[Dunngeon]

Originally Posted by TravSatEE

I had expected that your project was forked and that was why I asked for clarification as to what the students did. Instead, your answer wasn't completely clear to me as to exactly what the students did for CheesyVision. I do understand that it was "mentor heavy." Though you couldn't tell the differences between student and mentor effort when you were in high school, I trust my judgment because I have done programming for 18 years and know the subtle differences in programming skills at all levels. I do think very highly of the work you released to all teams. I am sure students also do.

I don't understand why the Poofs have to prove to you that student's built it. I'm pretty sure your team used gearboxes from Vex or AndyMark this year, which were designed by mentors/paid engineers. Should those also be exclusively designed and built by students? The idea of COTS is to allow easier entry into FRC and raise the level of play. I would argue that it has, because the level of play is exponentially higher than in the early 2000's when teams were required to build (almost) everything. The same concept applies here, a team that built something amazing is sharing it with the greater community in an effort to increase the competition level. Beyond that, they could have waited until the end of the season to release this vision program, keeping a competitive edge over most teams. Instead they have released it, and had mentors comb through it so that it is easy to implement. I think this release speaks volumes about the character of the members of Team 254.

Your analogy to a COTS part is not equivalent to this situation: several mentors appear to have worked exclusively on a project that was used to give a competitive advantage to the game performance given limitations of the Field Management System. Albeit it was not an overwhelming advantage and any team could have done the exact same thing. Again, I am not saying Team 254 has broken any rules. But I find it interesting that a NASA sponsored (funded?) team, and the team with the best winning record of FIRST, needs to have mentors do exactly what you have done for a high school competition. Of course you stand by your decision to do CheesyVision the way that you did -- it's easy to stand by a decision that has no consequences.

Again, you wouldn't of known this even existed if they hadn't released it.

I am eminently fortunate to always have mentored teams that were student run and each team has students just as impressive as the ones you described. From what I have learned today, I think the difference between your team and my teams is that other mentors keep it students vs students.

Either team type can have benefits and drawbacks, it's all in implementation. Our team is fully student run, but sometimes I wish we had more mentors because then other students and I could learn so much more

I do not intend for any of my posts to put you on the defensive nor to diminish your students' work hard. I am trained to speak my mind and your reply has been informative. Thank you for answering.

I'm gonna speak my mind here, everything you wrote above this diminishes the work students have put into Team 254's robot this year. I've no doubt that much of the robot was mentor driven, either directly or indirectly, but if mentors built the entire robot I greatly doubt that top students would stay around for long. The students of 254 make it what it is, just like the students of 955 make our team what it is. Mentors add capabilities to teams because of the knowledge they bring. One of our mentors brought our CNC to life and revolutionized our build process, something a student that is only around for 4 years would have trouble achieving. Team 254's mentors bring knowledge to the table as well and I'm very glad they decided to share it. The debate over mentor domination really shouldn't pollute this generous gesture from the poofs.


Also, Thanks for Cheesy Vision! 955 used it with 1 and 2 ball hot at PNWCMP last weekend

Ryan