachers, and parents) to the team. Everyone wants to feel needed for their expertise and not their "baby sitting skills". We all want to feel that we are valued, important, and we wan to have fun. I think that when you let the adults have fun you will attract more adults than you know what to do with.

If you let go... they will come.

This leads to the next problem. Where is the balance between the adults having too much fun and taking away from the students? That is the topic for another thread.

Ahh...Now I feel better.

See ya at the competitions

Shawn

p.s. You can take others only as far as you have gone yourself.

My job as team adviser is to find people who are smarter, more talented, and who have more experience than me to help my team. Then I am wise enough to shut up, to listen, and to learn.

I think you are able to tell for the most part really how much student vs. adult involvement there is. Not to say that kids can't come up with alot of really good stuff, but for the most part they can't implement it and make it look professional. Our robot is 100 percent student designed and built, and we're a rookie team, so it works and looks like crap. I've seen some pictures with robots where every part is machined, fits togehter perfectly etc. Maybe with 4 years of practice kids could do that, but I'm pretty sure it takes a professional background to be able to get everything working that well.

I can't understand the views of teams that are more concerned with building a robot that works, rather than building experiences and knowledge. I very much feel that building the robot yourself is more important than winning. If your robot kicks arse, more power to you. However, the real goal is to develop an understanding of the process of design, not how the 'bot works. I know that, for approximately 100% of high school students, participating in designing is far more informative than watching someone else design it.

As for who physically cut the parts, it doesn't matter very much. If it's a CNC machine, it should be programmed by the students, but using a drill press to make holes on dots is not an important learning experience, although I prefer the kids to be as involved as possible.


On a side note, we will soon (in about 2.5 hours) have an engineer. John Bono's father will be helping us today. YAY!

I would just like to voice an opinion that I feel has not been heard…I feel that some of the teams who do not have much student involvement in the actual manufacturing aspect of the FIRST program are potentially short-changing their students. While FIRST is an incredible opportunity for students who desire to become engineers, it is also a great resource for those students who are planning on have a more technical career. I feel that I have learned an incredible amount of information through the more technical and manufacturing aspects of my team, and I am considering a more technologically oriented career. Granted, not everyone can be working with tools and not everyone has the desire, but had the opportunity never been available to me I would not have learned nearly as much as I have.

we are all forgetting that first isn't just about robots...it's about problem solving. building a robot is the six week frenzy part of first. the rest of the year is where the publicity, the community involvement, and the expansion of FIRST into more schools (the REAL meaning of first) really happens. who is to say that the person who spends 52 weeks a year working on publicity is any less of a value to a team than a person who works for six weeks to build a robot.

Go Team Go
 

You almost got it, but not quite. The real goal is for students to understand the process of engineering, which is somewhat larger than the process of design. Design is only one aspect.

If you look at most team organizations you will see a list of functions something like this:

Administration
Marketing (to other teams)
Capital Development (fund raising)
Product Development (design)
Product Delivery (fabrication)

Those functions are present in some form in every successful business. If you take one of them away, the whole thing falls apart.

In the same way there is a structure to the engineering process. As a team, the BeachBots follow that structure rigorously. It goes something like this :

-Decide how to accomplish the task (how do you play the game?)
-Develop requirements for accomplishing the task (how fast do you have to move to play effectively?)
-Decide how to meet requirements (what motor do I use to lift 7 boxes 1 ft in 1 sec?)
-Figure out how to make it work (design, the more detailed the better)
-Build it
-Test it (determine if you meet requirements, BTW if you meet requirements, you win, no matter your competition score)
-Deliver it (show up at a competition)
-Evaluate performance (Figure out where we screwed up both technically and organizationally. Note: the later is more important)
-Research and Development (correct techncal issues for next time)
-Repeat (Next year already?)

This process is not something that people naturally follow. But it is the key to a sustained successful engineering enterprise. We have engineers from four top aerospace firms (well it was 4, one just bought one of the other 3). You know what, we all do business the same way, in spite of being in very different markets.

To truly understand the process, you must DO it. A really good FIRST team will model a good engineering business. That is the point, to give you guys a taste of what it is like in the "real world" of engineering. To be good at it, you need practice. That is what your adult mentors can provide. On our team, the mentors have collectively been through this process hundreds of times, we understand it and we use it, because it works.

But having had the chance to observe up close a "students do it all" team, this process is exactly what is missing. It's not the students fault, they've never done it so how could they be expected to do it well? Yes they've tried to follow the steps, but you can tell it is not as easy as breathing for them. For those of us who have been doing it for twenty years it is.

In many ways FIRST is just another program like so many I've worked. But it IS more fun than most.

BTW collin234, if the person who works 52 weeks a year on publicity causes a new team to get started or gets you a new major sponsor, they are of infintely more value than any 6 week machining genius. Pretty strong words from an engineer!

Very well said. What is necessary is not more students, or more engineers, but a balance. Each team should have at least one, preferably two, engineers but probably won't need more than about four, or they can gang together and lose the learning aspect. I certainly wish that we had someone knowledgeable to give us advice . . .

:)
 

Im sorry, but alot of people believe that engeneers are necessary to build a good robot...well last year as rookies with 2 teachers and 8 students we seeded 3rd int eh toronto regional...same this year, we jsut have a few more students, most of them being juniors and not knowing what they are doing...our belief thruout is that theres no limits on our ideas...and once we have thsoe figured out, there is absolutley no problem in making it, because its a collective effort...even though we still dont have the robot finished....and there are only a few days to go, we will get it done, it will run, and it will do well.
I stand by my belief that there is no greater learnin experience than putting your hands on something...