Multiple Event Winners

[David Dawson]

Originally Posted by EricH

Let's keep this civil, folks.

Moderators, please close this thread. Leaving it open can serve little to no useful purpose, in my opinion.

I say Delete this whole argument then lock the tread.

[wynniethepooh]

Teams with "proffessional looking" robots are also sometimes merely teams who have great sponsors who are willing to lasercut or CNC Bend parts at little to no charge. Teams (like mine) work for these sponsorships. Our Captain called every fabrication company in the southeast (literally) in order to find a sponsor. Also this is the first year we have even tried to find one of these amazing sponsors and our robot this year is the best one we've ever had.

Also our robot is student designed and student built with our college age mentors merely checking the CAD drawings and refining them. I by no means put us up there with the quality of teams like 1114 or 148, but we have a highly competitive robot this year which was designed by us that led us to two regional wins.

If teams work to get the resources to make their robot more competitive then why take away from them?

[FIRST_Parent]

Macdaddy549
I must respond to your post. And if you see, this is my first post. I will remain anonymous for very specific reasons, but reading your post made me question a lot in what you claim. I understand this has been a well hashed out topic, and also it really bears no merit to follow up on. But being a Father of a student that has taken FIRST Robotics with open arms and ran with it for seven years, I must respond with facts that I have witnessed first hand. Every year in January I watched my child take on the rules and regulations of the "new" game and input idea's, input physical help in the way of hours and hours of construction, design concept ideas and watch the creation of a new robot.

I have pictures of my child asleep underneath the robot being built after daily classes, then nights after eight to ten hours of construction. I have taken meals to team to ensure these kids got what they needed. There is no deep pocket here my friend, nor is there a "mentor" telling me what to cook for the team. If you can back up your involvements with building up a new design robot, then you know the absolute frenzy to get that robot ready for ship day. That is usually a very long day for the team. Everyone, team member, teachers and mentors are all working towards that one goal.

I have supported them in every way I am capable of, and witnessed many students grow out of a shy inverted student, into some pretty decent team players. Mentors have always played an important role in FIRST, but I haven't witnessed the accusations you claim.

Every year I give up my child to FIRST from January to April gladly. I know that he/she is in good hands, learning important life skills and passing the gracious professionalism onto the younger members of the team.

Ok Macdaddy549...... A lot of people up here have given you their opinions, now you have mine.


P.S. I only edited my bad typo's...the content and my intentions have not been altered.

[Basel A]

I'd like to bring up a rather old quotation, from a kickoff workshop in Manchester, back in 1998...

"I think they mean well, and I understand what you’re saying, there needs to be a balance, but I heard people saying, 'well sure that other team did great, but that's because the engineers did all the work. The kids didn’t build the robot.' I have to tell you, FIRST is not an educational institution. Its okay if the kids build the whole robot, its okay if they don’t touch it." -Dean Kamen

He goes on to talk about how FIRST is meant to be inspirational, and not necessarily educational, but I think that about sums up the point, that it simply doesn't matter who does the designing or the building, as long as the inspiration is there.

[LightWaves1636]

This thread has definitely strayed away from the main topic. I agree that this thread needs to be closed cause it's going in a negative direction, going completely off topic, and regardless of what side everyone is on, this subject that's being argued is always a heated and frustrating one.

Although I do have to quickly say, regardless of how teams run themselves, I adore powerhouse teams cause they help set the goal of where my teams want to strive for. You can't become a Powerhouse overnight, it's something that's earned and worked for. Sometimes my team gets bogged down by the lower number but then I remind them how many years they've been at this. Some people just need to learn that you can't really have a concrete opinion against a team if you haven't gone through the build season with them and experienced those struggles and obstacles with the students. Talk is just talk, no one knows how every team runs and operates unless they were physically on the team, even then, we all need to show our Gracious Professionalism so that our students follow that example.

Remember, all the students involved are still just that, students - no matter what team they are on. It really does get me when someone says "I hate Team #____" cause of "whatever" cause bottom line, they don't understand the team and the only thing you can truly fault a student for is simply joining a team.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I certainly don't want to celebrate a system where teams are coming to an event prepared to go off half-cocked because of a well-intentioned but constraining let's-give-everyone-a-chance policy.

What is it with Americans, who celebrate mediocrity and want the losers to have an equal chance? Please. Work your butt off for six weeks, keep doing it until you have taught yourself how to be excellent, and go and instead of waiting for a handout.

Originally Posted by EricH

1676 --Don Rotolo and crew will happily show you what a student-built robot can do.

In fact, the extreme lack of mentors being ALLOWED to even touch the robot is causing some internal strife: Mentors want to have fun, too. 99.6% Student built. (The missing 0.4% relates to using the table saw. For safety, no kids, sorry).

But getting back to the OP's topic, 1676 is a 2-event winner, not in "the top 25", and on Newton. We've won our last four events, twice as top seed, and most recently one loss from being top seed.
Are we ready for Einstein? Not sure. You'd have to ask the students on the drive & technical teams. From outside - mentors are on the outside this time of year, we'll help if asked - it looks pretty good. 1114 is a threat, as usual, but you never know...

One last thing: That money does indeed come from somewhere. Stop by and we can chat about how we do it.

[Macdaddy549]

Maybe I should have said "in my opinion" some of the multi regional winners are mentor designed and built.

It's understandable that not all teams have access to a machine shop in school or have any CAD experience. This is where (Inspiration) comes into effect. Corporate sponsors invite students into said company to be inspired. Here they brainstorm with engineers over this years game and come up with a concept of what the robot should be capable of.

After the engineers design on cad it's off to the machine shop to be fabricated. With a little luck the teams sponsor has a machine shop in house. Here the students follow and watch their design take shape.

Once of of the shop the students can NOW assemble all the parts.

Never did I say all teams are mentor built.

and to Akash Rastogi you have no class
FRC #3553 (Rambots)(FRC #11 Alumnus)
Team Role: Mentor

[EricH]

Closer. But still, I did give quite a list of teams that don't fit that bill--they're student designed, with sponsor building off the student designs or students building their own designs with mentor guidance. Well over half of this year's multi-event winners, in fact, are not built with even the level of mentor involvement that you attribute to them. Speaking as an alumnus of a team that has been a multi-event winner in the past, that most recent assessment certainly does not describe our design/build process, in any year I've been on/around the team.

I would figure that if someone were to compile a list of every multi-event winner in every year, and compile a list of mentor-built teams (if such a list could be compiled), there might be one or two teams that are on both lists. MIGHT be. I don't think there would even be one team on both, personally

Yes, it is your opinion. But when an opinion runs completely counter to facts that have been posted, quite publicly, about a number of those teams, then maybe it's time to relook at the opinion. Or, maybe it's time to provide evidence to support your opinion (and I do mean evidence, not "You know this is happening"-type statements).

With respect to mentors calling each other out: Take it off the open forum. All of you. You can do it in private. You can do it to each other's face and in person. But please keep it off of CD's public forums--we don't need to hear it, and all it does is reflect badly on everyone involved. Do your students really need to hear/read your, shall we say, less-than-complimentary statements? I don't think so! If y'all take that sort of thing outside, the debates go so much more civilly. Thank you.

[chetznutz]

The veteran teams will remember that every year Dean gets up on the stage and says "It's not about the robots". Do you think he's talking to hear himself? After writing multiple letters to FIRST, attending forums for years, and hearing " it's not about the robots" I'm getting the message. In a game designed to not just make it improbable, but make it a penalty to score for the opposing alliance, part of the metric used to determine the top 8 is the losing alliances score. I would rather use the flip of a coin to decide between 4 or 5 teams with identical won - lost ratios. So back to the question " to allow or not multiple region/district champs " FIRST doesn't care what you decide. Personally I can't imagine watching American Idol or (UGH) Dancing with the stars if the contestants stood before the judges and were told that their performance was exceptional, but the team/person that competed before them didn't do well, so even though they performed admirably, they were eliminated along with the poorer performing team/person, because "it's not about the (insert talent here ) so we don't have to strive to be fair to the contestants" I wil not demean the Chairmans Award. It is the highest award that FIRST has, but that is not an excuse for having no concern for fairness in the design and intent of the contest that is the center of why mentors and students go to a championship. If you gave an award and no one attended is it truly worth anything. the grumpy old guy

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I almost wonder, though, if instead those spots should be offered to the finalist alliance captain, their first pick, and their second pick, if the champion alliance has 1, 2, or 3 teams already-qualified (or pre-registered) for the championship.

I realize I'm reviving this thread from the dead a bit, but apparently I called the wild card system 2 years ago

EDIT: Also, sorry for dragging the tail end of this thread up again. Hadn't read the whole thing when I posted, forgot that it had devolved into another dead horse beating fest.

[Tungrus]

469 - competed in 3 MI district events and won all three!

Great bot, amazing drive team with some good luck can reach new heights!

[pntbll1313]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

469 - competed in 3 MI district events and won all three!

Great bot, amazing drive team with some good luck can reach new heights!

This thread is a couple years old FYI

[lukedude43]

1983 3x Seattle, Ellensburg, Spokane

[stuart2054]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

By my count, there are 23 teams that won multiple events:

Did not lose an event:
1114 x3
2056 x3
111 x2
148 x2
195 x2
233 x2
254 x2
303 x2
525 x2
768 x2
987 x2
1503 x2
1676 x2
2471 x2
2815 x2

The following teams attended 3 or more events, and won 2 of them:
33
118
217
359
1918
2137
2337
2415

Congratulations to all the multiple event winners!

Let me know if I missed any.

Joe,

I believe you meant 1718 in place of 1918 and 2054 won Gull Lake and West Michigan (2 of 3)

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by stuart2054

Joe,

I believe you meant 1718 in place of 1918 and 2054 won Gull Lake and West Michigan (2 of 3)

That list was from 2011.