Practice bot morality

[2544HCRC]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

Edit: I forgot to cite my source, Jim Zondag's wonderful championship history white paper that he has published the last 2 years.

Is there a link to this white paper? I would love to read it.

I would like to give 2 examples of the problem as I see it. The first is from a local wrestling club. They started as a way to expose young kids to wrestling and as a way of promoting the sport. They were very successful for awhile. They were recruiting 4 and 5 year olds into the wresting club and it was a fun thing for kids to do on a Saturday. Instead of being a fun activity for the kids, it became all consuming. If you wanted in you had to submit to all kinds of fundraising activities and travel as a parent. Kids all of the sudden "needed" warm up suits, etc. The team "needed" to travel hundreds of miles for competitions etc. 9 and 10 year olds were pretty much excluded by default because if the difficulty breaking into the sport. The casual crowd fell and left behind the fanatics.

example 2 are the local volunteer fire departments. They have the same problem. The training that is required, combined with the fundraising has left most of the departments with fewer and fewer members. There are very few people that want that kind of commitment.

I see the same sort of thing happening in FRC. Our kids aren't that into robots or robotics. The dozen or so kids that are part of the team will commit (kind of) to a 6 week build season and do a little fundraising, but overall it's a side thing. For most, everything else comes first. I've had kids miss practice because of the swim team, tennis, the school play, bowling, and even because they had an opportunity to go to a friends party or just because they wanted to sleep in and take it easy on a Saturday. I end up (thank god) with 1 or 2 kids that are into it and commit more time than they should. I have no help outside of a couple of parents. The local engineers have been burnt out by the other local teams (both in the double or tripple digit range). They aren't interested in commiting to being away from their family multiple nights a week and the weekend. FRC is becoming more and more competative. Practice bots, multiple regionals, etc, etc, are all leaving the casual teams further and further behind. I'm sure in some minds that's a good thing but if the goal is to expose kids to STEM in an engaging way I see it as very limiting.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

Is there a link to this white paper? I would love to read it.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2383

It's actual just factual statistical data applying weighted rankings to teams based on championship performances. The idea was to settle some of the "whose the best" discussions IIRC.

[E. Wood]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

I see the same sort of thing happening in FRC. Our kids aren't that into robots or robotics. The dozen or so kids that are part of the team will commit (kind of) to a 6 week build season and do a little fundraising, but overall it's a side thing. For most, everything else comes first. I've had kids miss practice because of the swim team, tennis, the school play, bowling, and even because they had an opportunity to go to a friends party or just because they wanted to sleep in and take it easy on a Saturday. I end up (thank god) with 1 or 2 kids that are into it and commit more time than they should. I have no help outside of a couple of parents. The local engineers have been burnt out by the other local teams (both in the double or tripple digit range). They aren't interested in commiting to being away from their family multiple nights a week and the weekend. FRC is becoming more and more competative. Practice bots, multiple regionals, etc, etc, are all leaving the casual teams further and further behind. I'm sure in some minds that's a good thing but if the goal is to expose kids to STEM in an engaging way I see it as very limiting.

A FRC team without engaged and motivated students is like a car without wheels... it isn’t going to go very far.

I think one thing that you will find on most "elite" FRC teams is a team full of students who are willing to put robotics before other things in their lives. Dare I say that some of these students make their team a priority, right behind school work? I think you will also find that the mentors of these teams with these students play a huge part in creating that attitude. As an FIRST mentor, our goal should not be to simply expose students to STEM. It should be to inspire them, to create a passion or at least a respect for it. Without this, very little is accomplished. I have been exposed to many different things in my life, very few of which inspired me like FIRST. Many of those other things I could care less about. Do your students a favor and find ways to create that passion. In the end, it’s not resources or time or practice bots that make a team great. It’s the passion that the team possesses.

Now for practice bots. You don’t have to have one to win a competition... but practice does make perfect (or at least close to it).

[Squillo]

The playing field will never be even. Life is not 'even'.

Some teams just have more resources (and I don't mean money) available to them. No matter HOW hard we work, we will never have the pool of possible mentors that a team in or near a big city has. Our whole island has only 60,000 people, many of whom are working 2 or 3 jobs just to survive. Do they have time to mentor a robotics team? Not likely. Take out the kids, frail elderly, and others who are not realistically in the 'mentor pool', and it's pretty small. We can get all the grants and money possible but if the people aren't here, they aren't here. Maybe one could be convinced to move to Kauai just to mentor a robotics team... doubtful.

The hurdles of the cost and DELAY of shipping, limited local shopping resources, logistical hurdles of getting to even one regional, etc. can be dealt with, but will never go away. We could, I guess, all move to Oahu (better) or the mainland, but that's pretty unrealistic.

But look at 359 - they have almost all of the hurdles we have. And they are doing just fine. Do we begrudge them their practice bot or multiple regionals? Heck no, we aspire to get there some day.

Anyway, geography and demographics will ensure that all teams are never equal. You do the best with what you have. We will have a better practice field this year than ever before. We will have a practice bot. We have better mentors and more focused students. We will never say "we can't win Einstein because we are from a poor little rural island". We just keep on doing the best we can with what we got, and more of our kids are discovering engineering, going into science and engineering careers, getting scholarships, etc., and that's what it's all about.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

Is there a link to this white paper? I would love to read it.

I would like to give 2 examples of the problem as I see it. The first is from a local wrestling club. They started as a way to expose young kids to wrestling ...
example 2 are the local volunteer fire departments. They have the same problem....

I see the same sort of thing happening in FRC... .

How does limiting others potential improve your situation? Should the fire department allow for less skilled individuals to put out fires? Should they use old worn out equipment?
For the wrestling, should you tell a kid to stop working out? Should you tell them they are not allowed to practice and improve until the others catch up?

I wrestled in middle school and high school. The coach talked to me quite extensively about doing free-style and doing Grecco Roman in order to be better. My choice was to do other things (4-H, Supermileage, chess tournaments...). My parents supported my choices. My senior year, I won my confernce, but lost sectionals. If I had listened to my coach, I might have been good enough to win sectionals. Possibly even do well at regionals, but I was not gifted enough to win semi-states or states in wrestling. While I did have a little regret at the time, my parents supported and overall, it helped me realize the power of my choices (I would make the same choices looking back). That being said, I would not want to disallow any of the semi-state or state level wrestlers from doing summer camp or travel league or ... If their choice is to be the 4th best wrestler in the State of Indiana for the 135 lb weight class for 1997... So be it. It wasn't my choice, but they should be allowed to make that choice. Their efforts might get them a wrestling scholarship. I made the choice to persue other things, and thus had lower than ideal results.

If your kids are not that interested, then they do not deserve to win awards against those that are trying harder and doing better work, and that is OK. Your job as a mentor is to help them realize the ramifications of not taking the initiative. In my opinion, you should also help coach them with dealing with the dissappointment*. If the team didn't fund raise enough to go to the championship... then you don't go to the championship. Your team didn't work as hard as team XYZ, then don't be upset with team XYZ when you are beat by them. It is perfectly fine to be dissappointed with poor results. It is a choice though to use that dissappointment to improve, stay the same, or fold up camp. What I find frustrating in this thread, is there is a lot of good advice on how to improve for relatively smalle means with big returns. If your team doesn't want it to get too crazy, that is fine. If your team wants to do better... they should begin to follow the advice others are willing to give.

*Also, in my opinion, the worst thing you can do is comfort your team by calling the winners cheaters. Unless you have proof of a team deliberately breaking a rule, you need to put a stop to the cheater talk right away. Having access to a resource your team hasn't developed is not cheating. Going to multiple events is not cheating. Talking with companies and presenting FIRST in order to get sponsorship dollars is not cheating. Many students will automatically come to the "they cheated" conclusion on their own. As a mentor you can choose to foster that behaviour or stop it.

[SteveGPage]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

I see the same sort of thing happening in FRC. Our kids aren't that into robots or robotics. The dozen or so kids that are part of the team will commit (kind of) to a 6 week build season and do a little fundraising, but overall it's a side thing. (...snip...) FRC is becoming more and more competative. Practice bots, multiple regionals, etc, etc, are all leaving the casual teams further and further behind. I'm sure in some minds that's a good thing but if the goal is to expose kids to STEM in an engaging way I see it as very limiting.

Yes, all these things would leave a casual team behind. However, no one said it was going to be easy if you want to compete at the highest levels. You can certainly build a kit bot, and can effectively compete with a well built one. FRC 1114 has a great series of videos and a iPad/iPhone app that will help a team to achieve those kinds of goals - just do a search on "Kitbot on steroids". Our team, as well as many others, work with local teams to assist them to build a robot like that as well, sometimes on the Thursday of the competition. Teams that build a kit bot, go to a local regional, compete against teams from around the world, seem to enjoy themselves and say "That was fun, I'll do it again next year." So there is a place for a casual team to be in FRC, just don't expect to compete at the same level as teams who work a lot harder than that. Would you expect a high school football team to be successful if team members only showed up on Friday night, expecting to be the starting quarterback? Why don't kids who play HS Varsity sports complain about the number of days they have practice - because they expect to work that hard if they want to be on the team. Why should we expect less for our teams?

I admit, we had a similar attitude many years ago. We did a little in the fall, we built the robot in 6 weeks, went to a regional, had a team dinner, and said, see you next year. We had 20 kids or so, who were "committed" at the level you mention. A couple of years ago, we decided working 10-12 weeks a year wasn't enough. If we wanted to really compete, we needed to have a year-round program. Our season now officially starts the day after our end-of-year team dinner. Since then, we have started to see the fruits of those labors. Instead of burning out mentors, we have now seen a growth in the number of mentors, who work longer hours. We have seen a growth in the number of kids actively participating on the team. We have 50+ kids who now are at almost every meeting, working their way through our training program, and into the team leadership. Twice, we have come within a single poorly timed penalty, from winning a regional. We have won the Regional Chairman's Award. We also won, with our FTC Team, the 2010 World Championship. We aren't in the highest levels of competition, yet, but we committed to working harder and harder every day to get closer and closer to being at that level.

How do you do that? How do you build a team like that. It's simple - Do your homework. It is our primary job to change the culture around us. When we were still a "casual" team, and long before we started seeing any level of success, we were in the Elementary schools, at the county fair, at Relay for Life, in the libraries, hosting training seminars, etc..... doing Dean's homework in our community.

Now, we engage more kids in STEM then ever before. When I see kids at our many outreach events, they will ask me "When can I be a RoboBee?"

[Andrew Schreiber]

The methods your team uses say a lot about your team. However, the methods you rage against say a lot more about your team.

I don't care how you run your team as long as you don't disparage me or mine. Too often I see comments about how practice bots, multiple regionals, or having engineers is "cheating". I don't care if your team decides that these are not things you want. That's your choice but until such a time as there is a rule against it teams will decide to do it and you owe it to them to let them run their team how they see fit.

I've said it before and I'll probably have to say it again, FIRST is like a pizza. We all have different ideas how to make it great but that's what makes it so great. You can put sausage and bacon on yours and I'll stick with my tomatoes and basil.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You can put sausage and bacon on yours and I'll stick with my tomatoes and basil.

This is completely wrong.














359 says ham and pineapple is where its at.
.

[2544HCRC]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The methods your team uses say a lot about your team. However, the methods you rage against say a lot more about your team.

I don't care how you run your team as long as you don't disparage me or mine. Too often I see comments about how practice bots, multiple regionals, or having engineers is "cheating". I don't care if your team decides that these are not things you want. That's your choice but until such a time as there is a rule against it teams will decide to do it and you owe it to them to let them run their team how they see fit.

I've said it before and I'll probably have to say it again, FIRST is like a pizza. We all have different ideas how to make it great but that's what makes it so great. You can put sausage and bacon on yours and I'll stick with my tomatoes and basil.

?? I don't think anyone said it was cheating. If we had the resources and wherewithal we would be building a practice bot! and going to multiple regionals. That isn't where I'm coming from at all. I applaud those teams that do and I definitely don't think it's cheating. We had the pleasure of having the pits next to 1114 in Pittsburgh and seeing how they run their team. I had several great conversations with our students about how they (1114) were an example. I'm not disputing what it takes to make a great team or saying in any way that great teams are doing something bad. What I am saying is that the current rules ratchet up the level at which a team must operate to be competitive and drive more potential competitors out of the competition. When that happens it poisons the well for others. It becomes harder for other schools to start and develop teams when they hear how hard it is too compete. If the goal is to get as many students excited about science as possible, the current setup is a little off. However I do think that total team budgets or the build season could be changed to level the field a bit. Have the regionals all on the same day six weeks after kickoff for example.

[nitneylion452]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

...Have the regionals all on the same day six weeks after kickoff for example.

That would be extremely expensive for FIRST. There are only a handful of fields that are built. That's why the regionals are set up as they are. Fields are taken down, packed up on a truck, and shipped to the next location it is needed.

Also, some teams cannot make certain dates, venues aren't available. Plus, why would we punish teams that can afford to go to multiple regionals?

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

Have the regionals all on the same day six weeks after kickoff for example.

There is absolutely no way FIRST would be able to do this. With over 65 events this year, that would require 65 vs. nineteen and more than 3 times as many volunteers to do all those events, plus all the administration to do it all on the same weekend.

And besides, how is the current regional schedule "unfair" or making the playing field not "level"? Every team at a given regional has the same amount of time to prepare. Going to other events is one way to do that, and it certainly goes a long ways towards inspiring more students. As many of us have already suggested, "leveling the playing field" is only going to make it, to put it bluntly, really lame. If there's nothing more to shoot for, what's the point?

[PayneTrain]

Guys, I just got off the phone with the dead horse. He's wondering why we're still beating him.

Seriously, this debate will never die. If you're a have-not, you just have to deal with it and try to make more money. I, a student, have spent hours and days writing grants for sponsorships, I've made over a dozen presentations and sent a bunch of letters. I've gone to sponsors and asked for more mentors, I've gone to colleges and asked for students... if you want your team to be better, go ahead and work for it. I don't want it to sound like I'm thrusting myself onto this pedestal of sorts, I'm just saying that I have seen teams at competitions and on Chief Delphi have what I don't, and I want it.

No one is giving these students engineering careers, so why are we supposed to be giving them victories out of a desperate plea for "fairness"?

Sure, whining is easier than working, but what's more rewarding?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

This is completely wrong.
[snip]
359 says ham and pineapple is where its at.
.

Akash, you and I both know why I used that example.

Originally Posted by 2544HCRC

?? I don't think anyone said it was cheating.

I don't think I said anyone did. I was making a general statement about FIRST (and to me, life in general).

And if you think FIRST is hard now imagine back in the day when you didn't have AndyMark or Team221 or WCP or even Banebots. Back when the kitbot either didn't exist or required a handful of doctoral degrees and a full machine shop to build. Back when there was very little sample code. Remember how fickle the tetrix motors were? Now imagine that your drive motors for FRC were like that. And ran significantly differently in one direction than the other.

(Warning, the following has very little applicability to the thread at hand but I felt it fits here so deal with it.)

FIRST is not supposed to be easy. It is made to be hard. Made to emulate real working conditions where you don't have enough time, money, or manpower to achieve the goal but you have to. This is the hardest fun you will ever have. And that's why gracious professionalism is so very important. We will be stressed, we will be angry. But we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we need to be role models and inspirations to students.

[Marc S.]

The only unfair part about FIRST robotics is that some teams choose not to work hard, thus making for less exciting regionals.

Seriously though, how is the fact that some teams work harder than others unfair? I could see people complaining that it is unfair that they(an individual person) are put on a team that has less immediate sponsors than others, but not that the first robotics program itself is unfair.

If FIRST said in the rules that team X was allowed to build a practice bot and team Y was not, then it would be unfair. But NO, FIRST gives EVERY TEAM an EQUAL opportunity to work hard/build multiple robots/have mechanical engineering mentors/etc.

Take team 973 for example, from 2002-2007 973 was a mediocre team, and like many others looked at the big name teams(60, 254, 294, 968, (from that era, in CA)) and said "WOW, they are just unbeatable, we will never preform as good as them"(taken from a 2003-2006 team parent).
In 2008 members of team 973 decided they wanted to work harder and build higher quality robots. Since then the team has been moderately successful and aims every year at being the best in the world knowing that that is an achievable goal. If you don't believe me just look at 973's record from 2002-2007 vs their record from 2008-2011(and so on). This was all done with HARD WORK. That is why our motto is 'OUTWORK US'. If you don't agree with that motto then simply work harder. A team is only as good as the work they put in. If nothing else, the one thing I have recieved most out of being a member of team 973 is that anything is possible if put your mind to it, and work at it.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Marc S.

The only unfair part about FIRST robotics is that some teams choose not to work hard, thus making for less exciting regionals.

Ouch.

I am to understand that FIRST is unfair because regionals are less exciting because some teams choose not to work hard. Have I got that right? Who are the people that determine that teams are not working hard?

Jane