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Re: engineer bots
The point?
At GLR this year we saw teams who's bots were obviously totally designed by the engineers. While this is legal i do not think it is with the spirit of FIRST. There were 4 builders (including myself) and 1 programmer who did 70% of the work on team 1549's robot. A few more guys jumped in in the last 2 weeks. Except for our passive gripper and the winch drum everything was designed, made and put together by high school and college students.
Our bot, while very good (when the drive program isn't screwed up and I'm not getting ramming penalties), cant measure up to these superbots.
There is nothing that can really be done so i guess i am just ranting for my own sanity. I just wanted to point out the unfair advantage that many teams have.
Also, i cannot conclude a post about building the bot without thanking the mentors, particularly Kieth and Gary. Without your guidance, passing on the wisdom of past experience and teaching the team how to be a team we could never have gotten this done. Thanks guys!
Hi Validius!
I can sincerely understand your frustration. The only thing that I can suggest is that you change your perspective just a little. It sounds like you had a good experience with your team and mentors this year and I'm sure learned a lot and hopefully developed some new relationships. You should be rightfully proud of your accomplishments and of the product you and your team produced. That is what FIRST is really about. You certainly sound "inspired" and that is the most important aspect of FIRST (IMO). Focus on your teams accomplishments. Every team is different. Just try to make yours the most excellent it can be and I assure you that your experience with FIRST will be of great value and satisfaction to you.
I can understand how easy it is for it to seem like people are "cheating" when it looks as though professional engineers built the robot with little participation from students. When this does happen, the people who are shortchanged the most are the students who didn't have the opportunity to participate in building the robot.
I am an engineer so I know how hard it is to not jump in and "build" the robot by insisting on what I think is best. I also know that we end up with a better robot because I don't! Seriously! You don't have to be an engineer to have great ideas. I see my role as trying to help the students implement THEIR ideas. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. Finding solutions is what engineering is about. I also know that the best way to learn is by trying and, sometimes failing. I remember and learned a whole lot more from the mistakes I made as a young engineer than the things that worked out right out of the box. You know what? I still make mistakes (though I like to think not as many) and I still learn from them.
Don't let your frustration impact your "sanity". Be the very best you can be and inspire your team to seek the same goal. Make the maximum use of whatever resources you have at your disposal. There will always be teams with more and teams with less. Try to focus on getting the maximum amount out of all the resources you and your team have. If you do that, you can be very proud of your accomplishments, no matter what another team does or does not do.
Best of luck to you! (sorry for the long winded reply!)
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