[Greg Perkins]

back in my sophmore days in HS when i was first introduced to FIRST, our team 151 was a really great team. our primary sponsor, SANDERS/BAE SYSTEMS believed that FIRST should be student oriented. so thats what they did. now due to the fact that our team did not have a Machine shop that was readily available to students, BAE did all the Milling, Lathe work, and miscellanous. The students then came in, assembled all of the parts, wired it all, coded it all, and made one heck of a machine.

in 2002, our team took a new route, giving some of the students the opprotunity to machine parts. 4 other students including myself, had a machine shop class during the day so we were qualified to make parts. we made a killer set of mag 5 spoke wheels for the bot out of aluminum, taking about a week; during school, and after schooll; to make all 10 of them. Then BAE also did the Milling of the chassis, and parts too. But none-the-less the students still got to "make their robot" by assembeling it, and doing all the other stuff to it, to make it competitive. that year we were semifinalists in our division at Nationals.

in 2003 we had a major turning point. Tyler, a senior, was hired by BAE to work after school in a machine shop at the facility. this was a huge difference in the aspect of how 151 had operated. the tube aluminum was cut, and BAE welded it together. but all the other parts that were made for it were done by students. that year we had a lot of problems with the machine, but hey, what can you expect from a team who went from assembling parts, to now making parts, it was more of a Time Management adjustment.

Now my FIRST travels take me to college. I go to a tech. school in Concord, NH. and Pembroke Academy is just down the road. so this year i decided i would help them out. it was quite a new experience for me. this team the mentors did as much work as teh students. since i was a "mentor" i expected to make sure a kid didnt hack his arm off w/ the sawzall, but no, i was actually building the robots along side the kids! i really enjoyed it! Thanks Pembroke! Good Luck this year!


now for my Opinion on this subject. I think that the robots that are entirely made by engineers is really unfair for those teams who can barely make their robot drive. I think first is about showing kids how to do it, not do it for them so now they know. let the kids do as much as they can so they are gaining knowledge. and if someone screws something up, dont go awal on them, let them know what they did wrong, and let them fix it. ive seen some mentors get pretty hotheaded over a simple mistake by a student, and i believe that that is very uncalled for. so all in all, i think that students should have AS MUCH input into the robot so they get something out of it.