Sippin' on the haterade

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by wireties

... and yet you felt the need to comment - hehehe. Well, I bow to your vast experience (oh wait, that is actually me). The students like to drive it, nothing else is more important to me.

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

[santosh]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

Dont forget the kids - its all about the kiddies. "Trick loves the kids"

[thefro526]

I was a hater once... A long time ago.

When I was first introduced to FRC, it was at Duel on the Delaware 2005 with 816. We didn't have the best robot that year (or one that could turn) so many of the older members of the team spent their time belittling better teams when they bested us. I remember walking through the pits with a junior and being shown the 'Engineer Built Robots' and being told that 'If we were handed a robot we'd win too'. I believed them for a bit.

Fast Forward to the 2006 build season - we built an crap on top of crap robot that year. No plan, no CAD, just design as you go. At that years CMP we were ranked 86th in our division out of 86 teams. I heard the same sob stories from the upperclassmen as I did at DOTD. As I watched the Newton Eliminations and Einstein* with some of my teammates who were also freshmen, we came to a conclusion - 'We need to learn how to build robots on the same level as those teams if we want to win'.

From then on, our class (Class of 2009) worked harder and harder each year to build better robots. When we took over the team in 2008 our robots improved substantially thanks in part to what we learned from the few elite teams we spoke with. We were the undefeated #2 seed going into alliance selections in NJ that year when we finally realized that it was/is possible for students to build a 'good' robot with minimal mentor intervention.

The reason I shared that story was to illustrate two points:

1) More often than not, students who are haters are taught to be haters by others - I've even seen entire teams where there was an underlying 'hate those who win' culture.

2) It is possible for Students to build a robot with minimal mentor involvement, have it look 'professional' and compete with and/or be an Elite-Tier team. (Not saying that Elite Tier teams are mentor built)

IMO, if we're ever going to 'fix' the problem of haters it's going to be through educating them. A simple 5 minute talk with a student might be all it takes to change their opinion.

* Newton and Einstein 2006 were host to some of the most spectator friendly matches in the History of FRC.

[huberje]

Originally Posted by thefro526

2) It is possible for a Student Built robot to compete with the big boys.

I liked your story and found it interesting, but this just struck me because it seems like you're implying that "big boy" teams' robots are built by mentors.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by huberje

I liked your story and found it interesting, but this just struck me because it seems like you're implying that "big boy" teams' robots are built by mentors.

My apologies, I should go back and clarify that point.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

Vast experience with what? I've been involved in 5 regional victories, chairmans, and EI in addition to a World championship design award in the past 4 years and yet I can't find a single regional victory to your credit. I guess I must just be applying my lesser experience in a more productive manner. My students like to win, so I'll stick to enabling that.

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by wireties

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

In the future I'll try to add a couple "hehehe" instances into my posts. Thanks for all the advice.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

In the future I'll try to add a couple "hehehe" instances into my posts. Thanks for all the advice.

Good luck to 2145 in St Louis! If I make it there perhaps we should meet and talk. I'm buying!

[Kevin Ray]

I too have to admit that long ago (13 years) I was somewhat of a hater--though I never gave voice to these thoughts. I remember being at the Championships in Epcot and wondering, "How in the world can they expect us to be able to compete with teams like 47 and the like, with their multi-million dollar 5 axis milling machines (naive, I know) while we only had jig saws and cordless drills. I felt that were competing on an uneven playing field. These teams had real engineers helping them--obviously.

Well, it took about one full season of losses and a re-evaluation of the goals of FIRST for me to realize what the problem was--it was my failure to understand the INSPIRATION component of FIRST. After looking at the WOW bots and seeing what they had done with the same KOP that we had received I suddenly realized that Inspiration took on a whole new meaning. Besides the obvious, it now meant that we could be inspired by other teams who did, in fact, have engineers. By seeing what could be acccomplished we would be inspired to build better bots. In sports we don't want our children to only play kids on their level or lower, they'll never grow. We want them to be challenged. We want them to see the professional athletes so that they can have higher loftier goals to shoot for.

If all of the robots looked like our first two years' bots and we had nothing to model after, we would all have suffered. Now, many years later, after being driven to find a major corporate sponsor and to fundraise to buy milling machines, we are competitive. And, we are thankful for having the free expertise of the many great teams who willingly shared much of their knowledge on CD and at competitions. Though we are clearly not amongst the elite teams, we are finally able to give back to the rookie teams and they actually say that they wish that they had the backing that we do.

And incidently...some of our greatest victories in those early years came in the matches in which we beat opponents with the WOW bots on their alliance. A well made robot doesn't always make for a well designed robot (strategically speaking).

[santosh]

Originally Posted by wireties

FIRST is a great experience for the students. For mentors it is philanthropy, not a professional accomplishment. I was speaking of the real world. And you need to be more careful with your language and tone.

The kids on 2415 win because they want to and they work hard at it. And I find that to be a personal accomplishment. Why? because the kids are learning a ton and doing a ton. It is a professional accomplishment for me as it is for Sean. It is a credit to how we (mostly him and the others) are great mentors and can accomplish things when we as a team set our minds to it (and have a little luck).

And I see nothing wrong with his tone or choice of language.

Also, I am not sure why winning isn't important. "You play to win the game." With the caveat that once your students aren't learning and you aren't accomplishing the goals of FIRST, you have issues IMO.

Regardless Martin, I am really sorry that people were making those comments. But I know if they got to know either of our teams, they would quickly change their state of mind. Hell, I even thought that about yall but didn't make a statement till I got to know your team and understand it and see the error in my ideas - because that is childish and immature (both which i am but in a professional sense).
Like Dustin, my kids got demolished their first year but they learned enough and worked hard enough to get to yalls level and finally beat 1771 in 08 (and then win with yall the same year at palmetto!).
Regardless, I looked up to yall and still do.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by santosh

The kids on 2415 win because they want to and they work hard at it. And I find that to be a personal accomplishment. Why? because the kids are learning a ton and doing a ton. It is a professional accomplishment for me as it is for Sean. It is a credit to how we (mostly him and the others) are great mentors and can accomplish things when we as a team set our minds to it (and have a little luck).

I never said anything about 2415 - I am sure you guys are awesome. If you look back, my first post in this thread is very positive and about a great team local to us (148-RoboWranglers).

Originally Posted by santosh

And I see nothing wrong with his tone or choice of language.

Clearly I got under his skin somehow and I regret doing so. Best of luck in St Louis!

[PayneTrain]

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

It's important to note that the best robots in the world don't always win. You can build the whole thing out of 80/20, but if it executes a reliable, significant strategy through your drive team and you are in a position to make educated picks on Saturday, you can still win. I think we've all seen that happen before.

So much energy is wasted complaining (even in this thread) and belittling others (subtly in this thread). You need to engineer an attitude that encourages success through hard work before you engineer the robot.

Aw shucks.. I have to 'spread more rep around'.

Thank you for this post!

Jane

[Madison]

Originally Posted by wireties

Clearly I got under his skin somehow and I regret doing so. Best of luck in St Louis!

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Madison

Perhaps it's because you've repeatedly belittled the accomplishments and experience of mentors that are younger than you?

You are an experienced engineer. Everyone gets that. More often than not, that's the only reason you provide in support of your arguments.

Maybe you genuinely don't understand how that sort of behavior could get under someone's skin, but *your* glib tone -- "oh wait, that is actually me" -- really suggests otherwise.

Much of what you say it true and I apologize. I'll endeavor to be more careful in the future.

Kind Regards