Sippin' on the haterade

[martin417]

Now that several days have gone by and I have digested the events of this weekend, I want to address a recurring issue at many regionals. At GTR, it sounds like many teams don't like 1114 because they win every year, the same seems to hold true for teams like 148 and 217 at their "home" regionals. While not comparing 1771 to any of those those teams, we have done well at Peachtree for the last 4 years or so, and we are starting to see some of the same behavior from other teams there. I sit in the stands with the team during matches, so I don't hear any of what goes on in the queuing line or on the field, but the students do. They heard many comments such as " where did you buy that robot?", "how much did you have to pay someone to build that for you?", "how many mentors did it take to build that robot" and "It must be nice to have unlimited funds to build with." In addition, we played nine matches during quals, and every match we solicited the opposing alliance teams to balance with us on the coopertition bridge. Only three times did we get a team to attempt a balance, two of which were successful.

Having said that, let me tell you a little about team 1771. We have ~18 students on our roster, about six of which show up with any regularity, and four that were there every day, week in week out. The teacher sponsor is a sponsor in name only, to give school legitimacy to the team. For mentors, there is me (a mechanical engineer), and one college student mentor, studying mechanical engineering. So we had six people that showed up every day, four students and two mentors, with a few students that showed up with some regularity. I should mention at this point that we invited kids from a nearby school (Lanier High School) that plans to have a team next year to participate with us this year, and had several join our kids this year, one of whom was our human player.

This year we lost one of our larger sponsors, so our entire budget, not including entry fee, was ~$4,000. That budget includes all costs associated with the running the team: T-shirts, sponsor recognition, robot parts, etc. I don't know how much money other teams have, but I would not classify our team as rich, or having unlimited funds.

Finally, design and build. On kickoff day, we had a big turnout of students. One rule we have on kickoff day is that no-one can talk about robots. We spend the whole day talking about the game. How do we want to play the game? What are some good strategies for playing the game? What are obstacles to overcome? etc. Then we develop a strategy and a game plan. This is an interactive process, with input from all students and mentors. After the first day, we try to figure out how to execute that strategy, is it even possible? etc. We then prototype different aspects of the planned design. Often what we find out in this stage causes us to re-evaluate our game plan or strategy. Again, this is an iterative process, with input from all students and mentors. Once we finalize the design, the CAD work starts. We don't have many kids that can use CAD programs (CAD is not taught at our school), but one of the Lanier kids was well versed in Inventor, so he did the CAD for the frame, with some guidance. The rest of the CAD work was done by myself and the college mentor, with constant input from the kids.

While we didn't have a lot of money, we did have some great sponsors in the laser cutting field, one of whom cut out the wood frame for us, and the other cut out our aluminum parts.

Once we had the parts, plus a lot machining on our lathe and mill, we built the bot. Everyone that was there pitched in to build the robot. Yes, the mentors helped, but with only four students there, all the help we could get was required in order to get it built.

Edit: I forgot to mention programming. I used FORTRAN in college, so I know nothing about C++. 100% of the robot programming was done by a 17 year old senior. He had no outside help other than suggestions on algorithms and interpolation.

So, when someone makes a comment such as mentioned above, it is not fair to the students or the mentors, all of whom put in many hours every week for six to eight weeks to get to where we are. Comments like this just show the ignorance and prejudice of the person making the comment (prejudice means to pre-judge without facts, not racist)

[DampRobot]

Reading your story is certainly interesting. Since I'm not familiar with your team, I'll respond regarding teams I am more familiar with, which may or may not have dynamics similar to your own.

Personally, what can make me begin to dislike a team isn't budget, or even mentor experience, but how much the kids actually work on the robot.

I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

To me (and there certainly are a lot of differing opinions on Chief Delphi on this), the students are the ones that should be learning, and the best way to foster this learning is hands on. Ask yourself if they learn much from others making the design and others giving them parts. Is this a "lesser of two evils" that allows students more learning somewhere else? In my opinion, no. There is very rarely anything that needs to be done in the build process that a student cannot do.

This is my opinion, and I know it may be unpopular. You may even see it as part of the "haterade," and if so, I'm sorry. I only want to present my thoughts and provoke discussion, not anger.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Reading your story is certainly interesting. Since I'm not familiar with your team, I'll respond regarding teams I am more familiar with, which may or may not have dynamics similar to your own.

Personally, what can make me begin to dislike a team isn't budget, or even mentor experience, but how much the kids actually work on the robot.

I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

To me (and there certainly are a lot of differing opinions on Chief Delphi on this), the students are the ones that should be learning, and the best way to foster this learning is hands on. Ask yourself if they learn much from others making the design and others giving them parts. Is this a "lesser of two evils" that allows students more learning somewhere else? In my opinion, no. There is very rarely anything that needs to be done in the build process that a student cannot do.

This is my opinion, and I know it may be unpopular. You may even see it as part of the "haterade," and if so, I'm sorry. I only want to present my thoughts and provoke discussion, not anger.

While I agree that "students should be learning" (that is what a student does), I think you are misinformed as to the purpose of FIRST. We are not trying to teach kids to be an engineer or to design a robot, or even to machine parts. The purpose of FIRST is to INSPIRE kids, to make them take a look at engineering and technology as a career choice. If they learn something about CAD, or designing, or machining, that's just a bonus.

Using our model, how successful has our team been at that goal? Let's look at a few examples. The founder of the team graduated from MIT and is a grad student there now. Not the best example because he was destined to be an engineer from the day he was born. In 2009, 100% of the seniors on the team went on to college in engineering. I know of three that had never thought of engineering as a career before being involved with the team. By the way, all three of those happened to be girls. I consider that special because there are so few women that choose engineering as a career. In 2010, only one of the seniors did not choose engineering. She wanted to be a veterinarian. she has since thought about it and may change her major to biomedical engineering. Last year, we again had 100% of the seniors go into engineering. This year's crop are all planning to go into engineering. Every year, a high percentage of the team is female.

So is our model successful in inspiring kids to go into engineering and technology fields? I doubt you will find anyone who can honestly say that it is not.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by martin417

While I agree that "students should be learning" (that is what a student does), I think you are misinformed as to the purpose of FIRST. We are not trying to teach kids to be an engineer or to design a robot, or even to machine parts. The purpose of FIRST is to INSPIRE kids, to make them take a look at engineering and technology as a career choice. If they learn something about CAD, or designing, or machining, that's just a bonus.

Using our model, how successful has our team been at that goal? Let's look at a few examples. The founder of the team graduated from MIT and is a grad student there now. Not the best example because he was destined to be an engineer from the day he was born. In 2009, 100% of the seniors on the team went on to college in engineering. I know of three that had never thought of engineering as a career before being involved with the team. By the way, all three of those happened to be girls. I consider that special because there are so few women that choose engineering as a career. In 2010, only one of the seniors did not choose engineering. She wanted to be a veterinarian. she has since thought about it and may change her major to biomedical engineering. Last year, we again had 100% of the seniors go into engineering. This year's crop are all planning to go into engineering. Every year, a high percentage of the team is female.

So is our model successful in inspiring kids to go into engineering and technology fields? I doubt you will find anyone who can honestly say that it is not.

This is not a new debate. A lot of folks think that T in FIRST is teaching and forget that the I is for Inspiration.

Inspiration is the yardstick that all things FIRST should be measured against (imho). It the kids learning new skills gets us to more inspired kids then let's get teaching. If kids seeing engineers and scientists do their magic behind a glass window gets kids inspired, then let's do more of that. The I think the optimal case is somewhere in between.

Two things that we should keep in mind.

First, it is about more than the kids on FIRST teams. I really believe that if it is about just our kids on our teams, then FRC is a very inefficient vehicle. Really. I am sure that my kids would be just a psyched about competing in a half dozen (much easier and much cheaper) robot competitions. I am equally sure that the community AROUND my team would not be as impressed with a tabletop robot competition. The size and spectacle of FRC make an impact that justifies the difficulty and expense (again, imho).

Second, I STILL think back to Hexcaliber, my rookie rookie year (the first year I was a rookie ;-) Our team was lucky to have a robot at all with all the mistakes I made designing that robot. And here was Hexcaliber. You could literally shave by looking at the mirror shine they had on their seat motor cans. I have no idea if how much the kids on that team did, but I can assure you, our kids were really impressed ("Not only does that machine kill at playing the game, they had enough time and energy to polished their MOTORS!"). We all swore that next year, our robot would be awe inspiring as well.

So... ...this is an age old debate. I know which side I come down on.

Joe J.

[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house?

You bring up an interesting question. Are these the most valuable skills that students can generate through the FIRST program? Answer as you will, but I'd answer with a resounding "no."

I would much rather have my students designing parts, than building parts based on someone else's drawings. I'd rather have my parts manufactured at an outside facility, precision machined from a student's drawing, so that the students can see EXACTLY what they designed come to life. I'd rather have my students learn to prototype, design, think, and iterate. I'd rather have my students learn how to think like a software engineer, than how to punch Java code into a computer. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. It doesn't matter who drafts the robot. It matters that the students learn what it means to engineer a robot.

And one could argue that even that doesn't matter. The bottom line is, FIRST is about inspiration. It is about being inspired to go into STEM fields, not about showing off what you can do with your current skill set. It is about working with mentors, and being shown what's possible...what you didn't think could be done...what CAN be done. Good FIRST teams teach their students that they can do, what they didn't think they could, through mentors. Good FIRST teams even show members of other teams the amazing things that can be done with good engineering.

Without teams as strong as 1771, we wouldn't have a constant, dependable source of inspiring robots and teams. We wouldn't have anyone to look up to. Sure, there would still be an imbalance in the teams...some students would of course come into the program more prepared than others, and sometimes a bunch of particularly skilled students pair up and make something amazing. The team would probably fall back to mediocrety in a few years, since the students would have no incentive to stick around in a "student only" program, and we'd loose our source of inspiration. And, most of the haters would still find a reason to hate. If they find a reason to hate teams better than them now, they'd find a reason to hate later.

And the majority of us? We'd look like this. Trust me. I've been there. You don't want to.

Finally, a reminder. It is NEVER in anyone's best interest to hate on teams, because they may run themselves differently than yours, or value different things. Doing so only drags the program down.

[Koko Ed]

I always find it ironic that the teams vomit acid on the Elites time and time again but the Elites are the ones in their pits fixing their robots at the competition so they can get out there and play. They are often the teams that supply a good portion of the volunteers so the event happens as well. There's alot more to those team than just a robot and blue banners. All it takes sometimes is just more than a moment to look at not just what they are but who they are.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Without teams as strong as 1771, we wouldn't have a constant, dependable source of inspiring robots and teams. We wouldn't have anyone to look up to.

It took us 9 years to get there...... And as awesome as it would have been to get a robot winner trophy, it is REALLY awesome seeding ahead of 1771.....

lovin it man...

There are a lot of rookie teams in Georgia, and a few vets that need some help. We sent out an email to all the rookies yesterday asking them to keep working on their robot because we are going to have a series of mini-tournaments from May till September. We have not yet contacted the veteran teams.

No, it will not be IRI or GRITS, or Rah Cha Cha Ruckus. So for all you powerhouses wanting to spend a summer rocking and rolling, back up..

It will be oriented toward improving these weaker teams. All this leads up to GRITS in October.

What we need is strong vets is to work alongside these other teams to help them improve. Any vet team that wants to jump in contact me offline.

While I'm here - next year 1311 is going out of town chasing our non-robot awards, Peachtree will be robot only for us. We are looking for an out of town regional to go to.

Ed

[wireties]

This is the 8th season for FIRST Team 1296. We have gone through a progression like many of the teams in this thread. These days we do not do a lot of large-scale machine work but it has nothing to do with money. We have 2 in-kind sponsors who help us. One makes commerical window frames and can cut out robot chassis built of reinforced 1" Al extrusion. The other is a first-class sheet metal company that can laser anything we need. Should we not take advantage of sponsors like these? Plus we have always had numerous EE mentors to help make the electronics and software fool-proof. But the students develop the design, learn CAD, wire the robot, write much of the code and other useful activities.

148 is a few miles up the road and we have always looked up to them. Their mentors have been very helpful over the years, extremely generous. There is a playful rivalry I reckon (because many of the 148 mentors work with our mentors or have kids in our schools) but we harbor no jealousy of 148 and never did.

I think it is a good thing to learn how to run a mill, lathe, break, sheer etc. It helps one create a build-able, testable design. But in reality most engineers do not do this day-to-day, they do the math and produce drawings.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

You bring up an interesting question. Are these the most valuable skills that students can generate through the FIRST program? Answer as you will, but I'd answer with a resounding "no."

I would much rather have my students designing parts, than building parts based on someone else's drawings. I'd rather have my parts manufactured at an outside facility, precision machined from a student's drawing, so that the students can see EXACTLY what they designed come to life. I'd rather have my students learn to prototype, design, think, and iterate. I'd rather have my students learn how to think like a software engineer, than how to punch Java code into a computer. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. It doesn't matter who drafts the robot. It matters that the students learn what it means to engineer a robot.

For the longest time, our team was made up of about 50% kids that wanted to become mechanics, and work in a garage. Is there anything wrong with this? Not at all. Our engineering kids would work with these kids through prototyping and the final design. This method stuck, and I can't imagine doing it any other way. Not a single part was ever sent to a sponsor to cut.

Did the robot always work right? Nope. Did it look professional? Never. Did we have a blast doing it? YES. Fun=inspiration.

Engineering kids learned hands-on tool working/cutting/everything from our machinist kids, and our machinists learned how to design from the engineering kids. I think this is more valuable then designing a part, and having it sent out to get made. Of course, we have mentors, but their role wasn't that huge. They were more of a "I need to sand this tiny round piece, how should I do it?" kind of mentor. Or if something was to dangerous for a student to do for whatever reason, the mentor would do it.

Like someone else said before, its a jealousy factor. I look at other bots at the regional, and I see nice & shiny paint jobs, CNC'd bots, and professional-looking machines. Of course I wish mine looked/played like that. But honestly, I wouldn't have our build season be any other way. I like the way we do things and wouldn't change it for anything. It got me into engineering, and I'm not planning on switching majors anytime soon. Each team has their own way of doing things, some produce more successful robots then others, but its how they have fun and how their students get inspired.

2c - no haterade

[Karibou]

This is a slight tangent from the current discussion, but I've seen this come up in both this thread and others, and I want to address it.

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I know you don't "buy" your robot, and I wasn't trying to imply that. What often bugs me is where mentors do much of the design work, and sponsors do much of the machining work. It really seems that if it shouldn't be impossible to built the robot you want to build with students. Why not teach more kids CAD? Why have your students machine all the parts in-house? To me, the design and machining experiences are one of the things that makes the FIRST experience truly valuable.

(emphasis mine)

I always find it a bit odd when I see the comment that I bolded above. I understand why many individuals feel that way, often because the first defense for that statement that comes to their mind is "we couldn't build as good of a robot as team XXXX because they work at a professional factory while we work in a garage. If we worked there, we could be good too". I find it odd because in industry, the person who does the CAD is not always the one who operates the waterjet. I'm not saying that operating in the same manner of current-world industry should be a priority, but students will have a major advantage if they have even a general idea of what they can expect when they get a job.

Now, don't get me wrong--being able to fabricate your own parts is an AWESOME capability for a team (if it's Saturday and I need a wheel hub turned on the lathe, I'm SOL until Monday if I have to outsource my machining). But, it is not feasible for all teams for a variety of reasons: can't afford the machinery, don't have the resources to train students/mentors, don't have the space, you name it. Great robots have been fabricated in machine shops, and great robots have been fabricated in garages, but not having machinery available is no reason why a team can't field a competitive robot. Funding is a different matter entirely, but that is not a discussion for here.


For the record, 1189's 2010 robot was sheet metal that was cut and waterjet at GM, and we were lucky to see it move more than an inch on the field.

[techtiger1]

(Steps on soapbox)

I have heard these hating comments about my own team as a mentor and about other teams in my region. Our state has many excellent teams a few of them stand out and are excellent to a championship level every year. As a student you think its unfair, as a mentor you begin to realize that the robot is just a vehicle. To quote Dr. Flowers FIRST is a microcosm of real life, it is not always fair or a level playing field. JVN once wrote on these very forums something to this effect, I don't care if a bunch of monkeys builds the robot as long as the kids are inspired that is all that matters. We need to focus on the bigger picture here and remember GP.

(Steps off soapbox)

[Taylor]

Even if a hypothetical team somewhere "buys that robot", "pays someone to build that for them", "uses how many mentors to build that robot" and "has unlimited funds to build with", and I say this with absolute seriousness,

WHO CARES?!??!!

Is the team celebrating Science and Technology?
Is the team creating Inspiration?
Is the team Recognizable?

If any or all of these answers is even a little bit "yes", then Mission Accomplished.

It's a learning process for teams and individuals to understand this. It took me about 4 years for it to sink through. I don't believe any team is 100% student built or 100% mentor built (for those that claim to be completely SB, who do you think created the KOP? It wasn't 15 year old kids!)

If I were in your shoes, I'd take those interactions - while quite unfortunate - as a compliment. Perhaps you could create a flyer outlining the different abilities of your robot, and highlight the team member who spearheaded each component. Invite the naysayers to your shop. Point out to them that students are in the pit working on the robot, not adults. Haters gonna hate; kill 'em with kindness.

Congrats on the ICA.

[nahstobor]

All I can say is that I'm deeply sorry to hear this. The worst thing to read in this post is that the high-school students are the ones getting attacked. If someone wants to say a robot is "mentor built" go after the mentors [Insert I'm a man, I'm 40 rant].

I feel a lot of the time people forget in the heat of battle that these are high school students who are trying to get inspired about engineering. Claiming that a group of students hard work isn't there own might be enough in some cases to lead them away from engineering.

In 2009, as the coach, my human player committed a penalty at championship. While I was getting chewed out by our alliance partners coach after the match, I stopped him and simply thanked him for coming after me and not freshman who made the mistake. It allowed me to calm the student down, have a laugh with him, then go to the practice field and work with him 1 on 1 to make sure the penalty wouldn't happen again.

I'm not going to lie, as a mentor, I advise my students not to get the robot painted. It usually ends up that we don't have enough time, but the advice is out of protection for the students. Once you have a professional looking machine, the "mentor built " card comes out.

[pfreivald]

I think that in general people should worry more about what they are doing, and less about what others are doing. That goes for a lot more than FIRST.

[Squeakypig]

These comments are unfortunate, but jealousy does set in. When a group of students sees a robot that is absolutely an engineering spectacle and then look at their robot made of plywood and c-channel, they tend to get a little jealous. Little do they know, it doesn't matter what your robot looks like or even how your robot plays the game, if your robot functions the way it is supposed to function, it is an engineering success. But when you see a 'perfectly engineered' robot, you just want to believe that the team 'cheated' in a way. It is completely the wrong attitude, you should go to those people that make those comments and compliment their robot, ask them about their design process, give them tips and hints on how they could master your techniques.

As far as people not wanting to do the cooperition bridge with you, this could just be strategy. I know at Waterford, HOT was wanting to do the coopertition bridge every match...and they did it 11 our of 12 matches. The one they didn't get it on was a failed balance, not being rejected the opportunity. I don't know if it is just like this in Michigan, but the elite veteran teams are teams that we look up to. Being from Crevolution, a spin-off from the Thunderchickens, it will take quite some time before we can compete on their level year after year...but we will get there. We have adapted many of their practices and it shows, this year we took home our first ever banner. It took 4 years of biting at TC's ankles to finally get our own banner.

To the teams making those comments, I have 2 things to say:
1) Coopertition in every single match, you can't seed high without it.
2) Stop ridiculing teams and start learning from them instead.