Corporations Build Robots

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by BBnum3

What you are talking about has almost definitely happened, but very rarely and I would think more in the past than currently. I seem to remember some horror stories [...] where a team had to give their robot back to their sponsor at the end of the season to be dismantled because the company apparently didn't want their designs to be copied. I am not sure of the details of that situation, but it is an uncommon one.

I have heard this rumor as well. I have also seen previous years' robots in displays and at competitions from the accused teams, which seems to fly in the face of the aforementioned story. Ultimately, I dismiss these rumors as just that - rumors.

[meaubry]

I realize that every year we have many, many, new folks register on this forum - and many don't know the history of FIRST, nor what it is really all about, so they ask questions. Every now and then, a topic or issue surfaces that causes debates and arguements about what is "right" or "fair" or "meant" by FIRST. The past 12 years experience tells me that this is one of them.

I must say, that I'm proud of the veterans that have absolved from posting the perverbial "did you search first" line. Thanks to those that have posted in a professional, and well mannered method.

From the 1st year to this past year, I can truely say that I've been part of every variety of engineer/mentor/teacher/student/parent level of participation in the FIRST experience with team 47.

From mostly engineer designed, to mostly student built.
Sometime, over the past 12 years, we made a big decision to re-locate the robot build from our company shop to the school - that made an enormous difference in who did what, and how we mentored to meet the same goal. In doing so we had to implement a plan that included re-stocking the school shop with the basic essential machines and equipment. It took a long term plan and alot of effort to get that done - thanks to the great relationship between our sponsor, the teachers, and the school, we were able to pull it off.

In doing so, what we learned was that regardless of the percent done by any group of team members, if you always stay focused on INSPIRATION as the goal, you will be successful. I would also have to say that regardless of the "mix" of who did what - we have always succeeded in meeting that goal - even when our robot didn't do very well - and I think that many of our students would support that statement.

To answer the questions in the initial post -
1) Are robots designed and/or built solely by the sponsor (engineers)? - I don't know, they might be, but to us, this is a non-issue - as our focus is on how our team attempts to meet our goal of inspiring the students.
2) Is it talked about - Yes, every year it comes up. As alluded to by others, it usually comes down to this.
FIRST doesn't care how much, if any, any one group of people from a team designs, builds, mentors, or INSPIRES (in any way), one, or all of the students on your, or any other, FIRST team.
3) I have no idea - again, it doesn't matter to us - see answers to #1 and #2

Mike Aubry
Engineer Lead, Coach, Mentor, Teammate
Chief Delphi - Team 47

[casualobserver]

I am a recently graduated member of a "big-team" and the idea that mentors design and build the robot almost entirely is very reasonable. I am going to share my own experience with out naming names, etc... in order to stay GP.

My team has a large corporation as its main sponsor. Building is done at their facilities and the team of engineers numbers about 10 in total. It seems that in this thread, many people are concerned with all the work being done by 1 group or another. That, I doubt, has ever been the case. However, in my own experience, very little design work was ever done by the students. The electrical system was always designed/constructed by the engineers, and the most work the students ever did was assembly. Student input to the design was basically a presentation of our ideas, in a conceptual manner, to the entire team (mentors included) and then occasionally (i.e. maybe once every other year) some concept from a students design would be incorporated in some way onto the robot.
However, before I make this sound like it was all bad, I need to explain the full extent of what was going on. Sponsoring a team is an expensive endeavour, and our team in a sense needed to perform well in order to justify our rather large budget. This is completely understandable, however, the actual mentors were put under pressure to produce a well built, clean, effective robot that would represent our sponsor well. Also, understandable, because image can be inspiring itself. A well built robot, that is clean, effect, and robust is inspiring, we all can admit that we have stood in front of some of the robots in recent years and just drooled over them. However, at least on my team, although I supposed this is why a lot of teams might do this, this sort of pressure to perform and look good doing it, puts the mentors in a bind. I don't doubt for one second that the mentors on my team were people interested in achieving the goals of FIRST. However, I also don't doubt for a second that they thought that the only way to win was to have the mentors do the work.

As a result, as the build season progressed, students would drop from the team, finding the meetings boring because there was no real student involvement until week 4/5. A bunch of my team mates found it all to be some kind of joke, like the engineers were playing us into thinking we were involved in order to keep us around until the robot was essentially done. Personally, I don't entirely buy that idea, however, there did seem times when that was the case.

But what did this all mean? Some members of my team were actually pushed away from the idea of becoming an engineer because of their experience in FIRST. This is not what FIRST is about! If the mentors insist on designing the robot, for whatever justified or unjustified reason, they should still and always include the students, even if we just sit back and watch the engineers work through problems that arise.

I think it is important to note as well, that our robot was designed entirely on CAD by the engineers, the most the students ever saw, were weekly renderings of the progress. The parts were then shipped off to be made, and returned needing only assembly.

Yes, students can learn from assembly, but they can learn a ton more from design.

In general, I fear that teams that compete to win, will often cut corners in reaching the goal of FIRST, in order to reach their own goals. The students always lose in case, because even if their team wins the championship, the students will be no better prepared for engineering, or, in many cases, even know how their robot worked! (This is true, there were kids on my team who did not know how many wheels were on the robot until week 5). I think this leads to what I have really been trying to say in a rather long, round-about way, FIRST is not about the competition, it is about the 6 weeks we actually work as a team to achieve something. The competition is only their to motivate us to reach the rather short deadline, and to motivate us to do better. Those 6 weeks are when you learn about working with people, and about design, fabrication, construction, destruction, and all the other things that make robots the things we build to get inspired.

I hope that teams that do have the mentors design/build their robots at least keep the students in the loop every step of the way. This is so important to the goal of FIRST, students must know what is going on on the robot, even if they aren't directly a part of it.

[ebarker]

Everyone,

Could I ask you to take a look at this one page document and see what you think about this approach to explaining the mentor-student relationship, the mathematics of FIRST mentorship.

http://www.kellrobotics.org/pdf/FIRST_Mathematics.pdf

Thanks,

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ebarker

Everyone,

Could I ask you to take a look at this one page document and see what you think about this approach to explaining the mentor-student relationship, the mathematics of FIRST mentorship.

http://www.kellrobotics.org/pdf/FIRST_Mathematics.pdf

Thanks,

Priceless. This fits in with a spotlight I have seen (sorry, I don't remember whose it is) that reads, "Good mentors[list of attributes] and, over time, make themselves progressively unnecessary."

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by EricH

Priceless. This fits in with a spotlight I have seen (sorry, I don't remember whose it is) that reads, "Good mentors[list of attributes] and, over time, make themselves progressively unnecessary."

That would be Mr. Kressly:

'"A mentor, by definition, provides a nuturing environment and, over time, makes themselves progressively unnecessary."

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...53&postcount=5

The thread this post came from is a great read. It was started by JVN

[+()c|D]

I dont think that it is in the spirit of FIRST to have sponsors build the robot. Dont get me wrong, if thats what your team does then thats fine, but I think it is better for the team members who want to be Engineers if they are the one building and designing the robot. I hope that I will be an engineer one day, and coming from our student run Team 4 Element, I think I will do well in the workforce. The help of our members is what makes FIRST possible, but I just dont think that, if I had a choice, I would have a sponsor build my robot.

[dtengineering]

Five FRC seasons ago, as a rookie team coach/mentor/teacher/whatever attending my very first FIRST event (the GTR, not that it matters) I was very suspicious of the level of student involvement in some of the robots.

They just looked -- and performed -- too well to have been designed, built, or programmed by students. Or so I thought...

So I actually took the time to talk to some of the students in the pit about their robots. In almost all cases there were at least a few students on the team who could provide a sufficiently detailed technical description of how everything worked that I was forced to reconsider my opinion.

It turns out that some of these students started building Lego League in elementary school and joined their school's FRC team in grade 8 or 9. By the time they were in grade 11 or 12 they had been through four or five seasons of robot R&D. They probably knew more about FRC robot design than a lot of us rookie mentors did!

Now as a veteran team I have grade 10 students who started building FLL robots for me two years ago, who are building and programming VEX robots and are in their second season of FRC. Their designs are already starting to outshine what my original grade 12 students did. What will they be building two years from now? I can't wait to see, but to a rookie team who has never been to a FIRST competition it will probably (hopefully) look and work so good that they assume it was designed, built and programmed by professionals.

Does that mean that there won't be adult guidance? Absolutely not. In fact adult guidance (combined with natural talent and personal dedication) is why these students will be performing at such a high level.

So if you see a robot that looks "too good" to be true, take the time to talk to some of the senior students on the team. In most cases -- based on my experience -- what you will find is a team with a strong recruitment/retention program for students combined with a strong team of mentors who teach the students how to design good robots. They will probably do a lot of work in the off-season, and will probably kick your butt on the playing field as a result. I know that if I looked at the robot we built last year (mecanum drive with individual PID loops on each wheel, three ultrasonic rangefinders, CMU cam, etc.) when I was in my first year, I would have throught "yeah... right students made that".

I would consider it a compliment if people were to watch our matches and be left wondering if the robot was built by students or professionals. It would mean that I had done an outstanding job as a teacher to have a team perform at that high level.

Congratulations to teams that have worked with their students to get to the point where they seem to be "too good to be true". It takes a lot of work by the students... and a lot of teacher, mentor and coach involvement.

And if a team's robot is built purely by adults... well, then it is just all that much more sweet for the students on the opposing alliance when they win.

Jason

[CzarValvador]

Well, from what I've heard, there are teams who barely actually use their students, and lock engineers in a shop for 6 weeks and have those 20 - 40 year old men (or women) produce something, and have very little input from the actual students.

Whatever works for them, sure it's not fair, but that team doesn't get the same experience as we do. Playing a game with a robot that you contributed to, feels amazing in many aspects, especially if that robot is working properly.

Playing a game with a robot that came in a box, and you had very little input on, is like getting a remote control car on Christmas when you're way too old to be playing with remote control cars.