Sippin' on the haterade

[JABot67]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Not going to name names, but there *are* teams out there where the students tell us that the mentors took over and built their robot. That isn't baseless. I mean, I can't be the only one whose heard the words "our mentor built that" uttered multiple times by a team.

I guess it's very probable that there are some teams out there that operate like that. I'm just tired of the accusation being thrown around, especially at teams whose robots look or perform awesomely and deserve to be commended. When you judge a team like this, it may turn out they're a team like 1771 who absolutely does not deserve it.

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Also, I agree that some teams might say it's okay if some of the kids don't know how the entire robot functions (heck, I would say not everyone in our team knows how everything works). But when more senior members of the team (people you've seen at competition multiple years) shrug when you ask them how their shooter works, it kind of puts a question mark on how well the team has been inspiring and educating the students.

Again, this is just personal opinion.

Oh man, if everyone on my team needs to know how the entire robot functions, there is a WHOLE LOT of work to be done...
Rather, there are some students who know how almost all of the robot works. Same with the mentors... I am the only mentor who knows how the programming works, but I don't know everything about the mechanical aspects of the robot. For everyone on the team to know how the entire robot functions is an impossible task, at least for my team.

[MichaelBick]

After last year, our team was extremely motivated to greatly improve. Personally, I was motivated by the build blogs of the cheesy poofs/rawc, by the accounts of 1717 in the New Cool, and the little tidbits I've heard of 973's small, but strong program. Instead of taking their programs and deciding that the robots were fully mentor built, which they are obviously not, we decided to take them as example of what we wanted to be. All of our students made the conscious decision to strive to be better, and hours of hard work later, we have the satisfaction of becoming regional finalists, a position our teams has never held. This just comes to show that hard work pays off, and that no matter what, you should find teams that you think are examples of what you want to be, and strive to be more like them.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Not going to name names, but there *are* teams out there where the students tell us that the mentors took over and built their robot. That isn't baseless. I mean, I can't be the only one whose heard the words "our mentor built that" uttered multiple times by a team.

Also, I agree that some teams might say it's okay if some of the kids don't know how the entire robot functions (heck, I would say not everyone in our team knows how everything works). But when more senior members of the team (people you've seen at competition multiple years) shrug when you ask them how their shooter works, it kind of puts a question mark on how well the team has been inspiring and educating the students.

Again, this is just personal opinion.

The point is that it absolutely doesn't matter - at all - who built the robot, in whole or in part. Both methods are effective.

I know the teams in this area pretty well and I can't fathom which teams you may be talking about. Maybe give us all another shot and try to learn from us this time around instead of silently judging us when we don't meet the standards you are keeping a secret from us in the first place.

[Patrick Chiang]

Originally Posted by JABot67

I guess it's very probable that there are some teams out there that operate like that. I'm just tired of the accusation being thrown around, especially at teams whose robots look or perform awesomely and deserve to be commended. When you judge a team like this, it may turn out they're a team like 1771 who absolutely does not deserve it.

I'm sure there are teams out there that get (falsely) blamed of a big budget and a mentor-ran team. But there is a grain of truth in at least some of the accusations, and some of the students can get discouraged because *that team* always wins because they have a huge autoshop, bigger budget, more mentors than kids...etc.

Of course, I sympathize with teams that legitimately worked their way to the top and get accused of above said things. Which is why the whole issue is so complex: easy to make accusations, hard to defend yourself from it, and yet some accusations are true so you can't just ignore all accusations.

Originally Posted by JABot67

Oh man, if everyone on my team needs to know how the entire robot functions, there is a WHOLE LOT of work to be done...
Rather, there are some students who know how almost all of the robot works. Same with the mentors... I am the only mentor who knows how the programming works, but I don't know everything about the mechanical aspects of the robot. For everyone on the team to know how the entire robot functions is an impossible task, at least for my team.

Of course... What I meant was not the details, but the general gist of things. Usually, what I like to hear when I ask a student how their robot works in general is something along the lines of "so we have this mechanism that sucks balls in, the conveyor belt takes that to our magazine, and when our driver presses the button, it drops into the hotwheel mechanism which squeezes the ball out and scores". Or at least something along the lines of "well, I don't know about the electronics board, but the conveyor system is powered by this and this motor, and it squeezes balls against the backside of our robot so it moves upwards"...etc. Seems like a reasonable thing to expect from students who build the robot.

[TeamSpyder1622]

I think the reason why many teams are frustrated with teams that do so well is definitely because of the machining work. Although a lazer-cut robot doesn't mean it is gonna be any better, it does mean that it is overall lighter. 1622 builds almost our entire robot out of 1 inch aluminum tubing every year which makes it pretty heavy after awhile. We spend the entire 6 weeks fabricating parts which takes up a lot of time we could be making a better design. I see no problem with teams who do have parts lazer-cut, but I understand why people may make rude comments.

I've seen people here talk about large robots that look beautiful that are supposedly "mentor built", but what about those not-so-great bots that are truly mentor-controlled?

I'm lucky enough that I don't know such a team, but from what I'm hearing, there are teams where the mentors take control of everything, and don't let the students do things. I've heard a bit about those (heard, I can't say it's 100% accurate) teams, and how nobody expects them to be mentor-controlled because their robots don't look like those of the teams people accuse of being mentor-controlled.

It reminds me of FLL, unfortunately. I participated for about 6 years, and have been judging and mentoring every year since. I remember there being 4 types of robots: One that is student-built, and clearly student built by the simplicity of it, one that is student-built but it's clear the students are experienced in FLL, one that is clearly mentor-built, with 4th graders who have a robot programmed in NXC (C-base language) and something more complex than most robots you ever see in your lifetime, and the final type, the hardest to find, one that's mentor-built, but looks like a student did it. In this final one, it looks like the students did it, but it's not too professionally done. It's clear the mentors did it when the students not only do not know how it was built, but admit to you it was the mentors, and when the robot that seemingly is average at best gets the high score, and the students don't know what happened.

While you may not see all of those types of teams in FRC, the point is to not look at a good-looking robot across from you and say it's built by mentors, when there's a possibility the students on the team next to you aren't getting very inspired.

[Patrick Chiang]

Originally Posted by Madison

The point is that it absolutely doesn't matter - at all - who built the robot, in whole or in part. Both methods are effective.

I know the teams in this area pretty well and I can't fathom which teams you may be talking about. Maybe give us all another shot and try to learn from us this time around instead of silently judging us when we don't meet the standards you are keeping a secret from us in the first place.

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

I don't want to offend anyone, but it's hard to ignore the fact that some teams have more resources than others simply because of geography and their school district. And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.

Do they win solely based on that fact? No. But it sure helps. If our team has money, we wouldn't spend 2 weeks * 3 core students making mecannum-wheels (instead we would buy them). If our team has money, we would get ourself nice tools instead of using our shop with no new equipment since the 80s. But we don't, despite fundraising for half a year. Can we deal with that and still make a kick-butt robot? Yes. However, can you really expect our students to say "we lost only because they were better engineers"?

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

The point of FIRST is to inspire. You can inspire with a small budget or a large. You can inspire with a mentor build machine or a student built one.

That is why the founders of FIRST have repeatedly explained that FIRST is not about student built robots and student run teams. I'm not sure why people can't seem to get it over that fact, but there it is.

Teams can 'legitimately' get to the top any way they want, be it big budget, student led or mentor led.

If they lose, they simply know that they didn't build a good enough robot or happened to get unlucky.

Perhaps next time a team gets accused of being mentor led or having a mentor built robot their response should be "Yes we are, and we're proud of it." I wonder if that would get the message across to some of the haters.

[Patrick Chiang]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

The point of FIRST is to inspire. You can inspire with a small budget or a large. You can inspire with a mentor build machine or a student built one.

That is why the founders of FIRST have repeatedly explained that FIRST is not about student built robots and student run teams. I'm not sure why people can't seem to get it over that fact, but there it is.

Teams can 'legitimately' get to the top any way they want, be it big budget, student led, or mentor led.

If they lose, they simply know that they didn't build a good enough robot, or happened to get unlucky.

Perhaps next time a team gets accused of being mentor led, or having a mentor built robot, their response should be "Yes we are, and we're proud of it." I wonder if that would get the message across to some of the haters.

FIRST might not be all about student built/ran teams, but I thought there was something in there about inspiration. And the maximum way to achieve that is have students do as much as they can. (The more they do, the more they learn, the more they will want to do it. Hence, the definition of inspire.)

Maybe your team has magical methods of inspiration that is more effective when the students don't build the robot (in that case, please do share), but if your response to criticism is simply "yes we do, so what?", would that not be contrary to the values of GP in First?

[Aren_Hill]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

And the maximum way to achieve that is have students do as much as they can.

This is where you go wrong, as an 8th grader i got to see 111's robot up close, and seeing what is possible at the hands of people much more skilled than myself at the time, was very inspiring.

I look at the NASA rovers and beautiful sports cars etc, and I'm very inspired as I hope to accomplish similar feats in my future.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Maybe your team has magical methods of inspiration that is more effective when the students don't build the robot (in that case, please do share), but if your response to criticism is simply "yes we do, so what?", would that not be contrary to the values of GP in First?

...And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.

Why are you criticizing at all? What gives you any right to do so?

What specific advantages can you pick out?

Also, to Martin and 1771 - I have always been inspired by your team, ever since first meeting you in Atlanta in 2008. Awe inspiring robots are the best. Being able to get to know your mentors like Sean and students was even better. Thanks to your team we will also be doing a lot of fabrication using wood and composites on a laser cutter. Never underestimate how many people you have actually inspired!

[Patrick Chiang]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

This is where you go wrong, as an 8th grader i got to see 111's robot up close, and seeing what is possible at the hands of people much more skilled than myself at the time, was very inspiring.

I look at the NASA rovers and beautiful sports cars etc, and I'm very inspired as I hope to accomplish similar feats in my future.

Well, let's look at this empirically. If the best way to inspire someone is to have robots be built by people much more skilled than him/her, then wouldn't it make sense to have the most skilled people build the robots? And by that extension, wouldn't it make most sense to have demonstrations of robots built by top NASA engineers instead of competitions?

A competition implies that there is some form of fairness involved. If every team is mentor-built and mentor-ran, FRC might as well be renamed First Robotics Demonstration. The best way to examine this is to apply the categorical imperative: If you think X is okay, then you should apply it universally; is X okay if everyone does it?

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Why are you criticizing at all? What gives you any right to do so?

What specific advantages can you pick out?

What gives me the right to criticize? Criticism is the basis of improvement. If anyone on another team comes to me and says "your teams' mentors aren't doing enough to help your team", then I would be happy to have a conversation about it with them.

And you really don't see the advantage of having a robot completely built by people with at least 10+ more years of experience than you?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Well, let's look at this empirically. If the best way to inspire someone is to have robots be built by people much more skilled than him/her, then wouldn't it make sense to have the most skilled people build the robots? And by that extension, wouldn't it make most sense to have demonstrations of robots built by top NASA engineers instead of competitions?

A competition implies that there is some form of fairness involved. If every team is mentor-built and mentor-ran, FRC might as well be renamed First Robotics Demonstration. The best way to examine this is to apply the categorical imperative: If you think X is okay, then you should apply it universally; is X okay if everyone does it?




What gives me the right to criticize? Criticism is the basis of improvement. If anyone on another team comes to me and says "your teams' mentors aren't doing enough to help your team", then I would be happy to have a conversation about it with them.

And you really don't see the advantage of having a robot completely built by people with at least 10+ more years of experience than you?

Improve what exactly?

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by Patrick Chiang

Not quite sure what you mean both methods are effective?

I don't want to offend anyone, but it's hard to ignore the fact that some teams have more resources than others simply because of geography and their school district. And there is an undeniable advantage to having more resources.

Do they win solely based on that fact? No. But it sure helps. If our team has money, we wouldn't spend 2 weeks * 3 core students making mecannum-wheels (instead we would buy them). If our team has money, we would get ourself nice tools instead of using our shop with no new equipment since the 80s. But we don't, despite fundraising for half a year. Can we deal with that and still make a kick-butt robot? Yes. However, can you really expect our students to say "we lost only because they were better engineers"?

Building an excellent robot with few resources is part of the challenge of first for some teams. This year we utilized a new construction method that allowed for design, fabrication, electrical work, and programing to all occur in parallel. Our standardized design made this season one of our best, despite our teams lack of machining sponsorship. I would advise any teams with limited shop resources to design a robot with similar qualities, and make a prototype on the off season. Prototyping is absolutely possible, on any budget. We built a wood WCD prototype over the off season with 35$, 7$ for wood, 28$ for fasteners. Gearboxes, chain, sprockets, and wheels were all from the 2011 and 2010 kits of parts. The Prototype took less than 50 man hours to complete with 3 students including myself working during our communal shop class. I would be completely comfortable with this Drive base in an actual competition, and the Prototype was more controllable and lighter than our 2011 drive base. While you can choose to spend lots of time or money to build a robot, It can be done for little to no money, with almost no time.

[Patrick Chiang]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

Building an excellent robot with few resources is part of the challenge of first for some teams. This year we utilized a new construction method that allowed for design, fabrication, electrical work, and programing to all occur in parallel. Our standardized design made this season one of our best, despite our teams lack of machining sponsorship. I would advise any teams with limited shop resources to design a robot with similar qualities, and make a prototype on the off season. Prototyping is absolutely possible, on any budget. We built a wood WCD prototype over the off season with 35$, 7$ for wood, 28$ for fasteners. Gearboxes, chain, sprockets, and wheels were all from the 2011 and 2010 kits of parts. The Prototype took less than 50 man hours to complete with 3 students including myself working during our communal shop class. I would be completely comfortable with this Drive base in an actual competition, and the Prototype was more controllable and lighter than our 2011 drive base. While you can choose to spend lots of time or money to build a robot, It can be done for little to no money, with almost no time.

It is an excellent challenge, I agree. Our rookie year robot was under $100 (plus kit money) and ended up top seed. That is, however, not the point. What a team with a $5000 budget can do with a $100 limit is *very* different from what a team with a $100 budget can do with that limit. The $5000 team can build 48 prototypes, 1 practice bot, and 1 actual robot. The $100 team has one chance and no practice bot. In short, my point is: Money makes a huge difference.