Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

I am reminded of the phrase:
"A vote says more about the voter than the candidate."
An opinion says more about it's holder, than about reality.

GP mandates that I listen to your opinion, not that I give it any credibility. Credibility is not free. It is the burden of the opinion holder to give it credibility.

Everyone must make their own decisions about who's opinions to give credibility, just as I have.

True maturity is when you find a differing opinion, and you can accept it, even if it does not change yours.
Live and let live, my friend.

-John

PS - You're not the only one who has had unique perspectives on FIRST.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

So you dont consider the opinion that students can learn from building WITH mentors help, and not mentors help alone a credible opinion? I dont think that opinion is too unique.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

I think everyone has (or will have to) faced this particular challenge at some point.



====

My opinion on the two matters concerning mentors and the competitive levels of competition: learning & experience curves are exponential. If you want to take a group of students and let them fumble around when the curve is flat, then you're more than welcome to. However, if you inject them with the knowledge & experience of a few mentors and let the students learn by teaching and by example then those students will be much further along in their learning than they would have been without the mentors. It then becomes apparent why teams that follow this process are very successful on and off the field: they're much further along in the curves. Go figure, this is one of the main FIRST principles that is repeatedly emphasized at kick-off.

Not only does this apply in the build season, but it also applies on the competition fields. Allowing an adult mentor as a coach gives the students an opportunity to learn from someone who is leading by example rather than leading by lecture. My personal opinion on field coaches (I am one so maybe it's biased) is that if an adult isn't the coach then you better have a very mature student as the coach. If you want to actually be high-caliber competitive at the competitions, you will need someone who can handle the pressure and thought processes that need to occur to be successful, as well as be proactive in the preparation of strategies for the matches. The first step to a student being able to coach well is that he/she must want to coach and not to drive...unfortunately many students simply do not understand the difference (and most will never read this post either...)

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

I want to make it clear that I am not arguing that if a student does not have anyone to teach them they will learn. What I am arguing is that If that teacher does most of the work for them, that they will not. (or atleast not as much)

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Nit-pick: lots of people on this thread keep talking about "learning". I'm all for the students learning through this program, but that is not a goal of FIRST (really!). If you don't believe me, please cite a specific source from FIRST that says anything about FIRST's objective being to "teach". I'm pretty sure it's not there. As others have pointed out, FIRST's material only talks about inspiration.

Oh, and I'd like to repeat Karthik's call for anyone to name me a robot that is 100% mentor-built. I don't think they exist, but I could be wrong. I'm willing to bet, though, that a lot of people hold that misconception about my team (and BTW, if you do think that about 111, take some time and browse our gallery - you'll see plenty of pictures of both students and mentors constructing/working on/repairing our robot).

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

There are some teams that were at the Great Lakes Regional who were yelling at some of us for standing for our team. Now I am a member of Purdue FIRST Programs so I was there to help and root for three teams. These people behind us were irate that we would stand. That wasn't GP but, it got worse because they kept muttering under their breath at us and doing the little *cough* *downinfrontwecan'tseebecausewehavenoteamspirit* *cough*. That all needs to stop.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

I am going to ask some potentially really stupid questions here, but I think they need to be asked.

1. Do you think there are any teams where mentors do 100% of the work for the entire build and competition and students just drive it?
2. If so, is this observation based on seeing this team at competition or have you talked to their students or gone to their build sites?

If you got through #1 and #2 and you have a team that you have talked to or observed during build and competition that is 100% mentor built then maybe you need to speak privately with that team as they are far from the norm in FIRST.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

I've only been in FIRST for a grand total of 4 years (incl. this build season), but what I have noticed is that most students that drive mentor-only built bots is that the students have no feel for the mechanical limitations of the bot. Therefore that type of team rarely does very well. Those kinds of teams do exist *cough* one our rookie team neighbors at VCU *cough*, but you rarely hear about them.

A co-worker commented on a photo of our pits this year at VCU and the fact that there were 2 students and 3 mentors working on the bot...why weren't there more students? He didn't accept the explanation I gave him, which is exactly in line with what you've stated here.

I found a photo for him and quieted him though; during the build season on the Saturday right before ship date we have a photo of 9 pairs of hands working on the bot. It wasn't an intentional or posed photo...it just so happened that there were 9 different things that could be done in parallel at that given moment. 7 of the 9 people were students, and it wound up that one of the mentors was just holding something in place (hate to say this, but many mentors are also physically stronger than most students...).

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

I've seen some robots that I'm sure highschoolers could not have built by themselves. I don't know from talking to their mentors but I have eyes and they seem to be fairly reliable at this point. As for *all* of the work... that I can't say for sure but I would say that their mentors did some serious work.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

Wow, you seriously underestimate what a high schooler can do with a good mentor to help and guide them. Also, isn't that part of the point? For high schoolers to do things they "could not have" by themselves?


I really don't get this argument in general..... I wasn't a student that long ago and I definitely would not have liked working without help from engineers. I don't get it, is it a pride thing? A jealousy thing? Self taught can only go so far, an engineer will be able to teach you so much more and inspire you even more so.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

I dont think 100% student built robots exist either, but if they do, it would be alot more impresive to me then a 100% mentor built robot.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

And I say what does that matter? If the students in question are inspired to pursue a career in science or technology, then hasn't the program fulfilled its goals? Remember, the competition is a means to a end.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

Appearances can be deceiving. The 254/968 bots look like they were designed and built by a team of NASA engineers (not at all the case as stated previously in this thread) while many robots that have teams of mentors look like garbage.

Your eyes observing a robot are not a reliable indicator of that team's makeup or organization.

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

[quote=AdamHeard;730544]Wow, you seriously underestimate what a high schooler can do with a good mentor to help and guide them. Also, isn't that part of the point? For high schoolers to do things they "could not have" by themselves? QUOTE]

I'm not saying that if high schoolers receive help it's bad. There are some robots though that make me wonder how much work the high schoolers really did or if they even helped with the design at all.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

You would really like the BEST program.
It isn't 100% but it is closer to your vision of a robot build/competition.

A wise person once said there are many different trees in the forest. FIRST may not be the tree that fits what you envision, BEST might be a closer fit. I don't think there is BEST in MA - but hey, you could make it grow.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Weis, why not go talk to one of those students that was active on the team about it?

We can speculate all we want, but nothing can replace actually talking to those teams.

there are plenty of 100% student built robots. There would have to be as I have run into many teams with no mentors and just a teacher/advisor who really can't doesn't help with the robot.

Now, I've worked with teams like these; despite winning the coveted DanTod97 impression award, they were generally very unhappy with their FIRST experience and weren't very much, if at all.

Now, I've also worked with kids on 294 (and formerly was one) who worked alongside real engineers (students still did most of the design, not without mentor help though), and were introduced to lots of actual industry at Northrop Grumman. Through the team students have been given internships at NG, and this has lead many to pursue math, science and engineering as a career path.

So, please, please tell me why the students on this team are less impressive?

Re: GP? I think not.
 

I saw one right next door to me in the pits at MN. It was decent, but definitely not impressive. The students were also not having a very good time as their software didn't work right and they had gotten it from another local team that wrote their own custom libraries (likely because they didn't have a software mentor to help them write their own code).

Re: Gracious? Professional? Huh.
 

So FIRST is only allowed to have the one single effect of inspiration? Wouldnt it be great if learning was integrated with the inspiration so they have a head start for their aspiring careers?

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Thats a pretty negative attitude. But yes of course they could have done better with mentor help, which is why I said before "I want to make it clear that I am not arguing that if a student does not have anyone to teach them they will learn."

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Because a student on the team is not going to tell me that their mentors did all of the work. Might the conversation go...
Weis says, "Excuse me guy, did you have mentors build your whole robot?"
To which Brandon McStudentson replies, "Not all of it, Dave put on that zip tie and Fidel but on that screw."
surprised Weis says, "Oh, my mistake"

Don't be naive or offended. I was just making a point.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

This is a valid point, so I'll (respectfully) nit-pick back. In my opinion, I believe that learning and inspiration in the realm of FIRST come full circle to each other, at least during the build season.

I do believe mentors can be inspired by students just as much as the other way around. The more students learn the higher chance they'll have in inspiring their mentors and other students because there will inherently be more avenues to take on the way to doing so. I (and I don't think I'm alone here) would really love to see a student-driven idea on a bot much more than I'd like to see a mentor-based idea, even if the student's idea is mentor designed and cooperatively built. This coincides with building student self-confidence (which stems from inspiration) which leads to students trusting their own ideas and creativity. However, if the students have learned more already by having mentors teach (and/or inspire) them, then there is a much greater chance that a student-driven idea will have greater success in a bot on the competition field. Many of the interviews with Woody or Dean have stated some of these exact words, so while learning may not be an "official" cited goal of FIRST I do believe it is a goal nonetheless.

And on a more fun note... the more students know, the less likely their ideas will fight the universe or require the *poof* from a magic wand.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Wow.... If that wasn't completely made up, I don't know what is....

EVERY single powerhouse team I at one time suspected of being mentor (I'll be the first to admit I was immature, jealous and naive once. Well, at 19 can't say I'm not anymore, but I'm better) built had proven me wrong.

I went to their pit, to their team, wherever and talked to them for a bit. Sure, at first you may not get the student that worked his $@#$@#$@# off who is a bit bitter and claim students did nothing.... but you will ALLWAYS be able to find the student(s) on these teams that can tell you everything about the robot 'cause they worked their $@#$@#$@# off alongside engineers to build the best and learn the most. Also, coming up and asking that is a far to accusational tone to get a positive response.

I can't make it to championships this year because of class, but how about at championships 2009 or IRI this season you and me take a walk around the pits and talk to some teams? I'll buy you a dozen krispie kremes/cases of dew for each team that is mentor built and you can buy me one for each 25 that aren't. I'll still end up with more donuts and dew.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Our robot isn't 100% student built, but its close to 95%. The only thing that the students didn't work on were the newer kids learning how to weld, use our mill, and the lathe. But after they learned, they were able to do most of the work. Also bending some of the 1" sq. tubing, in that instance, most of them weren't strong enough to do it. Thats just my team though

Re: GP? I think not.
 

This thread has grown very quickly .. let's let people read all the posts .. gather their thoughts, think about it, and then we'll unlock it later this weekend or Monday morning.

Let's keep the discussion of this topic in this thread .. so please do not create another thread to talk about student vs mentor built robots.

Moderators: unlock no earlier than Sunday, please.