Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

So I'm assuming that the 'school' had a really nice metal shop?

I've met the student who CAM-ed and ran that part on the school's rather unimpressive CNC mill. He was also their operator that year. Please stop with the libel.

[JeffersonMartin]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

Most don't

I would assume that's why he said many, instead of most.

[Cory]

I'm going to close this thread for a few hours to let people cool down and stop personally attacking other teams.

If they cannot refrain from doing so at that time, this discussion is no longer productive and the thread can stay closed.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

I'm looking at pictures of your 2008 robot on your teams website. Did you make those nice angle cuts in the main arm with a file? Or perhaps you used a CNC waterjet or a CNC plasma cutter? Nice try.

http://www.simbotics.org/media/photo...-regional/2166

It was a nice try, because it's the truth. Those parts were made on our in house CNC. If you can't accept that, that's your own issue.

[Cory]

Thread is now open again. Keep it civil please.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Last year we acquired a waterjet sponsor and most of our robot was created by that sponsor from CAD files we generated. This year that sponsor could not support us, but I honestly feel like our robot is actually going to be more competitive. It's all about planning to your design / build resources. All of our robot is being made with a bandsaw and a drill press and I feel great about it. Either way, our students are inspired by the end product.

The best thing your team can do is plan. Download CAD, layout your design, get everyone on the same page. You'll learn a lot building your robot virtually before you ever cut metal in the shop.

Complaining about what others have is a waste of time. Step up and make your team better.

[DaRealSlimShady]

Having a Cnc machine is probably a great experience and helps teams greatly. That being said.

It is one of the sweetest feelings in all of creation to beat one of those teams.
Not because of the "underdog affect"
Because you worked harder
Because you innovated harder
Because you gave harder

I'm not saying this to attack teams that may have above average resources. To the contrary, more power to them because they more than likely went out and earned them. As said before having access to more equipment is just another tool to help teams win. But it's not the only one. If you want it enough no other teams will be able to stop you from winning. The only team that can stop you from succeeding is your own.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment? Consider yourself lucky. And I'm willing to make a large wager most teams don't. We had one once. But with the economy as it is, they couldn't support us any longer. So we adapted to what we have. And then there is the lack of machine shops. Kansas City use to have shops scattered throughout the city. Not any more. Most of that work has moved to Mexico or China. I started working in a machine shop back in 1974. I have seen and experienced the change. And I don't see NASA building a shop here anytime soon.

As a team working in the back of a physics classroom, and then a garage, a barn (moving in February in Pennsylvania), and then being kicked from warehouse to warehouse literally for years, we raised the money to buy our own CNC. We also grew in many other ways (we learned CAD, bought and taught ourselves welding, started understanding drive trains, prototyping, constantly worked long summers). Won our first award, started making elims. We moved 12 times in 6 years, including during build season. Once we finally got the CNC set up in all that--years after we bought it--we started leveraging it. Our students do all our in-house CNCing. In fact, right now we don't have a mentor with their skill sets. We managed to pick up some small local machining sponsor's time also, but only after we started winning. I've honestly been surprised how much people like to sponsor success.

So to answer your question, we do have CNCing, we earned it tooth and nail, and we still consider ourselves lucky. Accidents of geography are a thing. Success without insanely hard work is not.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by JesseK

The point was that for sustainability reasons each individual team should be run like a small tech firm. I agree that the philosophy doesn't mean the mentors make all decisions and do all of the work*. Mentors are definitely needed at the critical decisions in order to prevent a single group of students from dictating or ruining every other students' experience in a season. Sometimes this has to happen forcefully, depending on the culture of the community & the students in a given season.

The level of how much involvement is an art - we certainly have been overly-involved in the past - but as a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves.

*Except leading the fundraising team ... I have yet to meet a student who successfully solicits a large business for fundraising without significant mentor involvement...

Actually, our finance team, to my knowledge, is pretty much entirely students. We have enough money each year to go to multiple competitions and buy things almost willy-nilly (although I try not to buy anything we don't need).
Dead horse thread though. Most people like more mentor involvement, and only a few people like completely student-run teams. We are the latter and do okay. Mostly it's because our programmers tend to be really good (as we come from a computer-heavy area) and don't need help, and there is a severe lack of mechanical adults (as we come from a computer-heavy area) so we can't even get mentors. I am looking for some during the summer though.

That being said, being able to design a robot and actually build it has played a huge role in my decision to become an engineer. Having more mentors would be nice to point out mistakes or suggest things would be fantastic, but I am more inspired by a robot that I know I had a say in actually moving around than one that I knew would work anyway. I never liked building from the Lego kits more than once.

[Mr. Van]

I can understand the frustration here. FIRST Robotics is unlike any other sort of competition that high schoolers participate in. It can be very difficult for many to understand the disparity that they see on the field at an event.

Funding and resources play a huge part in our chosen sport - much more so than many other sports where rules work to even the playing field. ("Inflategate" aside, a regulation football is a regulation football wether it costs $25 or $500.)

The disparity between what teams can actually fabricate and then practice with varies extremely wildly. Budgets range at least two orders of magnitude and while some teams have full time access to a complete official competition field, many have a "practice field" consisting of a linoleum floor math classroom with the desks shoved to one side or a parking lot.

For teams working with hacksaws and hand drills, hearing other teams report that "parts are starting to come in" can be a bit frustrating.

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not a dead horse. This is a real issue that teams do face when they have to justify their existence to whomever might be influential enough to require it.

I'm sure we can continue this discussion in a thoughtful, gracious and professional manner.

Just some thoughts.

Have a great last weekend!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not the same thing. Take a look at example 1 in the blue box under R11:

EXAMPLE 1: A Team orders a custom bracket made by a company to the Team’s specification. The company’s material cost and normally
charged labor rate apply.

This means if you send your parts to be made outside, whether by a sponsor or a paid service, if the employee of the company is not a member of the team, then the labor costs need to be included on the BoM.

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

So teams that "send" parts for powder coating, welding, laser cutting, etc. are reporting those costs on their BOM's correct? That's the way I assume it has worked.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I would say they would qualify as a team member if they are registered in TIMS and manufacture the parts without being paid for labor.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.