Sippin' on the haterade

[smurfgirl]

At my very first robotics meeting in fall 2005, some team members explained to me what the team does, and in the process showed me the 2005 robot and explained how it worked. It was by no stretch of the imagination a "good" robot, but my reaction to seeing it was complete awe that it was possible for high school kids to build a functional machine that was as tall as me. A part of me figured that there was no way I could be a useful or successful member of the team, but I was intrigued by the concept of FIRST so I ended up sticking around. I helped build the 2006 robot, and later that season, the team was ranked last throughout most of the New England Regional. While I has learned it was indeed possible for high school students to build functional machines the same size as me, it was still pretty easy to look at the more successful teams and think "how on earth could a high school student have done that?". Later that day, our team was selected to join an alliance with two very experienced and accomplished teams. They passed on a lot of knowledge that not only explained how their teams were so successful, but also directly contributed to our team's success in subsequent years. At times in our more successful seasons, 1124 has heard similar negativity and criticism... and guess how we have responded? We also pass on our knowledge to teams in need. As an inexperienced or struggling team, it can be easy to question and criticize other teams as a defense mechanism. This will certainly continue to happen into the future. What we need to change is the way we react to this "haterade" - we have to help frustrated teams see how they can aspire to be all that the successful teams are, and give them the tools so that they can get there.

[Madison]

I am happy that the sort of behavior we're talking about here hasn't popped up here the PNW -- or, if it has, I've been completely oblivious to it. On the other hand, I've had a few teams tell me that my team and others like 1983 and 2046 and 360, to name a few, have made them want to be better. A lot of those teams are now better than mine is and that's exciting -- and a bit frustrating, too; not going to lie.

This sort of attitude seems to come from teams that are allowed to operate in a vacuum. The best in the world can be intimidating to approach, even if they really are the nicest people around, and so teams that only interact with them at competitions fill in the blanks they have about who they are and what they do with their own fears and inadequacies.

The best thing I think we can do -- even though it really is a TON of work -- is to stay engaged with other teams in our regions as much as we can. We are not very good at this on our own, but we are lucky to have a group of folks up here that are fantastic at bringing teams together and acting as a central resource for us. It is very hard to be angry with people you know and like; I know this from experience.

[PayneTrain]

I don't think anyone knows about this, but I may be at my last competition in April and I feel like it needs to be said.

Team 422 ran on haterade in 2009. The previous year, the fruits of mostly-student labor ended up being very sour. However, students on the team initially blamed other teams for having their mentors do all the work and conspire against them. Truthfully, the team's 2008 creation taught the team a lot of what shouldn't be done.

When Lunacy was unveiled, the seniors took it upon themselves to stick it to every team that had "wronged them" previously. It ended up that while the robot was mostly constructed out of in-house cut and welded aluminum angle and plate in addition to the KOP drive train, the greatest part of the robot was its conveyor system, designed by students, but assembled by a supplier for one of our sponsors. In fact, that conveyor was so grand, its made a modified return on this year's robot.

So what could we say now? Were we a mentor-built team? No, we were a team that busted their butts for six weeks for the first time in a few years, and got to a semifinal round in a tough away regional. Since then, the team has made it a point to mind our own business during the build season. If we work as hard as we can, there is no reason for us to not be playing on Saturday afternoon.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: why waste the effort you could be putting into making your team better with putting other teams down? Why bother wondering what powerhouse teams do behind the same closed doors you have? Why worry about how they win with what you don't have, when you should work on winning with what you built?

[tsaksa]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

What we need to change is the way we react to this "haterade" - have to help frustrated teams see how they can aspire to be all that the successful teams are, and give them the tools so that they can get there.

Exactly. That is the challenge I have taken on for myself. To make sure our team never falls into the trap of looking at any other team that does better and complain in any way. The only constructive things to do when confronted with a better competitor is to congregate them and learn from them. Nothing else is worth your time.

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

I helped build the 2006 robot, and later that season, the team was ranked last throughout most of the New England Regional. ... Later that day, our team was selected to join an alliance with two very experienced and accomplished teams. They passed on a lot of knowledge that not only explained how their teams were so successful, but also directly contributed to our team's success in subsequent years.

Ellen hit it right on the head - this is an extremely common story from 1124 folklore, even 6 years later. To this day, we can look back at this robot (yes, it's still intact/functional) and refresh ourselves on some of the lessons learned that year - most of which came from the veteran teams we competed with. And those lessons are still being passed around. I'm sure the lessons from veteran teams directly affected 1124's ability to be successful on a large stage in the years after that. And if I know one thing about the UberBots of yesteryear, I'm positive that they worked to continue the cycle and spread the knowledge they gained so other people could be inspired, just like they were a few years before.

It's always easy to write off other teams' successes as being all due to their mentors, sponsors, huge budgets, or what have you. But that would be wrong. Seeing powerhouse teams should inspire you to stretch the bounds of what you can do and make the best with what you have. You should know that, with lots of hard work and dedication, you can be just like them.

To draw from my team's history, I know how hard 1124 worked a few years back. I see it every day in our workshop, be it from old robots sitting around, or from little bits of prototyped metal in a scrap pile somewhere. I know how much they wanted to be at the top, and I know how much the teams already there helped pull them up. Sure, we got our share of haterade thrown at us, but I like to think that all that hard work put in paid off somewhere - in helping another team get a taste of the same inspiration. As a student leader of the next generation of the UberBots, I look up to many of the powerhouse teams, and I see what a great example they set for everyone else, and try to emulate it. I'm inspired.


...that probably came out kind of long and rambly, but my point is: don't hate on the powerhouse teams. They've work really hard, inspired tons of people, and embody what FIRST is all about.

[TD912]

A few years ago, our team went to a competition. While waiting in the queue for the next match, a person from another team on our alliance looked at a NASA sticker on the side of the robot, and said something like "Hmm, you guys are sponsored by NASA? Must be lucky to be have those guys on your team..."

I didn't think anything of it at the time, until a few days later when a teammate was watching a video on YouTube of another team and said "Look at that, this team is sponsored by (some company), they probably don't even build their own robot..."

This is when I realized there is a lot of assumptions being made, and a lot of misinformation being spread around.

No, we don't have a bunch of genius NASA engineers secretly building a robot for us. We only received some grant money from them to help keep our team alive. We do have some very helpful adult mentors that help out when the team gets stuck, though.

While our robot that year looked slick and well-built on the outside, it performed horribly on the field, and the actual wiring and software was a mess. It could barely score any points. Sure, there was fancy-looking bumper fabric embroidered with our team numbers on it, but that was donated to us. Sure, there were some sponsor logos on the side panels, but they weren't there because our sponsors made the robot for us, it's because they are helping to keep our team alive.

When I'm in the pits, I generally see the students working on their robots. If they are tinkering around, adjusting or repairing things, I would think they would know how their own robot works. Even if a bunch of "genius NASA engineers" built the robot, I wouldn't mind it as long as the students are actually learning something from it.

While I might feel disappointed (and yes, even somewhat jealous) after losing to an "elite" team with a slick-looking robot and seemingly endless resources at their disposal, I don't like jumping to conclusions and make rash assumptions about why certain teams are "better" than others.

[Anupam Goli]

When we're all new to the great varsity sport of FRC, sometimes we aren't convinced of the legitimacy of the creations of others. Even now, one of the mentors of Team 1002 still claims Ed builds 1311's robot! I know this is not true for a fact, not only from talking with students of 1311, but by observing them. This is the same with 1771 and 2415. How can one not be inspired by 1771 and 2415? The two teams have won 8 regionals in the last 4 years combined. I certainly only look up to them, and wish to be at the top with these two teams.

It's all about the inspiration, and if you mindlessly say someone's robot is "mentor built", you aren't doing what FIRST is asking you to do. Treat it like a real Varsity Sport. Work hard, learn, and do what these teams do to succeed. It's a doctrine that I've had to spread to my team after our recent failures. Ever since 2010, our team has been ranting on about mentors building others' robots and using every possible excuse to not improve themselves in the name of the sport. They even went as far as saying that it's just a high school club, not an athletic sport. How frustrated I was at this attitude. It didn't help that the team did not listen to me, one of the few individuals who treated FRC like the Varsity Sport it was, researching and practicing for the season.

I've finally convinced a few members of the vision of FRC and FIRST, and through my own feelings of guilt, I will mentor the team so they will do better. I know for a fact I don't want to look up to 1771, 1261, 1311, and 2415. I want to be up there with them.

Stay strong, the hate only makes you stronger. Continue to do what your team does best: Inspire others to reach up to you and raise the competition level.

[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)

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Wing

Even now, one of the mentors of Team 1002 still claims Ed builds 1311's robot! I know this is not true for a fact, not only from talking with students of 1311, but by observing them.

Funny. For those people that know me... at the competition I'm either walking around talking to people, or "in hiding". Students know that I disappear for extended periods. There are a lot of stories of students hunting for me for help with a problem. This year was the best. Virtually zero phone calls or text messages. I helped with ONE problem. We needed two rubber bands and an ethernet extension cable.

During the 'design season' we have daily design reviews and ask lots of tough questions. It is a real design process with daily scrum and continuous feedback and review. It takes me 20 minutes and I walk to the next group working on some other project to see what is going on there.

I walk around the shop like that guy on the motorcycle show, growling at people because the place isn't clean enough, or parts are not where they belong. (edit: maybe I should get a ton of fake tattoos for the competition )

If someone says "what is your opinion on ...." or " what do you think about ..." or "will you help me..... I don't know how to ....." then they will get my attention.

If someone "upward delegates" a problem to me like "where is the whatchmacallit ? " and they are supposed to know where it is I answer "I don't know or care - if putting it back where it belongs isn't important to you, it isn't important to me."

I'm not going to build a robot. I'm not putting up with lazy. I'll bust my butt to help you achieve your goals but I'm not doing it for you. That is pretty much how we roll.

A great mentor guides without giving the answers, teaches through discovery, demonstrates without lecturing, provides support from backstage, observes without hovering, and leads by example. - dlavery

"don't be hating"
.

[davidthefat]

Here's my take on this: I don't care by whom your robot is made by. As long as I put in my best, that is all that matters. Because, at the end of the day, it is about the experience and the lessons learned. It is not about whether or not if your opponent's robot is better than your's, but how much you have progressed over the years. Honestly, looking back at the code I wrote my rookie year and now, it is day and night. Just the level of dedication and attention to detail has been exponentially grown and the growth of my character has shown over the years. I feel that if a student is nitpicking whether or not a robot was student built, that student does not get the point of FIRST. FRC is not about robots, it is much more than that.



Just a quick side note: a lot of this year's robot was mentor built, more than usual. We had a pretty much all rookie team on the hardware side; the programmers had to do a lot of the electronics. It was a pretty software heavy experience team this year. The drive train was pretty much done by mentors. It was due to the fact that we lacked the equipment to safely weld the thick aluminium. However, the rest of the robot was done by students. The students did all the maintenance and construction of the robot.

[goldenglove002]

Originally Posted by ebarker

Funny. For those people that know me... at the competition I'm either walking around talking to people, or "in hiding". Students know that I disappear for extended periods. There are a lot of stories of students hunting for me for help with a problem.
.

Understatement of the day. The team motto at competitions is "Where's Ed?".

Wow. This just makes me sick. Here are my thoughts about this, but first, lets look over what USFIRST means:
USF.I.R.S.T: United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

Foundation-
FIRST is a foundation. A foundation is described as "non-governmental entity that is established as a nonprofit corporation or a charitable trust, with a principal purpose of making grants to unrelated organizations, institutions, or individuals for scientific, educational, cultural, religious, or other charitable purposes". FIRST fits that description perfectly.

Inspiration-
FIRST's goal is to inspire students to take on STEM careers and majors. FIRST does this through the medium of robots. As Dean Kamen says, "It's not about the robot". And he's right. Robots just happen to be a popular form of medium that attracts students into the program and inspires them to be engineers.

Recognition-
Another one of FIRST's goals is to recognize STEM, and those who excel at it. FIRST does this in two main ways (there are more than two): Through teaching and celebrating the advances of scientists and engineers, and by giving awards to teams who show great contributions to furthering science and technology. "We get what we celebrate" (Woodie Flowers), and FIRST knows how to through the right kind of celebration.

Science-
Science is one of the many important fields in FIRST. Science is also one of the vital skills needed to become a successful engineer (funny how that works, huh?). Science ranges from Biology, to Chemistry, to Physics, and everything in between. All sciences are used by successful engineers, but unfortunately like the lack of engineers in this world, there are a lack of students who enjoy the sciences. Science needs to be spread, and some teams are doing it in a great way. I learned how the human arm works last year by watching Wildstang's 200(7?) robot, and its human-like arm. It clearly shows when teams use science to their advantage.

Technology-
Technology is the driving force of the world. As humans, we as a species are constantly evolving. Adapting, changing our world to better suit us. To a point, technology is evolving faster than we are, and if we don't learn about it, this constant evolution that is bettering our world may stop. FIRST inspires students to create new technology, and use the technology available to us today. IDEs, CAD, power tools, water jetting. All these great tools are available, and many of us didn't know what they were before FIRST.


Now that we've looked over what FIRST is, and what it's goals are, let's see what matters:

-FIRST is an organization to help students: check
-FIRST inspires students to pursue STEM careers: check
-FIRST recognizes mathematics and the sciences: check


The biggest one is Inspiration. The goal of FIRST is to inspire (and recognize) math and science. How that is done is up to the team. While I don't agree with it, a team could have all the mentors build, design, and fabricate the robot, and if the students still get inspired, then mission accomplished. How the inspiration and recognition are done doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. I'm not going into morals here, what's "right" and what's "wrong", or even what's unfair. The cold, hard truth is that the only requirement for a successful FIRST team is for the students to be inspired. If you had a completely student-run team, but the students weren't inspired about math and science, then the team, as a whole, fails.


So next time you see a really good robot, instead of thinking "the mentors must have built that", think "Those students must be really inspired, and get tons of recognition from their fellow peers".


Just my $00.02 on this.

[PaigeBallsch]

I have heard ever since I joined robotics last year about teams "buying" their robot. At first I was questioning how that is even possible, but as the year went on and my team progressed into the new season (this year), I have been growing more irritated with the topic.

Not once have I seen any solid proof a team was buying their robot. The accusations are all based off of assumptions and in quite a few cases bitterness. It makes me sad seeing a post like this, it really does. A mentor has to come and defend his team since people are upset they are doing a GREAT job. Every team has their own way of building and learning, I'm sure it doesn't involve cheating.

A team should never have to listen to people accusing them of buying a robot they worked so hard on; it just isn't fair. FIRST taught me that it's more important to learn and have fun doing it than it is to win. This year with the cooperation points you gain when working with teams on opposite alliances just pushes that point even further out into the open.

Why are we wasting our time spiting each other? We should work together to make all our teams the best they can be. I've seen how teams can help each other- at the competition in CH Academy our robot was having really bad connection problems. It crashed on the field after hybrid period three matches in a row! And a team(3151) we had never spoken with previously came and helped us fix that problem.

Let's all stop hating. It makes robotics much more enjoyable.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, but you might want to double check what FIRST actually stands for.

off topic but actually the legal name for FIRST is:

United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

dba (doing business as)

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

so it depends on whether you want the legal name as incorporates as a 501c3 and filed with the IRS, or the common street name.

sort of like Coke the brand name vs. The CocaCola Company the legal entity

and that is how you end up with www.USFIRST.org
.