Another Culture Change

[IKE]

Only 1 time has someone openly told me they thought that our robot was "mentor built". That team's machines were built by professional craftsmen due to sponsor and shop space rules, and they assumed we operated the same way. Ironically I always assumed that particular robot was nearly 100% student built (this is after competing with and against them for 4+ years). We don't get the public comments like a lot of the big teams, but I think that is because we go to events where there are often better teams to take the brunt of those comments.

On our team, what the students to vs. what the mentors do varies from year to year depending on the skills and interest of the students. We strive for the kids to build as much as possible. We often hit around 90% if you did a raw part count. Our school is a college prep school where the kids often have never "gotten their hands dirty". We place a high priority them getting this experience.

Who does the specialty skills changes a lot. These are the skills that require some amount of talent, and a lot of practice. Every year around 10 students say they want to weld next year in the post season interveiw. Every year around 6-8 will make it through the 2 hours of "IKE's introduction to welding". Most don't go beyond that. I think the biggest problem is the hours of isolation from the team while perfecting the craft. Every few years, we will get a student that has the determination and talent to weld. I am very excited as we brought on board a new mentor with welding skills, so hopefully there is more instructional time available in the future.

During the design strategy phase, we engage the entire team. After strategy, we will break into smaller groups for particular subsystems. These are usually a mentor or 2 and 4-8 kids. We brainstorm all the different ways we could do something and then prototype the ideas we like best. We also present these ideas back to the larger group to get the groups insights and critiques.
During the design phase, we teach how to do engineering estiamtes for forces, dimensions, motor selection, and gear ratios. I help with which equations to use, and then make the kids do the math. They generally hate it initially, but become fond of it really quickly. We also do the math for scoring, game strategy, and tournament strategy. Almost every team member was present and participating when we analyzed the value of the Double-Ubertube manuever. This was essential so that everyone understood their role in making that auto-mode possible. The gripper, chassis, elevator, arm, and even minobot team (CG effects on auto) needed to have a vested interest in making that successful.
The last couple of years, we have used a few more CNC or Waterjet parts for things that in the past have resulted in a lot of scrapped parts. We have giant bins full of brackets with 4 motor mount holes in them. Typically there is 1 on size, 1 slightly larger, one that appears to be hand-drill slotted, and one that is indescrible. This has been very valuable as it makes having an actual dimensioned design more important which makes repeatability for a practice machine more likely. It has also saved a few days of precious build time.

If you take away anything from this post, please note the use of WE. I did a lot of projects when I was a kid where adult input was not legal. While you learn a lot of "what not to do", you frequently do not learn a "right way" of doing things. More often than not, you learned ways of getting the wrong way to work. I wish I had a mentor to explain why 15 lbs of thrust really wasn't sufficient for a 3lb rocket. Yes, they were beautiful, and they would go up... just not far enough for a successful parachute deployment. When "mentor input" is illegal, it also makes any mentor input significantly more valuable. In FSAE, they are not allowed to sue "ringers" yet they are allowed to have a professor in charge. Guess which teams often do the best year after year? FIRST is really cool that you get to legally work with the students in stead of working for them, or them working for you. I may be their mentor, but I am also their teammate.

P.S. I was also a "hater" when I was younger of big resource (farmers, horse & pony members, sports teams, supermileage teams, solarcar teams...). Luckily my first year on Team 33 (2005), I had Jim Zondag and Tim Grogan set me straight when I made a disparranging remark about Team 67. They taught me to try to befriend and learn from everyone. I was very fortunate to have mentors like that set me straight early on.