When do mentors go too far?

[Erin Rapacki]

This is an issue that FIRST usually decides not to handle personally because FIRST is about 'Inspiration' and not exactly 'Education' (search for similar threads on CD, you may find a few). Every team has their own unique way of working together and its difficult to tell which method is better. One hand states that a student-built robot is better because the students get more hands-on work, but on the other hand a mentor-built robot gives students direct insight into more advanced design options and how 'real' teams get things accomplished. Basically, as long as students are being inspired (and the team follows the rules), either way is OK.

This only matters for awards though. A 50/50 student/mentor partnership is the best way to go when it comes to judges; however, I personally like all student-built robots.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

This is an issue that FIRST usually decides not to handle personally because FIRST is about 'Inspiration' and not exactly 'Education' (search for similar threads on CD, you may find a few). Every team has their own unique way of working together and its difficult to tell which method is better. One hand states that a student-built robot is better because the students get more hands-on work, but on the other hand a mentor-built robot gives students direct insight into more advanced design options and how 'real' teams get things accomplished. Basically, as long as students are being inspired (and the team follows the rules), either way is OK.

This only matters for awards though. A 50/50 student/mentor partnership is the best way to go when it comes to judges; however, I personally like all student-built robots.

And we know Erin LOVES Rosie!!


We include the high school students in 100% of the design decisions, 80% of the machining, 95% of the assembly, and 100% of the descision making for the team. The only reason for the small amount they are not actively doing is for schedule reasons. Simply because the mentors can work faster. The students do 90% of the work in the pits, 100% of all the interviews with scouts, judges and spectators.

BTW, with this set up we are KPCB Entrepreunership Award winners 2 years running AND have a grand total of 10 minutes actual repair time on our robots in the last 2 years. Nothing broke in 2 years.

[KathieK]

A better way for me to state my question (and this is a general question that I think a lot of mentors would ask) would be, "How can I, as a mentor, inspire you, as a student, to take on the not-so-glamorous tasks?" It's so easy for us to take over and "do it myself" - it's very hard to ask for volunteers, have no one step up, and then let something go undone because no one volunteered to do it. (I know, I know, just because we did something in the past doesn't justify doing it this year or next year...)

But as a mentor this is a learning process for me, too, and I'd love some ideas for getting more involvement from the students on the things that no one wants to do....

[Spikey]

I completly agree that mentor involvement is crucial to any team. Without mentors I would have never have learned how to design a good wiring or pneumatics system for our robot. When mentors are serving as teachers and advisers to the students who then experiment and use that knowlege that they have gained from the mentor to build the robot, that is what I belive to be the spirit of FIRST on the robot side. Mentors do a lot of behind of scenes work like planning for the regionals and other things that most students have no involvement with. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, students should learn organizational skills as well. I am more strictly speaking from the robot side of things, the Toy Train analogy by the previous poster seems to sum up best what I am trying to get across about the robotics experience.

[dhitchco]

What to do when mentors go "too far".

1) Be sure to actively TALK and roll-up-your-sleeves if you want to take a leadership role and that action, all by itself, will give the signal to the mentor(s) that you want them/us to back-off.

2) When you go to work in the "real world", you will find the full spectrum of very passive managers to very active "micro-managers". You will have to deal with both styles.

3) In any mentoring/parental activity there is a fine line between too much hand-on nurturing and too much hands-off. Just be sure to communicate your own needs and desires clearly. I suspect most mentors, since their involvement is after-work and voluntary would be very happy to see the students do more.

In my rookie team's case, we did have many nights during the build season where not everyone was involved in doing something. I suspect we could have done more of the spirit & fundraising activities in parallel each evening to the actual build.

[Alexander McGee]

These threads have been around a lot this season. Am I the only one noticing this?

On one side, we have the distressed students trying to understand how some teams operate. What appear to be “engineer built” bots are at every regional, and generally place highly at nationals. On the other hand, we have the dedicated engineers and mentors who make all this happen, defending their level of involvement.

To the students: take a good look at the teams that you think are built by engineers. Sure, there are some teams where the students hardly touch the robot at all. We have all witnessed the familiar scene in the pits where the students stand idly by while three or four adults are working on the robot. However, many very excellent teams have major, if not complete student involvement. Keep that in mind. Talk to these students on these teams; find out what they learned, what they know, and how they “did it”.

To my fellow mentors and engineers: Keep doing what you are doing, but take a look at yourself along the way. There is a reason that this is called a “high school” robotics competition, and there is a reason that high-school students are required to drive the robots. Inspiration is one thing, but handing students fabricated parts and having them bold them together is not what this is all about. Let them get their hands dirty, let them do the engineering. It is, after all, just a game. Let the students be involved. How much they do is up to you, but don’t ever withhold an opportunity to teach a student something new. Don’t let this become a hobby, do it for the right reasons.

See you all at nationals!

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by magnasmific

Don’t let this become a hobby, do it for the right reasons.

I wasn't going to post in this thread again, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to respond to this.

Almost any reason for a mentor or engineer to get involved with this program is the right reason. You say "Don't do this as a hobby" yet what a lot of people don't realize is that if this program wasn't fun and exciting (like a hobby) for the adults as well as the kids then it wouldn't exist. I believe the whole reason FIRST is as successful as it is is because the adults involved do think of it as a hobby, with the added bonus that they get to do this great thing for all the kids in the program as well.

If all the adults who are now on FIRST teams were willing to put this much time and effort into making sure high schoolers get exposure to science and technology careers just for the sake of doing the right thing then Dean and Woodie wouldn't have had to dream up this competition in the first place. The fun, exciting, and challenging aspect of this program is what keeps the adults interested and involved just like the students.

If every machine in FIRST was completely student-built using whatever equipment students have available to them, this competition would not be nearly as exciting as it is now. Dean and Woodie knew this when they created FIRST, otherwise they would have just asked companies to pony up money and supplies instead of engineers and access to machine shops too.

handing students fabricated parts and having them bold them together is not what this is all about

What exactly gives you the right to make this statement? What if I said that letting students build the whole robot without any adult help (a fact which many teams actively brag about) is not what this program is about? The message that FIRST repeatedly sends us is that anything which is done to expose high schoolers to science and technology is what this program is about. What we're really trying to accomplish is to get all the high school kids here to go to college, study these fields, and get jobs in these fields. How that gets done really isn't that important. Some teams let the kids build the whole robot without any adult oversight, some have lots of engineer help with design and fabrication. As long as the students on either style of team are inspired to pursue a career in science or technology then the mission has been accomplished.

[Chris Hibner]

I promised that I would stay out of this one, but I just couldn't do it. This thread comes up at least twice a year and it is the same arguments all of the time. In that spirit, I'm going to make this same post that I've already made a half dozen times. Here it goes...

There is nothing wrong with having engineers take over certain aspects of the robot, or even entire robots. Here is why:

This program is meant to INSPIRE students to go to college for engineering. One of the best ways to do that is to create something in front of them that is incredibly cool yet way over their head. If the students say, "that is SO COOL", and "I wish I could do that", then the program is a success. If enough students wish they could do something that cool, then act on it (by going to college), then this program is a success.

That being said, everyone is different. Some students need the hands-on experience to be inspired. Some are more inspired if they are in awe of what they see and can't possibly imagine that a college education can teach them to do that.

I like to do a little of both. Let the students get their hands on the robot and gradually teach them and make them more able to do more on their own. While that is going on, I like to have the engineers doing something that has a big WOW factor that is later explained to the students how it was engineered, and what school subjects are used and how they were applied (hopefully inspiring them to find school fun and useful).

The end point is that a lot of inspiration can be had on both ends of the spectrum. I don't ever want to see the highly engineered robots go away; after all, that's what makes all of the people in the stands say "WOW - I wish I could've done THAT!" To me, there's a lot of inspiration in that.

[Andy A.]

Dean Kamen, among others have wieghed in on this before. I can't think of a better way to put it. So I'll let that speak for me.

Portion of a Speech by Dean Kamen
1998 FIRST Competition Kickoff Workshop, January 10, 1998
The Center for New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
[imperfectly transcribed from a videotape]
copyright 1998 PNHS and GMPT

"I don’t know how many ways to try and continue to say it. . . What this organization is about is not education per se. I heard a lot of people, even last night, and 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 thats 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. FIRST ought to be to education what the NFL or the World Series is to little league."


-Andy A.

[Spikey]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

Dean Kamen, among others have wieghed in on this before. I can't think of a better way to put it. So I'll let that speak for me.

Portion of a Speech by Dean Kamen
1998 FIRST Competition Kickoff Workshop, January 10, 1998
The Center for New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
[imperfectly transcribed from a videotape]
copyright 1998 PNHS and GMPT

"I don’t know how many ways to try and continue to say it. . . What this organization is about is not education per se. I heard a lot of people, even last night, and 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 thats 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. FIRST ought to be to education what the NFL or the World Series is to little league."


-Andy A.

I respect Dean a lot but I have to disagree with him on his point of education. FIRST robotics has become an educational institution and has been for a long time an educational experience. Anything that teaches students about organization, leadership, engineering, and design is inherently educational. I must say learning how to wire and and build a robot has been very educational, I have learned skills that I would not have learned anywhere else. Perhaps Dean has changed his mind today, but no matter what FIRST is inherently about education as much as it is about Inspiration.

[Steve W]

Let me try and put Deans words another way. It may be wrong but this is what I believe he is saying:

FIRST is about inspiration not education. This does not mean that education does not happen with FIRST. As you become inspired you try harder, work harder and learn more. This is education. To see touch and get excited about robots, web sites, CAD drawings, animation or book keeping through FIRST is inspiration. Without the inspiration none of the other stuff would happen or it would be at a slower growth rate.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard students say, so that's what I am taught that for. Seeing a reason for education is inspirational. Students that see why they are learning or a reason for learning, apply themselves more to the learning. Again that is inspiration. FIRST is definitely about inspiration and education is the largest beneficiary of it.

I hope that I make sense as I babbled on.

[MikeDubreuil]

The excitement of being an engineer is being able to take a problem and create a solution. FIRST provides this opportunity by creating the problem, the game, and leaving the solution, the robot, up to the team.

What’s important to remember is that inspiration is the objective of the FIRST program. FIRST’s goal is to motivate high school students into technology related programs in college. Upon graduation they will enter the workforce as an engineer or scientist.

FIRST’s goal is not education; it is not an advanced shop class. If your school embraces the education part, more power to you, but it’s not FIRST’s focus. Building a robot is an assembly line manufacturing job.

This misconception happens a lot in my major computer engineering technology at my school. Students come and say they want to learn how to build personal computers. What they don’t realize is that that job isn’t very glamorous and is a manufacturing job on an assembly line.

Everyone please don’t take offense, I certainly don’t want to disparage manufacturing jobs. After all, just like the garbage man, someone needs to do it. It is however prudent to understand that FIRST was not started by Dean Kamen to create factory workers.

[newton418]

The team I am on (418, Purple Haze, LASA Robotics) is a team made up of students, one teacher (who is our coach), one mentor, one welder and a parents association. The parents association handles the money, provides transportation and leads the “frou crew,” which puts up flags and shiny things in the stands. Our teacher occupies himself with the paper work, making sure we have materials, dealing with the school and of course teaching his classes. Our mentor focuses on another, smaller, competition we compete in which overlaps with the FIRST build season. He also attends competitions because he enjoys the FIRST organization. Our welder does exactly that, welds aluminum pieces for our team because we don't have the facilities for aluminum welding. Besides this the kids do everything. We design the robot, we build the robot, we modify the robot, we test the robot, we model the robot and we’ve even been known to sleep with the robot.

Personally, I love this approach. Being a small team (we had 19 members go to competition) we rely on each and every student to work on the robot. As a result, when I was a freshman I was expected to design and machine parts which would go on the robot. In doing so I have learned much more than in any class I’ve taken. Additionally, I think the single biggest compliment I’ve ever received is the look on the Cheesy Poofs’ coach last year at nationals after our coach informed him we had no professional help.

I don’t mean to preach that having adult help is bad, nor do I mean to suggest that one way is better than the other but I do have to say, winning a round against a robot built with the help of professional engineers feels great.

[mathking]

FIRST’s goal is not education; it is not an advanced shop class. If your school embraces the education part, more power to you, but it’s not FIRST’s focus. Building a robot is an assembly line manufacturing job.

This is the one concept in all of the threads on this topic that really bothers me. And I know it is something Dean Kamen has said.

I don't care if some teams have all engineer built robots. Or if teams have all student designed robots. But for all the teams which are from a high school or schools, it is imperative that this be an educational experience. It may not be FIRST's focus but is the mission of schools. And in my view it is almost criminally wasteful to miss the opportunities for learning that present themselves when students get to work with professionals.

Furthermore, without "the education part" you are not going to do a good job inspiring. It just won't happen. Students need to be participants and not spectators if you really want to inspire them. This is not just opinion, it is well established and well tested theory in education and psychology. Participation does not have to mean students do all or even most of the work. It means that students are involved in the process and that they feel involved in the process. Building a second robot exactly like the first one may be an assembly line manufacturing job, but designing and building the first robot is not.

OK, I am editing this because the post came out a bit (WAY) stronger than I wanted to. I really am trying to convince people not to waste the chance to educate and not chastise. And I certainly am not casting aspersions on how teams involve students as participants. As I said in my first post in this thread, there are many ways to get students involved and thankfully many of these get demonstrated by FIRST teams every year.

[Chris V 1503]

Hey all,

I'm from team 1503 and what Karthik, Tristan, and Dereck said is 100% true. The mentors only helped us with the designing process. I would know it, I'm the leader of the Design & Build team for team 1503 and I basically along with a few others built the entire robot. Tell me how it feels after spending 3 hours designing a wheel, then spend 4 hours infront of a CNC machine making the wheel???? I had to do this for 28 wheels I spent almost half of the three weeks cutting wheels and various small parts that was designed between the three schools. Our mentors from 1114, 1503 and 1680 was basically there to help us along the way. Advice on how to make these parts, thats all. When we packed the robot into the crate on ship day. I had about 4 tears in each eye just watching all the blood, sweat, long nights, and hours I put into the robots. I had only missed 1 day out of the entire build season. It was our idea to build three identical robots.