College Level FIRST

[ZZII 527]

I was my team's driver for two years, so I can sympathize with those seniors who are not quite ready to give up the controls. I was lucky enough to get two more chances to drive robots: one in MIT's 2.007 contest (formerly Prof. Flowers' 2.70), and one at the International Design Contest in Tokyo. But I can say that after three years of mentoring a FIRST team as a college student, I enjoy doing that much more than I enjoy designing/building/driving robots. It's a different experience, and it takes a while to realize your new role. (There are several great threads about this transition that you can read, but I'm too tired to find them right now.)

If you are still aching for the chance to compete, there's always DARPA, FSAE, Battlebots, RoboCup, AUVSI UAV, and the North American Solar Challenge, to name a few. Check your college's student club/team directory.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

How I miss driving the robot... How I miss driving the robot... How I miss driving the robot.

Heh... I was talking to my partner in crime, Ryan Damewood, about the good ol' days when we drove the robots between 2002-2005. We had dominating drive teams but only once did we have a robot that was capable of doing an immense amount of scoring (2005).

Yes, I live in the glory days. I tried coaching last year, but I'm not really cut out to be a coach I guess. I'm not pushy enough to strategize with other teams and students don't really take me seriously. It didn't help that my brother was a driver and I had to cut him because he wouldn't listen to me and tried to bicker with me at every chance he could.

[Cory]

I've said this before, as have many others, but college FIRST is a bad idea.

You're going to take college students who are mentoring FRC teams, or might be mentoring FRC teams away and give them their own competition. There is no advantage to this. The point of the competition is to inspire, and college students have already been inspired. If they have not, they probably won't take part in the competition anyways.

The only thing it'd be doing would be to let college students relive the glory days of driving robots.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Cory

I've said this before, as have many others, but college FIRST is a bad idea.

You're going to take college students who are mentoring FRC teams, or might be mentoring FRC teams away and give them their own competition. There is no advantage to this. The point of the competition is to inspire, and college students have already been inspired. If they have not, they probably won't take part in the competition anyways.

The only thing it'd be doing would be to let college students relive the glory days of driving robots.

Yeah, you're pretty much right on the dot with that one. I would just like to drive the robot in a couple of matches. Heck, this year was the first time we did swerve drive and no one would let me even try to drive it around K-T... made me sad.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Cory

I've said this before, as have many others, but college FIRST is a bad idea.

You're going to take college students who are mentoring FRC teams, or might be mentoring FRC teams away and give them their own competition. There is no advantage to this. The point of the competition is to inspire, and college students have already been inspired. If they have not, they probably won't take part in the competition anyways.

The only thing it'd be doing would be to let college students relive the glory days of driving robots.

Cory is 100% correct here. I agree having a college level FIRST would just let college kids relive their glory days.

However, I must say that FIRST drops the ball when it comes to college students. Does something magical happen that summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college? OF COURSE NOT! You don't come back after that summer with the knowledge and experience of an adult engineer. I know my team (125) has exactly 1 adult mentor, and he is our faculty advisor from Northeastern university. Other than that its all college kids. We're not always sure what we're doing, and we're not always sure that we're doing the right thing and being ideal role models. College kids have a much different FIRST experience than any other level of FIRST participant.

I think college kids should start to look upward. There are A LOT of other competitions where its perfectly fine for a college level student to be the "driver" or participant, and this doesn't mean you need to stop mentoring FIRST high schoolers.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Cory is 100% correct here. I agree having a college level FIRST would just let college kids relive their glory days.

However, I must say that FIRST drops the ball when it comes to college students. Does something magical happen that summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college? OF COURSE NOT! You don't come back after that summer with the knowledge and experience of an adult engineer. I know my team (125) has exactly 1 adult mentor, and he is our faculty advisor from Northeastern university. Other than that its all college kids. We're not always sure what we're doing, and we're not always sure that we're doing the right thing and being ideal role models. College kids have a much different FIRST experience than any other level of FIRST participant.

I think college kids should start to look upward. There are A LOT of other competitions where its perfectly fine for a college level student to be the "driver" or participant, and this doesn't mean you need to stop mentoring FIRST high schoolers.

When did anyone mention college students stop mentoring high school students? I believe it was stated that it would be nice to not have the two competitions coincide with FRC, only compliment. I certainly wouldn't stop mentoring 648... however, I am going to be stepping away from 648 more and moving into the FVC scene more...

On another note: Some people don't look forward to dealing with immature high school students that don't hardly listen to people of authority and/or higher experience levels. I know this is my major drawback of being a mentor of 648. However, it doesn't really deter me too much because I get more out of mentoring than I do not mentoring.. if that makes any sense at all.


EDIT: After reading Brandon's post a second time, I could have been totally mistaken. Please, tell me if I am.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Budda648

When did anyone mention college students stop mentoring high school students? I believe it was stated that it would be nice to not have the two competitions coincide with FRC, only compliment. I certainly wouldn't stop mentoring 648... however, I am going to be stepping away from 648 more and moving into the FVC scene more...

On another note: Some people don't look forward to dealing with immature high school students that don't hardly listen to people of authority and/or higher experience levels. I know this is my major drawback of being a mentor of 648. However, it doesn't really deter me too much because I get more out of mentoring than I do not mentoring.. if that makes any sense at all.


EDIT: After reading Brandon's post a second time, I could have been totally mistaken. Please, tell me if I am.

I think you missed what i was saying...i was trying to point out that one can participate in other competitions AND still come back and mentor FIRST high schoolers.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I think you missed what i was saying...i was trying to point out that one can participate in other competitions AND still come back and mentor FIRST high schoolers.

Okay, thanks. I had second guessed myself after reading your post again. That was the same point I just tried to make.

[Scott Morgan]

I would really like to be able to continue designing robots for FIRST.
I'll be coming back to mentor my team next year, but while I'll offer design advise, and teach them about various topics, I can't design the robot for them. While there are other robotics competitions that are open to college students, I don't believe any of them will be able to replicate the experience I've had at FIRST.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Originally Posted by Scott Morgan

I would really like to be able to continue designing robots for FIRST.
I'll be coming back to mentor my team next year, but while I'll offer design advise, and teach them about various topics, I can't design the robot for them. While there are other robotics competitions that are open to college students, I don't believe any of them will be able to replicate the experience I've had at FIRST.

I agree totally... I'll be helping with building a DARPA Urban Challenge vehicle over the summer, but that's definitely not going to reach the level of excitement I had when I was a student in FIRST. Besides, everything is autonomous, I like complete control.

[Scott Morgan]

Originally Posted by Budda648

I agree totally... I'll be helping with building a DARPA Urban Challenge vehicle over the summer, but that's definitely not going to reach the level of excitement I had when I was a student in FIRST. Besides, everything is autonomous, I like complete control.

The problem that I see with DARPA, is that it seems to be mostly focused on electronics and programing, which doesn't leave much room for a mechanical guy like me, and there are no arms, I like to build arms.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by ZZII 527

If you are still aching for the chance to compete, there's always DARPA, FSAE, Battlebots, RoboCup, AUVSI UAV, and the North American Solar Challenge, to name a few. Check your college's student club/team directory.

All of the AUVSI (IGVC , IARC , UAV and AUV) , Robocup , IEEE Regional Robotics Competitions, Firefighting, and NASA robotics competitions are all great opportunities. Although, the majority of these competitions can't hold a candle to FIRST's size, excitement and overall organization. These competitions have a long history with many challenging problems for students to solve. Robocup is great for computer science because the hardware does not change from year to year, many of the AUVSI competitions are very interesting for robotics fans because they are looking closer at the commercial needs of the robotics community.

AUVSI competitions

[ZZII 527]

Originally Posted by lynca

Although, the majority of these competitions can't hold a candle to FIRST's size, excitement and overall organization.

I'll agree with you on that point. I have yet to find anything in college that compares to FIRST. It's hard to keep that level of excitement when you get into the college-level details of engineering. (A fault of the colleges more than anything else; their educational system is obsolete when compared to FIRST.) Let me stop before I begin to rant...

[tckma]

I'm going to put in my 2c here. Actually, it's more like $7.50.

When I first heard of FIRST, I had been out of college and in the so-called "real world" for a year. So even if there was a College FIRST, it wasn't an option for me. Sure, FIRST existed when I was in high school (1993-1996), but it was so small back then and largely in New Hampshire, so being a high school student on Long Island, I had little chance of hearing about it. If I had, I certainly would have participated, although my parents likely would have protested the long, late nights during the build season.

I was interested in getting involved as a mentor, but I didn't end up finding a way to do so until a year later, when I broke my leg skiing. The person who was driving me to and from work every day explained that his son was on a rookie team. I mentioned that I was interested, and asked if they needed more engineers to help. When he said "yes," I jumped -- as much as I could do so with a broken leg -- at the chance to join up. I remember ambling into my very first FIRST team meeting on crutches, hearing about what we had to do in six weeks, and thinking "my ($deity), these kids will never do that!" But they did! And so it goes, every year. I look forward to it every year, and at work I always make sure to publicize why I'm not at work for certain Thursdays and Fridays in March and April -- and to try to infect as many people as I can in my life with the FIRST bug.

Mentoring has been a great experience for me, and though I've had to change teams twice due to moving, I've always stuck with it. FIRST has been, unequivocally, the single most rewarding activity I have EVER had the pleasure of being a part of.

I'm a software guy. I've had my hands dirty in robot code several times. Heck, I've even spent some time on a drill press, but not as much. I love letting the students figure out how to do things, but there are times when I'd like to get involved with actually building the robot instead of just tightening a screw or two or writing a few lines of code here and there! I'd also love to learn the mechanical stuff so I don't feel like an idiot when I get near the robot chassis.

This year was frustrating (in a GOOD way!) for me in that we had a really awesome student writing our code... He inherently knew how to do EVERYthing. I think I wrote ONE switch/case statement block this year and that was it.

I love mentoring. I love going down to regionals and to Atlanta with my team. I love helping out other teams when I can. I don't love babysitting the few students on teams who will invariably not respect authority and do various things that are not very GP-ish. However, that is but a small fraction of the "job" of being a FIRST mentor, and is far outweighed by everything else I get from the program.

Would it be nice to have a college-level and/or adult-level FIRST-like competition? Sure. I'd join up in an instant, mainly because I didn't have the opportunity when I was in high school, and the kids have so much fun (while preparing for work and life) doing it. But if there were a college- or adult-level FIRST-like competiton, we might have fewer mentors for the high school FIRST teams. And quite frankly, I do not have nearly as much time as I would like to spend on FIRST as it is!

An adult-level competition is something I often dream about, but I understand that such is not my place in FIRST.

[MGoelz]

I definitely agree that FIRST isn't meant to invade colleges with the idea of the college students competing. I think the whole point is to spark interest in the younger generations. Hopefully, by the time you are in college, you have had the opportunity (or many opportunities) to be involved and inspired through FIRST.
At this point you enter the mentor stage. We need college mentors: people who have (or have not) been through the program and can still bring ideas to the table, but instead of doing all the work themselves, get the chance to teach younger ones the skills you have acquired.
I don't know if it is true for all, but for me anyway, I learn and understand something better after I'm put in a position where I have to teach it to others. I think that this is what FIRST wanted. A succession of students, to mentors, to coaches, that will inevitably keep FIRST running at its best.