What would you do to improve the FIRST experience?

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Gefowl

Cannot agree with you more.

However, One of the odd things with FIRST is that it's difficult to convince middle/elementary aged kids (and in an extent parents) to invest their time in FIRST unless there is an FRC team they can see themselves joining later in high school. If there isn't an FRC team that students know they can join later being on a JFLL-FTC team may not seem to be worthwhile of their time.

To (quickly) make sustainable FIRST programs it almost has to begin with an FRC team. I think FIRST needs to put more emphasis on the importance the lower levels of FIRST are to a successful and sustainable FRC team to rookie teams.

I have never encountered that mindset. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I do think (in my limited experience) it is pretty rare.

Have you encountered it often?

Blake

[Carolyn_Grace]

Improve the website.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by ConnorTheCoch

While FIRST is professional, many a team overemphasize stoicism over a light, joking environment. Obviously there needs to be a balance, but there is a difference between professionalism and being a micromanaging, overregulating, no fun zone dictatorship. Let's lighten the mood to make the environment that much more encouraging.

Silence! The beatings will continue until morale improves!
I mean you're from North Korea I bet the commute to the South for competition days is interesting.

[Gefowl]

Originally Posted by gblake

I have never encountered that mindset. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I do think (in my limited experience) it is pretty rare.

Have you encountered it often?

Blake

Re-reading it I think I worded what I was trying to say wrong.

I've haven't ran into much difficulty getting students into FIRST, but getting them to commit time to FIRST can be difficult. The difficulty of having them commit time raises the older students get because they have likely already commit time to other extracurricular and part-time work.

Essentially I think middle school age and older elementary school students will be more likely to commit their time to FIRST if they know there is an FRC team waiting for them in high school. But if an FRC team doesn't exist in a high school they'd be more eager to dedicate time to other extracurricular activities over FIRST.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

Improve the website.

True. Needs more Flash and popups.

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Clearly if two teams played each other 8 times then something was very wrong with the scheduling algorithm. I will note that it is very common now to see 2 teams play with each other in one match and then against each other the next so that issue still exists and clearly is acceptable.

This year at Indiana State Champs we played
45: 2 with 2 against
135: 1 with 2 against
829: 1 with 2 against
1018: 1 with 2 against
1024: 1 with 4 against
1501: 0 with 3 against
1529: 0 with 2 against
1720: 1 with 2 against
1741: 1 with 2 against
3180: 1 with 2 against
3936: 0 with 2 against

The rest of our match ups were fairly low occurrence ( 1 with/against or 0 with/against). I even buy the 1 to 2 relationships since it's a small event. The thing I thought was weird was the times we had including 1024 and 1501. That's a lot of times we are both on the field.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

This year at Indiana State Champs we played
45: 2 with 2 against
135: 1 with 2 against
829: 1 with 2 against
1018: 1 with 2 against
1024: 1 with 4 against
1501: 0 with 3 against
1529: 0 with 2 against
1720: 1 with 2 against
1741: 1 with 2 against
3180: 1 with 2 against
3936: 0 with 2 against

The rest of our match ups were fairly low occurrence ( 1 with/against or 0 with/against). I even buy the 1 to 2 relationships since it's a small event. The thing I thought was weird was the times we had including 1024 and 1501. That's a lot of times we are both on the field.

Do you think of this as something to be fixed (to improve the FIRST experience), something to be urgently fixed, or something that is merely interesting to notice?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by gblake

Do you think of this as something to be fixed (to improve the FIRST experience), something to be urgently fixed, or something that is merely interesting to notice?

As someone who bore witness to the weird "group play" you can get at smaller events by way of districts, I can only imagine what it is like in Indiana where there is a good chance you will see somewhere around 20+ of the same teams at all 3 events.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

This year at Indiana State Champs we played
45: 2 with 2 against
135: 1 with 2 against
829: 1 with 2 against
1018: 1 with 2 against
1024: 1 with 4 against
1501: 0 with 3 against
1529: 0 with 2 against
1720: 1 with 2 against
1741: 1 with 2 against
3180: 1 with 2 against
3936: 0 with 2 against

The rest of our match ups were fairly low occurrence ( 1 with/against or 0 with/against). I even buy the 1 to 2 relationships since it's a small event. The thing I thought was weird was the times we had including 1024 and 1501. That's a lot of times we are both on the field.

More than anything, that's the result of playing 12 matches per team at a 31 team event. A new "round" starts every six matches, leaving little flexibility when intermixing teams while still maintaining minimum gaps between each teams' matches. As a result, you're going to get even more overlap than usual.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

More than anything, that's the result of playing 12 matches per team at a 31 team event. A new "round" starts every six matches, leaving little flexibility when intermixing teams while still maintaining minimum gaps between each teams' matches. As a result, you're going to get even more overlap than usual.

We're getting off topic, but I think you can look at Indiana and Michigan as both having district systems that REALLY test the definition of "scalability". The systems work and give teams a lot of things they want, but they both run into really weird problems. IN can see the 5th best robot in the state miss worlds while something like 20 teams in Michigan can miss the expanded MSC elims and still make it. They have also backed themselves into some pretty interesting scenarios. IN teams practically have to leave the state if they don't want to play everyone in the state 3 times a year and FiM is having this "problem you would love to have" where they have to use a facility twice a year to run their 4-events-a-week-for-6-weeks schedule in a suitable manner.

[Road Rash]

Originally Posted by qscgy

Reform safety awards, and pit safety in general. The teams that go around giving out mostly useless safety giveaways (Easter eggs with 2 Band-Aids and a hair tie, for example) are not actually trying to improve other teams' safety. Every team I've seen has those supplies already. They just want an award. In my experience, the best way to be safe is to make sure everyone in the pit knows how to safely use their tools and has some common sense. I don't know how you give an award for that , though.

I agree highly with the quote in bold. I would add that no one on the team should be afraid to raise a safety concern, no matter the importance. Anyone should be able to stop an operation in progress if he or she isn't comfortable with the situation.

I would hope the award is based on solely having a good safety program in place that doesn't need to be needlessly complex. If the students want to promote safety by packaging a couple of band aids and a hair tie in an egg, I really don't have an issue with that.

Originally Posted by qscgy

OK, that rant's over. On to the next thing, which is doing something about teams where the mentors build the robot. I know that this is often thrown around unfairly, but at least where I am (CHS), at almost every event I have been to, I've seen at least one team where the mentors are fixing the robot with no students around. This indicates that the mentors understand the robot better than the students, which means that they likely designed it. I understand that the mentors take an active role on many teams, and some teams do need a lot of help, but when the mentors are working without any students around to help or at least observe, the students don't learn anything and in many cases, get to play with one of the best robots at the event. This is not only unfair to the students on the team (always veteran teams, I might add), since they get little out of FRC, but to the other teams where students were heavily involved in the build process, only to get beaten by professional engineers. It has gotten to the point where, on my team, any winning robot is dismissed as "mentor-built". This is often untrue, and is especially unfair to the teams who win without needing a mentor-built robot. My point is, FIRST should be about learning, not just about getting a winning robot.

I can see where this could be an easy trap to fall into, especially on well-funded teams. Follow the money...

Hopefully for us, a simple, elegant design solution will win out over something that's overly complex. Doing something just because we can isn't always the best answer. Having more points of failure adds to more headaches. Strength, reliability, and controllability is where the focus should be for a young team such as ours. I just haven't figured out the order and where I fit in with the team yet.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by qscgy

It has gotten to the point where, on my team, any winning robot is dismissed as "mentor-built". This is often untrue, and is especially unfair to the teams who win without needing a mentor-built robot. My point is, FIRST should be about learning, not just about getting a winning robot.

Isn't that more of an issue with your own team and being dismissive of other teams' cultures than an issue of how those other teams run?

Every team is different and the level of involvement/dedication can vary greatly from both the mentors and students on any given team. I ask my own students not to judge other teams robots as "mentor built" but rather to get to know the other teams and the work they put in to their robots... both as students and mentors.

This post isn't really directed at you but at what I see as a larger issue within FRC where teams are becoming more and more dismissive of other teams' cultures. It ends up being wrapped up as overly-simplified statements like "that team's robot was built by mentors!" or "that team takes this too seriously" or "that team isn't as good as they think they are" or "that team is just acting in safety theater" or "that team should stop reading the rules for loop holes" or "that team has a mentor coach instead of student coach" and the list goes on and on and on...

I feel like as a community we are better than this and need to rise above it and learn to be more respectful of the cultural differences that exist between teams. Every team is different and I feel like it shouldn't be up to my team to judge that another team's robot was built correctly by students or incorrectly by mentors.

But hey... that's just me and what I think would make FRC better.

[qscgy]

Isn't that more of an issue with your own team and being dismissive of other teams' cultures than an issue of how those other teams run?

I may have worded that badly. It's mostly just the new members who do this, but they make up a sizable portion of the team. But no, I don't think that it's just us dismissing other teams' cultures. When a team that has been around for almost 10 years still has mentors doing most of the work on the robot, and not even trying to engage the students, that team's culture needs a change.
We do try not to judge them, but when we're pit scouting and the students need mentors to explain how the robot works, and say that their drivetrain is "LabView", it's hard not to think that the mentors designed the robot.

Still, I agree with you. We shouldn't dismiss all good teams just because of a few of them, and we do need more cooperation. FIRST is "more than robots", so we should try to put GP and learning over winning. That's what would make FIRST a lot better.

[jweston]

Originally Posted by marshall

Isn't that more of an issue with your own team and being dismissive of other teams' cultures than an issue of how those other teams run?

Originally Posted by qscgy

I may have worded that badly. It's mostly just the new members who do this, but they make up a sizable portion of the team. But no, I don't think that it's just us dismissing other teams' cultures. When a team that has been around for almost 10 years still has mentors doing most of the work on the robot, and not even trying to engage the students, that team's culture needs a change.

These quotes right here are raise a couple of common problems I'd like to see all of us work towards changing. The first problem is it's easy for us to assume a highly polished, well-designed, well-executed robot must be mentor-built. If you are at an event with such a team's robot, please go ask the students on that team how the robot works and what their process was (i.e. design, fabrication, training, project management, etc.) before jumping to such conclusions. You might learn something to help your team.

The other issue is giving into the temptation of having the most highly qualified people (usually mentors) do all of the work to the extent of crowding out of student participation. All teams want to put their best foot forward. It slows the process down if you have to incorporate less experienced students into the mix. But you have to bear in mind what the point of the program is. As much as we all love to win, the success of your team should be measured by how many highly engaged STEM students it turns out.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by jweston

These quotes right here are raise a couple of common problems I'd like to see all of us work towards changing. The first problem is it's easy for us to assume a highly polished, well-designed, well-executed robot must be mentor-built. If you are at an event with such a team's robot, please go ask the students on that team how the robot works and what their process was (i.e. design, fabrication, training, project management, etc.) before jumping to such conclusions. You might learn something to help your team.

The other issue is giving into the temptation of having the most highly qualified people (usually mentors) do all of the work to the extent of crowding out of student participation. All teams want to put their best foot forward. It slows the process down if you have to incorporate less experienced students into the mix. But you have to bear in mind what the point of the program is. As much as we all love to win, the success of your team should be measured by how many highly engaged STEM students it turns out.

I agree with this. The only thing I would add is that just because the robot was built by mentors or is being repaired by mentors does not mean the students failed to learn or did not participate in the process. All teams are different and the level of participation by students or mentors in a given team is up to that team. On the flip side, teams should always and constantly reflect on these questions internally and I hope that they are. I know my own team does. We encourage conversations about the balance of student and mentor involvement. It has lead us to improve ourselves.