engineer bots

[Alexander McGee]

I understand how you feel. It's not much fun when you realize that everything you worked so hard for lies in the shadow of these "superbots". The game is always much easier for Veteran teams; they know how to "play the game". They spend each year coming up with some new, better method of doing something (transmissions, cleaner wiring, more advanced programming, different drive mechanisms), and are able to create a new robot each year with a little of each of these great things.

I, personally, am against a robot being designed and built with minimal student assistance. I have seen it too much, and grew to dislike it. For me, it is and should remain a "high school robotics competition". This is the exact reason that i created my team this year. I wanted to show that a successful team can be made without the assistance of professional engineers. No teachers, no engineers, no corporate sponsor demanding a victory in exchange for it's sponsorship. For the record, we have done just fine.

However, these "superbots" do (as has been stated above) serve a very good purpose. We look up to and admire these teams. The best example i can think of comes from one of my own students. We, as a rookie (and a team whose robot was built exclusively by high school students) obviously did not have one of these "superbots". We server our purpose, and we able to be competitive, but we stood in the shadow of these giants.

One of my students who designed our arm mechanism was utterly dumbfounded by the presence of these other teams. He has no previous exposure to FIRST, and was basically lost for words at seeing these amazing robots. And you know what? I could see the excitement in his eyes. I could tell by the way he looked at how they had "done it" that the wheels in his head were turning. He was flooded with ideas (which he shared with me) about how we could improve our tactics for next year. He's hooked, and his enthusiasm inspires me to keep at it. As we all know, this competition is about inspiring high school students. Consider him inspired.

I love this organization. I love seeing my students lives changing. I love seeing how the veterans improve each year. It is truly inspiring.

[MattB703]

Originally Posted by Jay TenBrink

... 3) If the students were right there side by side with the cook in the kitchen learning step by step and getting their hands dirty, the product would be pretty good and the students would have learned how to cook.
...Jay

Hear Hear

By far the best way to inspire the students in FIRST is for them to be working side by side with mentors.

There is another aspect to this question that many people who are new to FIRST don't understand. I will try to explain in the best way that I can.

I genuinely care for the students on my teams. I want to see them as successful as possible. But if I limit the inspiration that I have given to just the students on my teams I would have affected about 20 students per year for 7 years. I am not satisfied with having that level of influence. By contributing to the excellence of the FIRST robotics competition we have the ability to inspire 10s of thousands and soon 100s of thousands of students.

How many students from other teams have been inspired over the years by the amazing creations of teams like 33, 45, 47, 67, 71, and so many others? I can only be one more voice insisting that these teams are doing the right thing by their students as well as all of the students in FIRST. As a mentor, these teams are my inspiration.

Matt B.

(ps I apologize to all the great teams I didn't add to the above list)

[Matt Reiland]

Originally Posted by Jay TenBrink

I can certainly understand your frustration but would hope that you would keep a positive attitude. We were also one of those new small teams once with no money and only two mentors. It was tough competing with the “big” teams, but starting off is always tough.

As far as who should be building the robot, I frequently use the analogy of teaching someone to cook.
1) If the students were told to sit outside the kitchen and just watch the cook, the end product would be great to eat, but most students wouldn’t learn much.
2) If the students were sent to the kitchen to experiment freely with no direction, they might have fun for a bit, but the results would not be very good to eat.
3) If the students were right there side by side with the cook in the kitchen learning step by step and getting their hands dirty, the product would be pretty good and the students would have learned how to cook.

Taking this analogy further: Some people learn to cook from their mothers or grandmothers in small kitchens with old equipment. Some learn “on the job” at restaurants, and some study at large institutions. All can be very effective.

So, what does all this mean? Every team’s situation is different and we all need to do the best we can with what we have to work with. Some of the most impressive students I have had the pleasure of meeting through FIRST have been from very small and very frugal teams. These students had been inspired and were inspiring to me.

On our robot I have the students do as much as they personally can and teach them to do more. For some, this means cutting, filing, drilling, and assembling. Others have learned how to use a lathe and milling machine. The same is true for the programming.

On a practical note, if you need help, please ask. Most teams would love to help out in any way they can, during the design/build period or at a competition.

Jay

I 100% agree with Jay, back in 1999 and 2000 we showed up definitely outgunned for the competition but we did our best with what we had and each year tried to do better. Now after being part of the team for 6 years I have seen many a student come and go and you have to work your team based on the level of talent, pride, and skills of the people on the team. Some years we have had students that either wanted to machine or already knew how to and they did their thing, other years none of them showed interest in the build phase but they wanted to assemble it and maintain it at the competition. Each team is different and actually each year is different. Heck this year neither the engineers nor the students made a bunch of the plates for the robot, they were laser cut by our sponsor. Keep in mind that 99.9% of the mentors and engineers don't build robots for a living or anything even close to robots, except for those guys on 217 and 469 . Our whole team is electrical engineers that are learning as much about gearboxes and mechanisms as the students.
Don't get down, use your drive that got you this far to propel your team to the next level. I have to believe that any of the rookie teams that go out and come up with a super duper mechanism that toasts a many year veteran team get some sort of extra satisfaction.

My only word of caution, don't go to the extreme of not looking for any help from mentors just to say you did it yourself, IMHO you WILL be missing one of the biggest parts of FIRST and that is to be working with people out there in the real world. It starts the ball rolling from a networking perspective when you are in college looking for a job or just being more comfortable in an interview after college. It may even tell you that engineering or science is the right path for you or even which discipline. This kind of experience is very valuable for most students and they wouldn't have this kind of access without FIRST.

The level of competition has certainly advanced this year. This is the first year where I can say I didn't see any robots at the regionals that went out 5' and fell apart. Nearly every year in the past you could write off 20% of the teams as being totally non-functional, NO-LONGER.

Congratulations FIRST and all of the students, mentors, and teachers that make it all happen

[Lux]

All the points made about inspiration and assistance from mentors being important are certainly true.

However, having been a student and college mentor with three different teams with varying degrees of mentor involvement vs. student involvement when it comes to designing and building the robot, I've noticed that students learn the most when they are ones doing the designing and building. On team 53, the students are the ones coming up with designs, building the robot, doing the programming, and performing the administrative tasks. Of course there are parents and mentors for guidance and suggestions, but really the students are the ones getting it done, and it's really impressive. They have learned some of the basic fundamentals of engineering design, have some machining and technical experience, and most importantly have a realistic sense of the engineering process (i.e. oh my god, it doesn't work, what do I do now?!). These are all extremely helpful skills for college and working.

So if you are a powerhouse team and being inspired and learning about engineering, that's pretty cool. And if you're a small team where your students are doing most of the work but not necessarily winning competitions, you get your due when you head off to college or the workforce with skills that your peers may not have developed and experiences that your peers may not have had.

Either way, FIRST works. You just have to keep the big picture in mind.

[Andy Baker]

These threads always surface at this time of year, as dedicated students see the types of robots and teams they are up against. This discussion has been great in this thread, and I would like to add some brief additions.

1. Many people assume that "great looking 'bots" which perform great are all done by adults. While this does happen in FIRST at times, it is much rarer than you think. Many people have accused our team of doing this over the years, as this thread did. While it is true that we have very involved adults, we also have students design, build, debug, and fix the 'bot right along side of these professionals.

2. There are many college students who are acting as mentors who have had this same opinion of "it's not fair when adults design/build/etc.!!!" It takes them about a year or two of experiencing the uniqueness of FIRST before they realize the benefit of the adult mentors in this program.

Andy B.

[Steve Yasick]

Memories.....I do remember when 85 would brag about being 100% student built. We would have problems, the engineers would feel like "what should we do?" and the kids didn't feel like they could compete. Then one day we asked the mentors "Do you build every part of your product? The answer was "No we can't if we want to be competitive". Talk about real world right in your face. Just like the real world is a balancing act so is FIRST robotics.

My best advise is to use your situation to make your team better. Team 85 is about 80% student built. For us that is a good balance. Maybe next year it will be 90% or 40%. Inspiration comes from the kids working with the mentors and from having a competitive robot.


Good luck to all of you.

Steve Yasick

[TriggsJr]

You'd better be very sure you know these machines were engineer designed and built. Because you could be hurting alot of peoples feelings. So machines that look this good could have been designed by the students and then final designed and engineered by the adults.

You have to watch the term engineer robots.
There are many things that go into a finished product.

1. design of the robots features
2. engineering running numbers for stress, strain, and weight.
3. making the prints for fabrication.
4. making the parts
5. assembly of the robot

If you are a team that does not make prints for fabrication or run calculations and just starts assembly and fabrication your missing the largest part of being an engineer.

Students can do a great job of designing features, making parts, and assembling parts together. But they really need to see the process of making correct ANSI or ISO standard prints. They also need to see the calculations that are run to predict material choice and size. The whole point of taking math classes that extent up to Calculus 5 is to predict and size parts before you make a giant mess. This is a Design Engineer's JOB. You can get a little bit out of making an "as built robot" but not as much as running through all the steps.

These steps are why team 173 Rage can build 2 robots in 6 weeks and include spare parts in the shipping crate. The engineers on rage smooth out the students designs. The students first make an as built machine from old parts to try different ideas". Then the engineers smooth out the design, engineering, and then produce documentation for fabrication. Parts of the machine are fabricated by the students i.e. cnc parts (sprockets, gripper arms,) others are sub'd out to sponsors. In the end students assemble the machine together with the engineers at the high school.

[Meredith343MiM]

The posts in this thread have meant a lot to me as a student team leader. I've noticed that this year, team 343 has had a LOT more student involvement than in the past. Despite having fewer students on the actual team itself, the level of their involvement was outstanding. So many factors of this years robot were designed, built and improved by Metal-In-Motion students.

A few years ago... I began to ponder across the meaning of FIRST. Did our team really have it? After winning the very first National Engineering Inspiration award I began to look deeper. I asked myself so many questions like "Are our engineers doing too much work on the robot?" (Nobody quickly answered my question with a NO.) "Are the students getting the true value of the educational aspect of FIRST" I analyzed my thoughts and feelings on many different parts of our team. "What did this all mean to me?" "Since I don't want to be an engineer, does that leave me at fault for not letting this experience change my mind?" ABSOLUTELY NOT... The memories of the team will forever be with me... The real life lessons I've gotten will continue to be a part of who I am, and who I'll become. "What is the significance in this post?" It's to understand that the importance of FIRST lies within the hands of the leaders of every team. As we go through life we understand that everyone is different. Therefore, every team has a different approach to designing a machine to perform the tasks we're given. Some teams emphasize the hands on approach of student participation. Other's stand by and watch as the engineers do the work. I've found over the past year that I've answered my own questions. "Absolutely not. The engineers don't do too much work on our robot." I've found that the most important thing is to have a good mixture of both student design and engineering inspiration. (honestly) I truly believe that our engineers have provided us the basis of what this FIRST is all about. That students and engineers can work TOGETHER as a team. I truly believe that students need to be taught how to do something before they participate in a long trial and error runoff. From AutodeskInventor creations to tapping parts... students can value the participation of engineers as long as it's in the right way. But yes... Life is unfair. FIRST is Life. After using the transitive property of algebra applied to simple basics. We understand that sometimes... FIRST can be unfair. But as long as YOU value the educational aspects.. I suppose that's the important thing... It all starts with one!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Jay TenBrink

As far as who should be building the robot, I frequently use the analogy of teaching someone to cook.
1) If the students were told to sit outside the kitchen and just watch the cook, the end product would be great to eat, but most students wouldn’t learn much.
2) If the students were sent to the kitchen to experiment freely with no direction, they might have fun for a bit, but the results would not be very good to eat.
3) If the students were right there side by side with the cook in the kitchen learning step by step and getting their hands dirty, the product would be pretty good and the students would have learned how to cook. Jay

I think this a great analogy. I would prefer to have students working along side me as we learn and master the art of robot electrical together. I learn from students and they learn from me. By our second regional or by nationals, they are able to perform every task needed except some weird problem that may pop up. Some years there is more student involvement and sometimes it goes the other way. Our students free us up so that we can help other teams at the events we attend. Our motto has been "If you come to play, we will assist in any way we can to make that happen." I am sure this is true of any of the teams in question, we are bound to help when we can.

And to add my twist to Ken's "build a man a fire"...Build a student a robot and it will keep him/her busy for a few days in the spring. Teach a student how to build(design, wire, program) a robot and they will stay away from home, use some really strange language and wear funny clothes the whole year long.

[Rombus]

Personally, if someone came up to me and said our teams robot was too well made to be made by us, i think it would be a complement. I know for a fact our robot was student made, i watched them make it! The only thing that really wasn't student done was welding some of the major frame components together, and that wasn't because they didn't want to try, but because our adviser didn't feel comfortable with any students or even himself welding the critical parts.

Also, dint think a team with a college student or students means they do all the work. My team mainly used me as a soundboard and another source of suggestions for designs. Design and engineering was a very collaborative processes between the mentors and the students. Any work i did to the robot was being an extra set of hands or doing stuff like helping drill holes or do other small stuff. Biggest single part i did on the whole bot was a 2 axis camera mount that no one had a clue on how to build. So please don't stereotype us college students as primary builders
Ive been dieing to do something in FIRST for about 7 years now, and this is the first chance ive gotten. So for as much thanks from my team for helping them, i thank them twice as much for giving me the chance!

[Daniel Brim]

Personally, I don't really care how much student involvement is on another team; it's not my problem to tell other teams how to run.

However on a BCR note:

I am on a team that has about 10 students and 20 mentors. The balance may be pretty heavy, but all of the mentors are supplying inspiration, so it doesn't really matter. All mentors have different styles, so on different projects there are different styles. On design, there is not much student involvement in the actual pysical design, but all students have input on the conceptual design. If a student comes up with an idea, it will be heard; in fact our 6WD kitbot frame was mostly student designed. Actual building is probably 95% or so. Being on the team for my third year, I am noticing progression/inspiration in myself and others during this process. Programming is a bit mentor-heavy, unfortunately, but without them we'd probably have no code. Don't get me wrong, they are definately teaching the students, but some people learn faster than others. The concept for our autonomous (have tetra leaning on back of robot, have arm swing over the top, nudge that back under the center driver goal and then whack the hanging tetra) was from a student.

Overall, I like our balance. But heck, I wouldn't mind being on a 100% student built team. I also wouldn't mind being on a team with high engineer participation. As long as it gets across the message of FIRST, I could care less.

-Daniel

[dddriveman]

Originally Posted by Validius

prenote: I'll make cliffs later if enough ppl want them.

This was team 1549's rookie year and though we had some FIRST vets (one was on his 5'th year. he is a college student now) most of us, including myself, were rookies to FIRST. Anyways, moving on...

A little about our team: there is a charter high school at Washtenaw community college that i am in and that is the home of team 1549. Our team consists of high school and college students. The college students are mostly majoring in industrial robotics, fluid power and machining. Most of them are not engineers.

The point?
At GLR this year we saw teams who's bots were obviously totally designed by the engineers. While this is legal i do not think it is with the spirit of FIRST. There were 4 builders (including myself) and 1 programmer who did 70% of the work on team 1549's robot. A few more guys jumped in in the last 2 weeks. Except for our passive gripper and the winch drum everything was designed, made and put together by high school and college students.

Our bot, while very good (when the drive program isn't screwed up and I'm not getting ramming penalties), cant measure up to these superbots.

There is nothing that can really be done so i guess i am just ranting for my own sanity. I just wanted to point out the unfair advantage that many teams have.

Also, i cannot conclude a post about building the bot without thanking the mentors, particularly Kieth and Gary. Without your guidance, passing on the wisdom of past experience and teaching the team how to be a team we could never have gotten this done. Thanks guys!

I once started a thread like this when i was a rookie. Since then i have relized many things about mentors and engineers. You may think that these bots are engineer bots but they are actually student bots. Students dream up the ideas for bots, it is than up to the mentors and engineers to make these dreams a reality. This is why it may look as if these bots are engineer bots but, they are actually a product of experienced students and hard working adult leaders. Don't worry your time will come when you have a "Super Bot" as you call them, which years of competition you gain experience to build a great bot. A great team you may want to look at and speak to are teams 135, 71, 48, 47, 45 and many more. Most teams will be glad to help you become competitive to, JUST ASK FOR HELP!

This is all i have to say, i am not trying to talk down to you, or scould you, just make you rethink your toughts

[sanddrag]

We used to brag that our robot was 100% student built, but over the years what I've found to be the case is that isn't really what FIRST is looking for in this. The end goal I believe is to get high school students working side by side with industry professionals.

[Validius]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

We used to brag that our robot was 100% student built, but over the years what I've found to be the case is that isn't really what FIRST is looking for in this. The end goal I believe is to get high school students working side by side with industry professionals.

so true, however there must be a balance!