Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

I wasn't there when our students were being judged at one of our regionals, but that was the impression that they got as well. The judges were looking for a gotcha as well. The judges figured out that our vision code wasn't student programmed, and then were done talking to the students. Completely ignoring the fact that the students contributed in other areas, and that the number of students inspired by us having cool vision was way higher than would have been the case if the entire project had dropped through the cracks. We target similar amounts of work on a subsystem being done by students as by the mentors, and that's perfectly legal by the rules, and our decision. We have students doing code reviews, writing unit tests, and helping simulate how the robot works, and assume that is how all code is written. That's a huge success, and is only really possible with significant mentor involvement and drive. Next year, I think we'll have the students tell the judges that "they found a library to do that" to deflect those questions.

If 971 is a mentor built robot, then 1678's robot was built by 971's mentors! More seriously, we know how much guidance the Schuh's provide to us and other teams. Yes, Mike always has on knee pads, but they are educators first.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Quite honestly, though, while the amount of mentor involvement is a very important personal debate for teams to have internally, it shouldn't have the slightest bit of relevance to judged awards at all. And what a judge perceives as "student built" or "mentor built" shouldn't matter.

Respectfully, I think it's a bit too simplistic to proclaim this as an absolute. Student involvement is important. Let's consider an extreme case: if a team showed up to competition that consisted of a handful of students who drove the robot, with literally everything else handled by the mentors, do you think that ought to have "not the slightest bit of relevance" to judged awards at all? There's a reason that the judges talk to students, not to mentors.

Now, I don't mean to imply that such a case is representative of any actual teams - but I think it illustrates, as a principle, why we can't just discard the notion that student involvement is important to whether or not a team deserves an award. I obviously can't speak to the questions that the judges you observed were actually asking, or to whether or not their judgment in the matter was reasonable - but I don't think the concept itself is necessarily wrong. It's all a matter of extent.

If an inspired student can professionally explain a quality mechanism within the criteria of an award, they should be eligible for the tech award. If a team of students manages to inspire not only themselves but the community at large through promoting STEM awareness, then they should be eligible for EI. And no student should have to convince any judge that they are the sole entity who built a quality, professional looking mechanism in order for the team to deserve recognition for it.

Now here, I agree entirely. But if a student is able to professionally explain a mechanism (both in terms of operation and manufacture), what reason would the judges have to believe that the mentors did all the work?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Respectfully, I think it's a bit too simplistic to proclaim this as an absolute. Student involvement is important. Let's consider an extreme case: if a team showed up to competition that consisted of a handful of students who drove the robot, with literally everything else handled by the mentors, do you think that ought to have "not the slightest bit of relevance" to judged awards at all? There's a reason that the judges talk to students, not to mentors.

Now, I don't mean to imply that such a case is representative of any actual teams - but I think it illustrates, as a principle, why we can't just discard the notion that student involvement is important to whether or not a team deserves an award. I obviously can't speak to the questions that the judges you observed were actually asking, or to whether or not their judgment in the matter was reasonable - but I don't think the concept itself is necessarily wrong. It's all a matter of extent.



Now here, I agree entirely. But a student being able to professionally explain a mechanism (both in terms of operation and manufacture), what reason would the judges have to believe that the mentors did all the work?

It's not in the criteria for the awards. It's not relevant. When judges go off criteria it's always a problem because then teams don't know what they are being judged on... it's a mess.


And the reason is "because it looks too professional to be done by students"

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

And the reason is "because it looks too professional to be done by students"

IMO the main idea behind FIRST is for the mentors and students to work together to produce a machine that the students could never have produced on their own.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Respectfully, I think it's a bit too simplistic to proclaim this as an absolute. Student involvement is important. Let's consider an extreme case: if a team showed up to competition that consisted of a handful of students who drove the robot, with literally everything else handled by the mentors, do you think that ought to have "not the slightest bit of relevance" to judged awards at all? There's a reason that the judges talk to students, not to mentors.

That is why I followed with an inspired student explaining the mechanism in detail, which is basically the criteria for the award. If a student understands and can explain it, who cares who built it? (Though this is an academic debate mostly; it's not like my team's robots have no student involvement)

Now here, I agree entirely. But if a student is able to professionally explain a mechanism (both in terms of operation and manufacture), what reason would the judges have to believe that the mentors did all the work?

They wouldn't, which is why technical judging went off without a hitch for us. The only reason they would have this suspicion is if they sent culture judges to your pit asking them 18 different "gotcha questions", then jumped on your kids for saying a sponsor EDMed a single part of the robot. The witch hunt has to stop. It's harassment, and it's casting broad judgments on entire teams based on preconceived notions.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

It's not in the criteria for the awards. It's not relevant. When judges go off criteria it's always a problem because then teams don't know what they are being judged on... it's a mess.

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

That the awards are judged by human judges who interview teams on the spot in the pits is more or less a guarantee that awards will be determined by a huge number of factors that are not explicitly in the descriptions. Are some of these undesirable? Of course, we humans are highly imperfect creatures - like it or not, teams are probably judged, to some extent, on whether they were interviewed before or after lunch.

However, I'd contend that along with the bad comes a fair bit of good. If a judge sees members of a certain team behaving ungraciously, that judge is probably going to be less-likely to give that team an award. I think this is probably a good thing, even though plenty of the awards specify nothing about standards of team behavior.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That is why I followed with an inspired student explaining the mechanism in detail, which is basically the criteria for the award. If a student understands and can explain it, who cares who built it? (Though this is an academic debate mostly; it's not like my team's robots have no student involvement)

I still think that's a bit more strongly than I'd put it. I do think that student involvement in the design and manufacture process counts for something - personally, the vast majority of the value I got from FIRST was not technical knowledge of robot parts but the realities of working on a difficult challenge under a deadline with limited resources, having to learn to troubleshoot, to figure out what you need to know, what you don't know, and fill in the gaps.

That kind of meta-learning is something that I honestly don't think students can get just by watching, and so I do feel that FIRST has a strong reason to incentivize teams to actively involve the students.

They wouldn't, which is why technical judging went off without a hitch for us. The only reason they would have this suspicion is if they sent culture judges to your pit asking them 18 different "gotcha questions", then jumped on your kids for saying a sponsor EDMed a single part of the robot. The witch hunt has to stop. It's harassment, and it's casting broad judgments on entire teams based on preconceived notions.

If that's the nature of the judging in question, then yeah, that sounds pretty out-of-line.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

While I agree that it wouldn't be remotely feasible, it is reasonable to believe that technical awards are based solely on the technical, rather than whether my students can maneuver through a Q&A without mentioning adult involvement.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

That the awards are judged by human judges who interview teams on the spot in the pits is more or less a guarantee that awards will be determined by a huge number of factors that are not explicitly in the descriptions. Are some of these undesirable? Of course, we humans are highly imperfect creatures - like it or not, teams are probably judged, to some extent, on whether they were interviewed before or after lunch.

However, I'd contend that along with the bad comes a fair bit of good. If a judge sees members of a certain team behaving ungraciously, that judge is probably going to be less-likely to give that team an award. I think this is probably a good thing, even though plenty of the awards specify nothing about standards of team behavior.

For what it's worth, I think Andrew has been in a blue shirt at more events than I have been to events in any capacity. Opinions on award criteria availability can be discussed in this thread (and probably should) but Andrew has to train judges on criteria so I'm sure he knows a fair bit of it.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

For what it's worth, I think Andrew has been in a blue shirt at more events than I have been to events in any capacity. Opinions on award criteria availability can be discussed in this thread (and probably should) but Andrew has to train judges on criteria so I'm sure he knows a fair bit of it.

Lol, I'm not THAT old.


No, Oblarg raises a good point - the criteria are relatively open and by design allow interpretation. But, it has been my experience that the best way to settle a disagreement over who gets awards [1] is to work section by section through the award criteria. It provides a common framework for discussion. Does student involvement factor in? We are human, if a student just seems overly enthusiastic and knowledgeable or even just incredibly personable, that's a distinct advantage.

Really what I was getting at is that judges should absolutely NOT be grilling students to find if the mentors or the students did the work. The award criteria includes that students must be able to describe the stuff [2]. So, if you can't describe it, you don't get an award. Who cares who did it from the award criteria perspective. NOW if a student is more involved they are likely going to be both more informed and more passionate.




[1] OMG SPOILERS judges want to give awards to other teams! This actually isn't about judging in FRC, more a decent conflict resolution skill I suggest folks pick up.

[2] Ok, I think if you read close, it says "team representative" which can TECHNICALLY include mentors.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Here's one that I don't think I've seen posted yet: Championship Volunteer Name tags. Please, Please, Please make the "Volunteer" text on the tag highly visible! White on yellow isn't that. Unless I, the other volunteers, and security is blind and this sentence is highly visible.

I colored mine in with a black sharpie.

[Jonny_Jee]

Aluminum gears for gearboxes is not the best place to save weight.

[Mk.32]

Originally Posted by Jonny_Jee

Aluminum gears for gearboxes is not the best place to save weight.

For higher load applications (cough drive), I have learned to prefer steel. After seeing how many teams lost teeth on alum gears glad we did steel...

To save weight we do pocket out the gears (Carbide > 4140) on a CNC mill with a fixture.

[DaveL]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

FYI,

This was the same range as it was in 2014 except it is 2" higher off the ground.



Also things might be in the works for the website. I can't say much here but from what I know expect things to get better.

If anyone has any suggestions for the website let me know. I can send those on to a person who is working on it.

Yeah!
Remove the big moving pictures they make me motion sick!
Do a better job of organizing the content.
Use navigation terms that specifically indicate what is contained within.
Contact me if you need help, I'm a User Interface Designer.

Dave
DBDesign@hotmail.com

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Tim Sharp

IMO the main idea behind FIRST is for the mentors and students to work together to produce a machine that the students could never have produced on their own.

For that matter, a machine that mentors couldn't produce on their own, either. Contributions matter on both sides.

[Wendy Holladay]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

FYI,

This was the same range as it was in 2014 except it is 2" higher off the ground.



Also things might be in the works for the website. I can't say much here but from what I know expect things to get better.

If anyone has any suggestions for the website let me know. I can send those on to a person who is working on it.

for website suggestions or comments, see this post

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=inspire+blog