Great robots..Is it fair?

[Don1498]

Hello Everyone

Well, I wanted to say that 2008 Greater Toronto regional was good as always. But I had couple of feedback for this regional. As you all know that which ever competition 1114 enters ends up winning? The question is that is it fair to all other teams? I guess not. The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it. I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it. But on the other hand the teams who have less resources and money and sponsors or maybe they just had a bad year. What will they think? Perhaps thinking that they don’t have to try since they know no matter how much they try 1114 is going to take the competition away from them. If someone here thinks that 1114 student are smart to make a machine which they have right now I think first robotics competition isn’t the place to be. Maybe they should be sitting at MIT. So my suggestion is FIRST robotics Canada should consider having 2 divisions such as 1 for all “good teams” such as 1114 and one division B such as some weak teams who don’t have enough resources to get make their robot. So if someone from division b wins they get to be moved into division a for some challenging teams How is this important? Well it’s a good idea and plus wont discourage all other teams to who don’t have enough funding.

What do other people think on this matter?

Donald

[Beth Sweet]

This thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66564 is on the same topic. It has been closed because people are getting out of control about it. When the thread reopens, please post your comments there so that we don't have 5 threads on the same topic.

Thanks!

[Alexa Stott]

Please search before you post. The topic of the fairness of "all-student" teams vs. "students-and-engineers" teams has come up on ChiefDelphi more times than I can count. If those threads have been locked/closed, there's a reason: this topic is very touchy and people tend to have strong opinions on both sides.

I'd suggest reading up on those threads before starting a new one.

Darn it! Beth beat me to it!

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

This thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66564 is on the same topic. It has been closed because people are getting out of control about it. When the thread reopens, please post your comments there so that we don't have 5 threads on the same topic.

Thanks!

I second that since this topic has been beaten to death over, and over and over again...year, after year, after year...

[BornaE]

Originally Posted by Don1498

Hello Everyone

Well, I wanted to say that 2008 Greater Toronto regional was good as always. But I had couple of feedback for this regional. As you all know that which ever competition 1114 enters ends up winning? The question is that is it fair to all other teams? I guess not. The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it. I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it. But on the other hand the teams who have less resources and money and sponsors or maybe they just had a bad year. What will they think? Perhaps thinking that they don’t have to try since they know no matter how much they try 1114 is going to take the competition away from them. If someone here thinks that 1114 student are smart to make a machine which they have right now I think first robotics competition isn’t the place to be. Maybe they should be sitting at MIT. So my suggestion is FIRST robotics Canada should consider having 2 divisions such as 1 for all “good teams” such as 1114 and one division B such as some weak teams who don’t have enough resources to get make their robot. So if someone from division b wins they get to be moved into division a for some challenging teams How is this important? Well it’s a good idea and plus wont discourage all other teams to who don’t have enough funding.

What do other people think on this matter?

Donald

I don't share your opinion.

On our team we have 2 mentors and 8 students this year. one of the mentors is an electrical engineer, and the other one was a doctor, and he is a self taught machinist. And if you have seen our robot, more or less we can compete with 1114 this year, and last year, we had a good robot.

FIRST is about gracious professionalism and sportsmanship, it is about powerful, and well-established teams, graciously helping and mentoring the rest of the teams. A double division competition defeats the purpose of FIRST.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Don1498

Hello Everyone

Well, I wanted to say that 2008 Greater Toronto regional was good as always. But I had couple of feedback for this regional. As you all know that which ever competition 1114 enters ends up winning? The question is that is it fair to all other teams? I guess not. The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it. I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it. But on the other hand the teams who have less resources and money and sponsors or maybe they just had a bad year. What will they think? Perhaps thinking that they don’t have to try since they know no matter how much they try 1114 is going to take the competition away from them. If someone here thinks that 1114 student are smart to make a machine which they have right now I think first robotics competition isn’t the place to be. Maybe they should be sitting at MIT.

I'm too irritated to give the post a well thought out response, and frankly you don't deserve one.

Since when did it become acceptable to insult the intelligence of a group of teenagers. I'm tired of coming on CD and having to listen people who have no clue what they're talking about slam our students. These kids sacrifice so much to be a part of Team 1114. Some are putting in 8 hours a day during build season, to help our team and others. They don't do it for any form of recognition, but frankly each time someone comes out and says "oh they don't do anything" or "they're not smart enough to have come up with that" it hurts. These kids break their backs for not only the team, but the FIRST community, and this is the respect they're shown? Sure, these negative comments are far fewer than the positive ones, but it doesn't mean they hurt any less.

This seems to happen at least once a season on these forums, and numerous times behind their backs at competitions. (Or in their face at the Canadian team forums...)

I'm at a loss for words. (Which most of you know never happens.)

Btw, one of our students may be sitting at MIT in the fall, he's waiting on his acceptance.

[Cory]

What little ability I had left to filter myself and "play nice" has just disappeared.

It is crystal clear that you do not "get" FIRST. I suggest you save yourself the trouble and find another program which better meets your lopsided views, which I might add, are very much in the minority.

[Herodotus]

I cannot understand the mentality of people who would bring someone down rather than lift themselves up. Instead of expecting 1114 to not be as good, maybe teams should really just strive to be as good? I know doing as well as teams like 1114, 27, or 217 motivates our team to do the very best it can. And moreover they don't cause us to lose hope or feel helpless, instead we sit in awe of them and strive to be as good as, if not better than them.

[Qbranch]

Uhmmm... I think a moderator should close/delete/obliterate this thread. I don't believe anything productive can come from this.

1114 has a great machine, and all you can do is make yours one better... that's what we're aiming to do.

-q

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

This thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=66564 is on the same topic. It has been closed because people are getting out of control about it. When the thread reopens, please post your comments there so that we don't have 5 threads on the same topic.

Thanks!

I think we should follow Beth's advice, and just keep these comments to ourselves until the thread reopens (which I think should be sometime today.)

Personal attacks don't really do anyone any good. Lets try to handle this in a constructive manner.

Again, Thanks.
Jacob

[Jason Morrella]

Originally Posted by Don1498

The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it.

Originally Posted by Don1498

I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it.

Don, I'm surprised some of the comments you made are coming from a FIRST "alumni". Maybe a new person who doesn't know what FIRST is about might think some of those things, but from an alumni surprises me.

First, pretty much the entire premise FIRST is based upon is teachers, engineers and mentors giving good ideas and guidance to students. If you think 1114 is any different than 98% of FIRST teams in that regard, you would be mistaken. There are thousands of great and brilliant engineers giving good ideas and help to over a thousand FIRST teams, 1114 is just one single team in a very big club in that regard. If the students have worked with those ideas and "made the product" with them, then congratulations to them for doing such a great job.

Second, some people in these always recurring threads seem to forget a key thing - FIRST doesn't want students doing 100% everything on a team. Any team that claims to be 100% student run and built is not accomplishing all the goals of FIRST. It's great such teams are able to compete, but if they don't have engineers working with them, giving them ideas, teaching them new things and helping them build better robots, then that is the # 1 missing aspect of their team they should be trying to improve for the next year.

Third, teams that "win" fall on every step of the resource spectrum. To imply that one team is the only team that can ever win an event because they have more resources is a disservice to all the other teams. Resources and building a great robot is only part of what it takes to "win". Teams that win, especially consistently, require good designs, good driving, good coaching, good strategy, good alliance partners and good luck. And even when they have all of those things, they frequently don't win. We've all seen many many many instances where the clear cut "best" robot at an event did not win that event because they didn't have one or more of those things I just listed.

Last, don't worry. Yes, they are on a great and very impressive roll, but you'll be happy to know 1114 has lost events in the past and they will lose many more in the future. Any and all sports will have super teams or dynasties that pop up every few years. That will never change no matter what the sport or competition. Those teams raise the bar and motivate all the others to reach their level. But new super teams and dynasties will always come along to replace and/or join the existing ones, and this has been happening in FIRST for quite some time. I know that the most successful teams in FIRST like 45, 47, 71, 111 and others were great inspiration and motivation to myself and my teams when we started, and having them in a different division would not have motivated us as much to try to reach their level.

[Brandon P]

As the student co-captain of Team 1114, I'd just like to let you know that despite your baseless assumptions, my teammates and I are involved in every part of the design and build of our robot. So maybe we should be sitting at MIT. If you'd like to learn more about our design process, please come visit our pits at any event or I'm sure Karthik would love to sit down and explain it to you in the stands.

[Amanda Morrison]

Given the recent rash of inappropriate posting related to subjects such as this, I'm going to close this down until Brandon can decide how to deal with it.