When do mentors go too far?

I had the same thought when I was at the Greater Toronto Regional and the Finger Lakes Regional. At GTR, I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process. At FLR, I saw an adult scouting team and a lone adult working on a robot.

This level of adult involvement takes away from what FIRST is all about, the inspiration of students.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.

(Emphasis mine) And what knowledge would that be? Did you actually go and talk to them? Did you ask them about the process they used? Were the kids on the team excited to be there and having a good time (perhaps, even, being inspired)?

It's not fair to anyone on those teams to say things like this, even if you think or know it to be correct. There are many many measures of success for a FIRST robotics team and just because one team's measure does not fit the idea you have in your head does not give you the right to criticize them publicly.

[Joe Matt]

*sigh* To each their own, and well, we run our team where the students design, build, and do everything themselves with mentor help. We have students working on the robot all the time in the pits, and our mentors rarely handle it. That's how we run our team. While I do have personal preferences about how a team is run and I wish it was that way for ALL teams, it simply isn't, and with an organization as big as FIRST, there will be contradictions in ideas.

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?

The same thing applies to robotics. If the adults are doing all the work, that takes away from the student experience, which is why the adults are there in the first place.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?

Plutonium,

We all understand your views and some will agree with you, but please know that this debate has been circling the CD drain for years with no conclusion. To recap:

1. All teams are different and FIRST places the "Inspiration" and "Recognition" above all else.

2. It is truly impossible to know a team, their process, and who is doing/learning what just by watching them at a regional. I tried it early in my FIRST career and was wrong more than I was right.

3. Each team has the right to do this any way they choose to. FIRST has made its standards on this issue clear, therefore we respect all apporaches and work to create meaningful experiences for students on our individual teams in our own ways.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

Perhaps if I had my parents do my homework for me, that is certainly a different way to do my schoolwork, but does it make me more knowledgeable?

Except your goal with homework is to learn that material. FIRST is not about teaching you how to build a robot - Dean, Woodie, and others have made that quite clear. FIRST is about giving you a chance to interact with engineers and see what the engineering and technology world is all about so that hopefully you'll be interested enough to pursue a career in one of those fields.

Believe me, I know where you are coming from. I spent 3 years as a student on a smaller team. I had the same opinions as you of large teams that "appear" to have everything done by the adults. I heard the rumors (and, sadly, I probably contributed to their spread) that some teams' robots were built "behind the scenes" by the engineers and ship-day was the first day that the students even saw the robot and were then just trained to drive it by the adults. I noticed that the big-name teams tended to win more awards and I "knew" there was some sort of conspiracy there causing it.

The irony is that now I am a member of one of the teams which I used to dislike because I thought it was a team where only adults did the building and the kids didn't get to do anything. Of course I now know that my opinion was misguided. In reality, my current team which I thought was so different from my old team really isn't that different at all. Students on both teams get plenty of opportunity to do hands-on work. The primary exception in raw part fabrication - we use Motorola's shop and because of that there's legal reasons why we can't let students use certain equipment.

Trust me, my team is aware of what some people think about the way our team is run. Even though they don't really know, it's still disappointing that that's what some others think of us (no, you did not say anything about my team, but if we had been at Finger Lakes then you probably would have been just as likely to say "Motorola" instead of "GM").

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

In reality, my current team which I thought was so different from my old team really isn't that different at all. Students on both teams get plenty of opportunity to do hands-on work. The primary exception in raw part fabrication - we use Motorola's shop and because of that there's legal reasons why we can't let students use certain equipment.

Trust me, my team is aware of what some people think about the way our team is run. Even though they don't really know, it's still disappointing that that's what some others think of us (no, you did not say anything about my team, but if we had been at Finger Lakes then you probably would have been just as likely to say "Motorola" instead of "GM").

You are, to a large extent, describing "The Pink Team" as well as WildStang. Our parts are fabricated in a NASA shop which, like the Motorola shop, can allow only shop employees to operate certain equipment. Still, students help assemble the robot and, more importantly, students are heavily involved in deciding the functions of our robot, the type of drive base, etc. If you look at our robot up close, as with WindStang's, it is obvious that the machine's parts were not made in someone's garage with a hack saw and a file, but that doesn't mean the students don't learn anything and are not inspired. The students have great pride in, and feel "ownership" in our robot, even though they don't run the water jet machine that makes a lot of those cool looking parts.

There are compromises in all FIRST teams. To me, my team of several years, TechnoKats, has the best of all worlds in that they have their own shop with enough equipment to fabricate most of their parts. In that shop, students run mills, lathes, etc. and make many or the robot's parts. Still teams like my present team, and the opposite extreme of teams with no resources having to built their robot with "hack saws and files," can provide inspiration to the students. This year FIRST has done the teams with few resources a big service by providing the very good "kitbot" transmission that makes it easy for a team to have a decent drive base.

[BillP]

This always has been, and always will be an issue. In my opinion, there is no standard correct answer. Rather, the balance between mentor (e.g. adult) and student activities must be determined by each individual team, and be revisited each and every season. This balance will be determined by the capabilities of the students AND mentors with the ultimate goal being to provide the most beneficial experience for the students.

For our team, the mentors make every effort to stand back and act as advisers during every aspect of robot design and construction. Sometimes we do feel the need to step in to settle arguments, re-focus the direction of the design/build, and to remind the students of certain physical laws that may prevent their design ideas from working as anticipated (gravity comes to mind). There have also been times when the mentors will develop alternate design implementations and, working alone, build them, to demonstrate more options that we want the students to consider.

For all our efforts to stay in the background as much as possible, sometimes the students still feel that we are "doing too much". In these cases, we just grin and bear it. There have also been times when the students have asked us to do more. As I said, there is no formula to identify the correct balance.

I also think that, the only time this becomes a real problem is when the mentors define exactly what there role will be and that role eclipses the students participation in the design, build or competition. (as in the case mentioned in another post where the students were not even allowed to touch the robot in the pits). Unless this is what the students have requested (not likely), this is wrong.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by BillP

This always has been, and always will be an issue. In my opinion, there is no standard correct answer. Rather, the balance between mentor (e.g. adult) and student activities must be determined by each individual team, and be revisited each and every season. This balance will be determined by the capabilities of the students AND mentors with the ultimate goal being to provide the most beneficial experience for the students.

For our team, the mentors make every effort to stand back and act as advisers during every aspect of robot design and construction. Sometimes we do feel the need to step in to settle arguments, re-focus the direction of the design/build, and to remind the students of certain physical laws that may prevent their design ideas from working as anticipated (gravity comes to mind). There have also been times when the mentors will develop alternate design implementations and, working alone, build them, to demonstrate more options that we want the students to consider.

For all our efforts to stay in the background as much as possible, sometimes the students still feel that we are "doing too much". In these cases, we just grin and bear it. There have also been times when the students have asked us to do more. As I said, there is no formula to identify the correct balance.

I also think that, the only time this becomes a real problem is when the mentors define exactly what there role will be and that role eclipses the students participation in the design, build or competition. (as in the case mentioned in another post where the students were not even allowed to touch the robot in the pits). Unless this is what the students have requested (not likely), this is wrong.

It seems as if our teams work in a very similar fashion. I like the way our team is balanced now. Students come up with a strategy, then present designs to the team, and we vote on it. This is usually where the most bickering takes place. As for actual robot contruction, adult help really depends on the particular sub group of the team. For instance, our 4 speed transmissions were an iteration of team 33's shifter, and totally redesigned by 2 students. An adult threw in an idea to save some space, but all the actual design and contruction work was done by these 2 students. But, the arm team had 2 dedicated parents who were there almost every night helping machine parts and come up with design technicalities. As for other systems.. the wiring, programming, pneumatics, and end effector were all 100% student done, with no adult help.

One of my best memories from this build season was being able to walk in one day after school, and see about 10 kids all working together, without an advisor to tell them what to do, or how to do it. If we needed to figure out how to do or fix something, we went and researched the problem until we could find the answer. We were all able to work as a team, and get the job done. But at the same time, our team would be nowhere without the support and decication of our amazing advisors.

Before someone replies to this saying "oh, you're making teams who have engineer support look bad", remember this... My freshman year on the team we were sponsored by Johnson and Johnson. We had about 10 engineers who took the teams strategy and did 100% of the work on the robot. The build was boring and I didnt learn much. I fell in love with FIRST because of the competition. Now that sure inspired me... just not in the way it was meant to. I was inspired to stay on the team to go to more competitions and have fun, not to become an engineer. But without that initial inspiration, I would have never come back to find out that we had lost that sponsor, and now needed to do all of the work on the robot in our high school. 2004 was a rough year, but we got the job done. This year we improved by leaps and bounds. I have learned so much and now I know what I want to do with my life, engineering.

As for which is better.. for me I would like to see a 50/50 mix. While it is nice to say we built the entire robot, its brutal when something you've worked on for so long fails because of lack of time and knowledge. That is what I would like to see more of; also why I had the idea of the FPG. It would give every student the chance to create their very own work to share, but at the same time give every student a qualified engineer to fall back on when they are in a hole.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

I had the same thought when I was at the Greater Toronto Regional and the Finger Lakes Regional. At GTR, I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process. At FLR, I saw an adult scouting team and a lone adult working on a robot.

This level of adult involvement takes away from what FIRST is all about, the inspiration of students.

Wow.

Your attempt to be discreet failed miserably, since there weren't really many three team collaborations at the GTR regional.

You're talking about the NiagaraFIRST.org robots, and you're doing so with no knowledge of our teams. Did you actually talk to anyone on our teams and ask them about our design and build process? Do you think it's fair of you to make assumptions our teams, without taking the time to get the facts.

Here's how things worked for NiagaraFIRST.org this season.

The day after kickoff students and mentors convened at all three schools, and broke into small groups to breakdown the game, and begin the initial brainstorming process. Later on that evening all the groups met at General Motors, and each team presented their findings and ideas. A vote was held, and ideas were narrowed down.

From here the design process began. Different ideas were prototyped as the team worked to finalize a design. Both students and mentors were involved with this process. Once the design was finalized, many finer points were ironed out by our engineers. The students were involved in this process as well.

Most of the fabrication took place at Westlane SS, home of Team 1503. They have an amazing machine shop, with CNC facilities. This is where our frame rails, sprocket hubs and wheels were made. The students from all three teams were an integral part of this process, working with their shop teacher and a GM machinist.

All the robot parts were brought to Governor Simcoe SS, the home of Team 1114. This were most of the robot assembly occurred. Again, the students were the leaders of this process as well. Students from all three schools would work late into the night with GM engineers and other mentors to get the robots built.

I'd say the more than 50% of the wiring on our robot was done my the students as well.

The credo of NiagaraFIRST.org is "Inspiring Future Science & Technology Heroes". We will never claim that our robot is 100% student built. We do have a large degree of engineer involvement. We firmly believe in our process of having the students work with and learn from engineers and other adult mentors. But to say that "the students had no involvement with the development process" is insulting, offensive, and blatantly untrue.

Kevin, I welcome you to come to our pits in Atlanta, so you can see first hand what our team is all about.

---------------
Edit:

Here's a quote from one of my students on Team 1503, from our team's message board. This was in a thread started by one of our engineers asking the kids to describe their proudest moment of the season...

"My personal favourite moment was seeing the robot completed for the first time. Knowing how much of my blood, sweat, and tears went into that thing, I was glad to be done with it, but I was happier to see it fully functional knowing that Chris V, Evelyn, Khalid, Andy and I built the thing from scratch, I, and I'm sure everyone else, almost cried when we shipped it away."

[Derek Bessette]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.

This level of adult involvement takes away from what FIRST is all about, the inspiration of students.

As the head design mentor for NiagaraFIRST.org I figure I shouldn't let this type of whimsical comment pass without a reply.

Karthik, Tristan and Steve have all told stories of how we do things to back up what we have done so I am going to try and stay away from defending the way we do things. I think the results speak for themselves. I know we have a lot of room for improvement but in no way do I think we are doing something wrong. What I am going to do is tell you why I participate in FIRST and what my experiences have been so far.

FIRST for me is a hobby. I enjoy it and I don't get paid, that to me is a hobby. When I was attending Queen's University I was a part of the Mini Baja team. This team was a group of engineering students that built an off-road vehicle that we raced against other schools. There were about 12 students on the team and we had no engineering help. We did have the shop workers who helped us when they could. We built all of the vehicle ourselves and did pretty well after a few years of learning lessons the hard way. I loved every moment I spent on that team. I loved the feeling of building and designing something. That experience is the only reason I have a job at GM today.

After a year of working here the Engineering Manager asked me if I would like to help out with the FIRST robotics team we were starting (team 1114). I agreed to give it a try and immediately fell in love with it.

With FIRST I am able to combine my loves of designing, fabrication, teamwork, competition and teaching all into one "hobby". Right from the beginning I was involved a lot in the design and build process. We had a few key students with the interest in working in these areas who I worked with along with a few other mentors. We did everything as a team. We all had our roles and we worked together to complete a common task. When the first season was over I was proud of the robot and the students.

Our second season was much of the same. Great kids, great mentors, and a great robot. After that second season I decided I wanted to take more of a leadership role on the team. That is when I became the lead mentor for team 1114. We recruited more mentors in the off-season and recruited two more schools to join our group (now called NiagarFIRST.org). By doing this we were able to get more kids involved in FIRST. It was tough this year with three teams to keep them involved in the design. The brainstorming session at GM really got the kids excited and involved. After that day we knew what the robot would do. The rest of the season is a blur. I couldn't tell you which kids or which mentors did what because it was all a team effort. The only thing I do know is that we inspired kids. I know that for sure. I see them every day. They love it!

I've been on a team with no mentors and I have been on a team with lots of mentors. I know both sides. Both sides are great! There is no need to make any drastic changes. Just keep in mind the goal of inspiring students and thrive to do it better.

To make a long story short. I love designing robots and I love working with the students. Does my excitement get in the way of mentoring sometimes...I'm sure it does. But my excitement for engineering is what inspires the students, so I won't feel bad for loving FIRST so much.

I hope this helps.