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Originally Posted by Karthik
... Too often, girls get left behind on FIRST teams because during the crunch of the 6 week build, people don't have enough time to teach.
...When it comes to build season, FIRST teams rely on the students who can get things done quickly. So the manufacturing jobs are assigned to those who already have the appropriate skill set.
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This post flags some of the most common problems that FIRST teams encounter - the traps we fall into.
1. When you start thinking FIRST is a robotics competition, you forget we are here to show students what a career in engineering and science will be like. When building a better robot is more important than giving a student exposure to new skills and career insight, the train has jumped the tracks and is plowing mud.
The answer to this problem is not easy. As mentors we often have to reject great robot ideas because they are too complex, and students would not be able to implement them in 6 weeks. Very often we have simplified our design so the students, new unskilled students, would be able to handle the tasks. Some of our robots turned out mediocre, but our students turned out excellent.
2. Engineering is NOT manufacturing. I say this repeatedly every year, but many teams fall into the trap of thinking engineers are machinists and wiring technicians. Engineering is the design part, figuring out what the machine will do, and how it will do it. Building the machine (in the real world) is a process of the engineers producing drawings, and machinists fabricating the parts, and usually technicians assembling them. It is good to be able to fabricate things with your own hands, but thats not what engineers do.
in fact, I always feel very uncomfortable if I have to man a drill press, or solder circuit boards, or assemble prototypes at work, because that is not what Im being paid to do. In a pinch I can, but if Im doing fabrication and assembly work all day long something is seriously wrong with the project!