Corporations Build Robots

[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

[alicen]

to me, it doesn't really matter, it just doesn't sound like it would be as much fun as the teams where the students actually build the robot. so all in all, i kinda feel sorry for them, cause they don't get teh full experience that other teams do.

[Tim Delles]

WOW!!!

I have to say i completely agree with Big Mike here.

WHO CARES!!!

Honestly a team shouldn't be looked at from who built the robot... A team should be looked at from what the students on the team have gotten out of it.

If a team decides to be all mentor/engineer built but the kids learn a lot is it wrong? I say that it isn't. FIRST is all about the great learning experience you can get from this.

If a team decides to be an all student built team, struggles through the season, doesn't learn very much but had the resources that could have made them great but they refused to use them, I would consider this that they failed. They did not make the best out of what they had.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that one way is better or worse. What im saying is that it depends on which way will help get the most knowledge to the students. (it could be 50 50 even)

Now honestly stop "bashing" some teams. It would do well for those that have posted "negative" things in this thread from refraining to do so, because it could smeer your teams image with the rest of the teams. (what would you think of a team if they said negative things about your team?)

[Cory]

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

I'd also point out that responding to someone saying "mentor run teams do not acheive the goals of FIRST" by saying "well, FIRST does not have a blueprint for how teams run" doesn't make too much sense (to me at least). The first person is suggesting (or seems to be suggesting) that FIRST should have such a blueprint. Responding by telling them that there is no blueprint is not much of a logical point.

I don't want to put words in Rich's mouth, but what I think he means is that there is no blueprint because FIRST does not care what method of inspiration teams use. They are just happy that kids are being inspired.

We should be too. If something works for another team, who are any of us to say that's wrong? When I was in high school I used to share some of the same opinions of the "engineer built" teams (and most of the time, this isn't even the case. Very few teams have a system where the kids don't do anything), and I said some things that in retrospect made me look plain old silly. I'm glad that I got to know those said teams, and found out that first of all it wasn't the way I thought it was, and second that even if it was, they have every right to run their team however they want, and their model is no better or worse than my own.

I think ultimately the student-mentor debate comes down to jealousy. Would any of you who think engineer built robots are bad care at all if every single one of them took last place at every event? It wouldn't be an issue if they did. Instead of worrying about how some other team is run, look around at all the successful teams in your area, and see what you can take from their model to improve your team. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If every team spent the time they waste pontificating on the merits of another team, and invested it into improving their own, FRC would be a much better place.

[lukevanoort]

I'm not going to get involved in this discussion except for this comment. You cannot, and should not make assumptions over why or how a given team dynamic has arisen. I am aware of several teams (I'm not going to mention who) that have mentors do much of their robot building; students may do final assembly, but the sponsor does the milling/lathe work/CNCing/etc. In all the cases of this that I know of, the reason was INSURANCE POLICIES, it was not a team choice. The insurance policy in the teams' school/workplace did not allow the students to operate the machinery; thus, they had to either have their mentors do the machining or not use the resources at their disposal. I think (and I assume these teams probably think similarly) that not using your machining resources is foolhardy; those tools allow the team's students to get the benefit of learning about constructing/designing systems that require such devices (two speed transmissions, for example). Thus, by having their mentors machine their parts, the students are able to learn more about things that they otherwise would not have.

[+()c|D]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

=In all the cases of this that I know of, the reason was INSURANCE POLICIES, it was not a team choice. The insurance policy in the teams' school/workplace did not allow the students to operate the machinery; thus, they had to either have their mentors do the machining or not use the resources at their disposal. I think (and I assume these teams probably think similarly) that not using your machining resources is foolhardy; those tools allow the team's students to get the benefit of learning about constructing/designing systems that require such devices (two speed transmissions, for example). Thus, by having their mentors machine their parts, the students are able to learn more about things that they otherwise would not have.

I think that is a great point that I didn't think about, and in those cases I completely understand, my view point is on teams that have the ability. I think, also, that is is more in the spirit of FIRST rather then gracious professionalism (as I stated earlier) that it is about, the spirit of FIRST is for highschool teams to compete, not for adults and professional engineers. Through my experience I see that the members of our team (4), myself included, get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing a robot that WE built and designed working rather then something that was built for us.

Of course I am not saying that those other teams are not as good or anything like that, I just think that a team that does all the work by and for itself is going to be better off in the future.

[aaeamdar]

I'll just post a quick reminder: the original intent of this thread (though it may have been redundant with other threads) was to find out A. if there are teams that have corporations or groups of adult mentors exclusively design and build the robot and B. is this fact talked about in the FIRST community.

I do think that, as part of an organization, we have a full right to express our opinions about what policies or organizational philosophies would best fulfill the goals of that organization. So, Tim, for example, to answer your question, "Who cares?", I think you can read over the posts in this thread and see that in fact quite a few people do care. If you don't care, that's fine.

If anyone finds this thread to be uninteresting, boring, etc., that's fine too. Really quite a perfectly valid opinion because as some have said this subject may have been beaten into the ground. But, and I hope no one takes offence at this, no one's forcing you to read it.

I will say that I am quite impressed by the people who are making arguments for why mentorish-run teams can be successful. Though I would not want this model for our team at the present time, you've gone a long way in convincing me about the fact that some good can come of this. You all have made me think about this in a new way - which I appreciate.

Thank you all,
Paul

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Cory

I don't want to put words in Rich's mouth, but what I think he means is that there is no blueprint because FIRST does not care what method of inspiration teams use. They are just happy that kids are being inspired.

Correct Cory, and thanks for clarifying. I've spent the last seven years in FRC, the first four with a very different FRC team than the one I currently run/manage. I also spent three of these years "working" as a Senior Mentor for FIRST and have been blessed enough to help FIRST design the FVC/FTC game for the past three years. In all of my work with teams and FIRST, the message about this point has always been very clear and the only point I'm trying to make is this:

FIRST exists to change the culture; to make a better world; to excite students about engineering, science, math, and technology; and to show students about the exciting potential futures they can have in these areas. Please, please, PLEASE listen carefully to the speeches we hear from Woodie, Dave, and others. If your primary focus in FIRST is on the competition itself, you're totally missing the point.

Instead of looking at a robot or mechanism that may have been built by engineers and thinking to yourself, "they're cheaters" you should be thinking, "Holy crap! Look at that! I need to find out how they did that. I want to learn what they know." If you're having a hard time getting to that point in your thinking, I would suggest your focus and emphasis need some adjusting.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by aaeamdar

I do think that, as part of an organization, we have a full right to express our opinions about what policies or organizational philosophies would best fulfill the goals of that organization.

It could be helpful for you to understand the very beginning of FIRST. I have a grasp of it enough to understand it but not to inform adequately. I always look forward to listening to the wisdom and information provided from those who were there before us. Hopefully, one of our engineers/mentors/students from that time period could post in this thread or lead us to other posts that explain how this all came about. Where we are today, in our upcoming 2008 season, has our roots in the formation of FIRST. The roots run deep and they are healthy. The FIRST website is helpful as well. It may not provide the answer you are looking for but it provides the mission and the vision very well.

[AdamHeard]

Now that your question is more clear.

I highly doubt that a corporation took the KOP and delivered a robot 6 weeks later with no student involvement. I really don't think this has ever happened, or will ever happen.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Now that your question is more clear.

I highly doubt that a corporation took the KOP and delivered a robot 6 weeks later with no student involvement. I really don't think this has ever happened, or will ever happen.

I believe that in fact it does happen. Granted I've based it purely on hearsay and occasional allusions to it, and I haven't seen such extreme cases in person. Below I will provide a full post, most of which doesn't apply directly to this conversation. I'm provided the full post in a hope to avoid it being taken out of context. I will, however, bold the section that directly applies. It was taken from this thread

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

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.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Pavan

Expand?

I've seen some of these FIRST electronics boards. And man. I don't know how the insepectors do it...

It would be pretty easy to connect multiple motors to the same victor, over-compress the compressor, play with the current... This is a very low form of cheating.

Back to the topic.

I would be interested to see what an all engineer team would design. Just imagine if the NASA engineers got down to business to build a FIRST Robot? I'd lose to that robot gladly!

And if my team beat it? Well imagine the glory of saying: "I outsmarted a bunch of NASA engineers with government funding!" It would certainly be a proud moment. Much better then beating a bunch of kids...

[GaryVoshol]

This topic comes up from time to time. Many who have a background in FLL, where the creed is "the kids do the work", have problems with teams with a lot of adult design and construction.

Still, I doubt anyone has ever seen either of these teams:

In Team A, the mentors drop the KOP boxes on the worktable and say, "There you go, have at it. Let's see what you can build."

In Team B, a group of mentors absconds with all the motors and other proprietary parts, secludes themselves in a locked room, and 4 weeks later they unveil the shining new monster.

Real teams are somewhere between those extremes. What works for a team in the past may be changed in the future. Depending on the particular strengths of the students and the engineering mentors, the pendulum may sway toward one or the other extreme, but will never max out or stay in one place. Neither Team A nor Team B will be particularly successful in inspiring students to succeed. Success in inspiration and in learning comes from cooperation and interaction between mentor and mentee. Each team must discover the dynamics of that interaction for themselves, to see what works.

I am happy as a parent that my daughter is involved with mentors who want the students to do a lot of the work, and want them actively involved in the design process. Yet they had me work on the bumpers, and I did most of the cutting and much of the fabrication. You know what? Cutting and filing several dozen 45* cuts on angle aluminum was pretty boring. I didn't learn much except how hot pieces could get. What did I take away from any student that already knew how to use a chop-saw? Nothing. When it came time to assemble, I had a student or two working with me to hold the material and operate the staple gun. Nothing big there either - but the students knew how the bumpers were constructed, and could describe it properly if asked by an inspector. Mission accomplished. The same process is repeated over and over as mentors and students work together to design, build and program all the marvelous parts of the machines that come to the competitions.

As I was typing this, I looked up at the top of the screen and saw a highlight from Karthik.

Remember, there are many differents path to obtaining knowledge. There's no need to pigeonhole the process.

How appropriate. It was from 2004. I think I'll go rep him just on principle.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Still, I doubt anyone has ever seen either of these teams:

In Team A, the mentors drop the KOP boxes on the worktable and say, "There you go, have at it. Let's see what you can build."

Actually, I think this happens all the time. I always see teams touting how their team has no engineers.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Cory

I always see teams touting how their team has no engineers.

I see individuals saying this. I don't know if I can accept the claim at face value.

I can believe the team might have no professional engineers, but it's very unlikely that none of their mentors help with the robot.