When do mentors go too far?

[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.