The Meaning of FIRST

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by NotaJoke

If there is a team of 10 students and none want to program or have interest in programming, should this team not use other resources in order to have the most successful robot possible?

This.

Not all teams have any students to program. I tried to sweet-talk the mess out of programming, making it sound like the best thing since sliced bread, yet nobody wanted to step up. We only had roughly 10 students anyway. So I basically programmed the robot that year as a college mentor. Did I want to do it? No. But what should we have done? Have someone out of high school program the robot and make the FRC program worth their time, or just waste six weeks of our lives and thousands of dollars on a hunk of metal that just sits on the field because of some imaginary rule that states mentors can't work on the robot?

But let's assume that they do, in fact, have a programming team of, say, 2 or 3 students. How do you know that those students gave it their all, their 110%, and just couldn't figure out a specific problem? They Googled, CD'ed, did whatever they could on their own to solve the problem. So now they're resorting to the mentor. For all you know, yes, that mentor is going to program part of the robot, but maybe they're going to show the students how they're solving it as they figure it out.

I don't mean to sound rude, but you should get your facts straight when making this argument (which, by the way, has been done way too many times on CD) before making absurd assumptions and statements.

[rkbot]

The point you are trying to get across does not only go for programming. For many teams the mentors are the ones that did FRC themselves and still feel as they are a part of the highschool aged group aspect of the team. Meaning they feel many of the same responsibilities as the kids do, and since they are much more experianced and know what needs to be done they take much of the work on themselves, to make sure it gets done right.

Also not everyone on the team is willing to put the amont of time and effort in as others do, this means that a small group of students and the mentors usually end up picking up the slack.

It is a peeve when you hear that a mentor did so much but, many students put the majority of their time into the build too. Meaning the work is not always evenly shared between team members, so if the mentors left us to build our own robots more work would be on the other students.

It is very much worth it for the students who put their time into it, because they know what they have accomlished and to me the goal of FIRST has been accomplished by the students who try because the goal cannot be accomplished with no effort.

[sabruce01]

Oh no...I cannot believe I got another red dot. For being negative???? Gotta love those who post smart remarks and give negative ratings. I said nothing negative at all. Is there a way to find out who posted that last rating? Unbelievable!

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

Oh no...I cannot believe I got another red dot. For being negative???? Gotta love those who post smart remarks and give negative ratings. I said nothing negative at all. Is there a way to find out who posted that last rating? Unbelievable!

If you click on "user cp" near the top of the page all of your reputations given and received are listed, along with who received/gave them and the associated comments.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

Oh no...I cannot believe I got another red dot. For being negative???? Gotta love those who post smart remarks and give negative ratings. I said nothing negative at all. Is there a way to find out who posted that last rating? Unbelievable!

Just so it's clear - it wasn't me. I kind of liked your comment.

Sorry for my overly long response. I think connor worley made a great one sentence summary of what I tried to say in 3 pages. I need to be more concise. Thanks, Connor.

[Racer26]

Flame suits - Engage!

Seriously though, this type of thread has been done ad nauseum here. Bottom line: HQ doesn't care how the inspiration happens.

If your team inspires by:
-Having students build the robot
-Having mentors build the robot
-Having students and mentors work together to build the robot. (Hint: this one is usually the most effective)

FIRST doesn't care how you do it. Just inspire people, build a brighter future. Be the change this world needs. FIRST isn't about building robots. Its about building people, and not just when they're high school students either.

[EricH]

I'm going to go back and address one of the OP's statements again. I know I commented on it before, but I think it's worth addressing again, in a slightly different context.

"So please mentors, let us do all the work" is the part I want to address this time.

First, having a case where a student does all the work may not always be practical. Just... trust me on this. I see it in a number of places and ways.

But second... Students, STEP UP! Show us you're ready to do as much of the work as we'll let you, and teach other students while you do it. Then, I would say that most if not all mentors will step back, and let the new mentors take over (and by new mentors, I do mean the students!). Push the mentors gently out of the way if needed.

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by WMFlip16

...Is this your team? Is winning more important than learning? Is it really helping inspire or teach students?....

Winning is important.
Learning is important.
Inspiring students is important.
Teaching Students is important.

Figuring out how to do all of these at the same time, in my opinion, is the meaning of FIRST.

[JackS]

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

Winning is important.
Learning is important.
Inspiring students is important.
Teaching Students is important.

Figuring out how to do all of these at the same time, in my opinion, is the meaning of FIRST.

I think you're missing a major one here. Losing is important. In some cases, more so than winning.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by JackS

I think you're missing a major one here. Losing is important. In some cases, more so than winning.

I second this idea.

Losing, like criticism, is the only thing that makes you improve.

Winning just makes your ego smile.

That is why FIRST, borrowing from the sports model, is so effective.

[George1902]

Colleges do a very good job of producing scientists, programmers, engineers, and mathematicians. Let them do that.

In FIRST we inspire. We produce science, programming, engineering, and math students.

[WMFlip16]

Wow, I did not think this would be a huge thread. I have thought about this whole idea for a while and I agree that mentoring is a huge part of first. Mentors are great because they give knowledge to students. If i have know idea whats going on, who do i ask? A mentor, I agree that there are also some things that i just couldnt do. Everyone has a right to run a team how they want as long as the kids come out inspired, and excited about their future, and have learned something. I also believe that students should have a large involvement in what is going on in their team, and how you do that is up to you/your team

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by George1902

Colleges do a very good job of producing scientists, programmers, engineers, and mathematicians.

I disagree. They do a good job of producing people with science, programming, engineering, and mathematics degrees.

The practical experience that students learn by working with the mentors on a real life problem -- with real life constraints -- helps produce people who are good at those professions.


To another point discussed here: Losing is inspiring to some. Winning is inspiring to others. A good coach can make either inspiring to his/her team.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by WMFlip16

Hello,

I am a junior on team 2137 and have been involved in FIRST since I was on an FLL team in 2008. We recently had our first competition of the year at Waterford and did ok. On our second day of the competetion, me and my dad went in early because i had some work to do with my code. We moved into the cafeteria and I started debugging the code and adjusting things. After a while, some mentors came in and sat down at a table and began talking. They talked of things that needed to change, which I have no problem with, and how they could improve it. The part that i had a problem with was when a mentor started talking about what HE had changed, and what HE had did, which bugged me. It also bugged me that the team won an award for their programming.

This brings up a question.
Is this your team? Is winning more important than learning? Is it really helping inspire or teach students? So please mentors, let us do all the work, Its better that way. Maybe you too can win the award titled "I dont do anything" like our programming mentor did.

Sincerely, A Peeved Programmer

Mentoring has a couple different facets. We can do, we can show, or we can guide. Which is best is based on the mentor's style of mentoring, the students' style of learning, and the task at hand.

Now, my personal style is very heavy show/guide and very little do. I have not written a line of code for 79's robot this year. What I have done is handled much of the systems engineering and project management for our software team. Why do I mention this? Because there are some tasks that students simply aren't ready to undertake. I trust my students to manage their own tasks, to write effective code, and work together to accomplish tasks. I don't expect them to have a detailed understanding of how the mechanical and electrical systems on the robot work or the best sensor for a task. As such we work in a partnership, I do my part. They do theirs. Together we achieve our goals.

Sincerely, A (proud) Member of a Software Team

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Mentoring has a couple different facets. We can do, we can show, or we can guide. Which is best is based on the mentor's style of mentoring, the students' style of learning, and the task at hand.

This is a great point, and I would like to expand on it a little bit with some of my own experiences.

When I graduated, a few of the students I had mentored in FLL were joining our FRC team and were interested in programming. We had an awesome senior who was a better programmer than I was take care of the main robot code, so I mainly worked with the new guys. When I first worked with them we took the line sensors from the 2011 kit, and we decided to make a line follower. I wrote 100% of the code that went into it, but I made them tell me what to code. I wanted to teach them that the hard part of programming is figuring out exactly what they want the robot to do. The syntax is the easy part, it just takes a little time to get used to. The rest of the season went on mostly like that.

The next year the programming was all up to those students. They had become more comfortable with actually programming the robot on their own, so we all worked together pretty evenly. As that season went on they became better and better at programming on their own.

This season one of the programming mentors who was around back when I was a student was able to get more heavily involved with the team again. The programmers would write their code, then once they were done that mentor would help them make it more professional. I think this was a big help for them. I was able to teach them how to just make a program work, he is able to teach them how to code everything in the best way. At our last competition when our pit programmer would want to make a change, he would explain to me what he was doing, he would code it, I would take a quick look through it mainly as a second set of eyes, then he would put it in the robot and test it.

I really believe that the amount of work a mentor should do is dependent on how much knowledge or experience the students have in the subject. That is the approach my mentors had when I was a student, and I really enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't have stuck with programming if I had't had great mentors to help me get started. This has been a recipe for success, and I plan to stick with it until the students stop enjoying it or stop learning.