Mentors Not Reading Rules

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I can't stress this enough. The Tournament is always the first section I read. If your goal is to win an event, you need to understand what it takes to win the event. By reading the Tournament section you learn by what criteria teams are ranked and how matches are win. Once you understand this information, you can read the rest of the rules and start brainstorming strategies to maximize these criteria. FRC changes their ranking criteria regularly enough that it's essential to make yourself aware at the very beginning of every season.

The longer you've been in FRC, the better this idea gets. You can read through the robot rules and start turning the wheels on some initial strategy ideas based on approaches you took in the past to a game that looks similar, only to realize how meaningless an approach to the game can be because how it wouldn't do squat for your position on the leaderboards. (2006 didn't have a little white bridge that held the same value as a win, iirc)

[TedG]

Originally Posted by bobcroucher

On kickoff day, when we return to the shop, and everyone on the team is present, we do an entire group rule reading using a projector and a student reader volunteer. We sometimes pause for discussions or clarifications. We note ambiguities, if something deserves a Q&A question. This way all of the students and mentors have gone through the rule book at least once. Of course, most of us will revisit the manual many times over for reminders and rule clarification throughout the season.

Yup, we do the exact same thing, except it's the following day, and all day brainstorming session. Everyone is required to be at this meeting where we go over all the rules, discuss scenarios, strategies and start to figure out how the team wants to play the game. And eventually a robot design.

[IronicDeadBird]

Also I need to mention that while I don't memorize the rules perfectly and don't read them or bother to read them well enough to memorize, what I do memorize is the structuring. When I need to know a rule I look it up and I am able to do so quickly. Generally speaking between that, keeping up with qna and, keeping up with delphi, and reading everytime I think I find a loop hole I eventually get to the point where I am famliar.

[Taylor]

This entire thread bothers me.
If you don't know the rules, you shouldn't be designing a robot. End of story.
We hold the students to this expectation; adults should be held to the same standard.
Ignorance is not an excuse, and misinformation is worse than no information.

[TedG]

Originally Posted by Taylor

This entire thread bothers me.
If you don't know the rules, you shouldn't be designing a robot. End of story.
We hold the students to this expectation; adults should be held to the same standard.
Ignorance is not an excuse, and misinformation is worse than no information.

And yet here it is.
We all know that all mentors and all students won't/can't read all the rules.
Even if you think they should.

However, don't be arguing with those mentors or students who HAVE read the rules unless you can point to a rule that allows what you're arguing about.

Sometimes EGOs get in the way.
It's good to have a great idea, as long as you can back it up (with a rule or a proper engineering practice.. etc).

[JesseK]

Unless reading the rules as a group is part of the original Day 0 activities, the rules can't be forced upon a mentor. Even then, many mentors simply tune out the strategy discussion and start envisioning devices to play the most obvious parts of the game. In my experiences on my teams and at competition, most mentors don't care about the rules until they hit them.

It's a double-edged sword - not knowing the rules removes the perception of what is "supposed to be" or "what the GDC wants", leading to more creativity or outside-the-box thinking. Yet not knowing the rules has a major impact on a team's success when everything comes together.

Each mentor has a role on our team, and is charged with being the best at that role. Even the build lead does not need to know every Robot rule in order to be effective at his role so long as he has people guiding him along the way. He has personally accepted that some of the things he and the students come up with will have to be modified to fit within the rules, yet that's the double-edged sword/fine line he walks. The student leads are also expected to know the rules that apply to their sub team(s). I fulfill the role of rules/strategy guru for the mentors, and the student leads have their responsibilities for doing the same within their groups (or cross-groups, for some of them).

I think it's important to remember that many mentors have active lives outside of mentoring, even during the 6-week build season. Find a way to work with them in a way that doesn't make their lives harder, especially during that time. Arguing is the probably worst possible thing to do, even if the student/other mentor is technically correct. The best way our team has found to do this is better communication via written drawings or typed documentation (or posting of phone photos of pencil drawings). Most ideas and decisions are compound and constructive on our team, leading to decisions with associated rationale. If someone was out of the loop on Day 2, then there may have been a lot of progress by the time the person returns on Day 3. We simply tell the person to read, follow links to rules, part sources, etc and then re-join the conversation. We have implemented this via an online forum & Drop Box ( maybe Evernote one day).

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by Taylor

This entire thread bothers me.
If you don't know the rules, you shouldn't be designing a robot. End of story.
We hold the students to this expectation; adults should be held to the same standard.
Ignorance is not an excuse, and misinformation is worse than no information.

Which is completely valid but some mentors do not have the capability to sit down and read the manual in one go due to time constraints. Some students are incapable of reading the game manual effectively. It is one thing to read but understanding is diferent. The information in the manual is useless unless utilized and you can't use what you don't understand. For those mentors in this position my advice would be the same students do your best as long as that happens I won't give flak

[Navid Shafa]

How I envision your mentors...

[IronicDeadBird]

Don't forget that just because you read the rules once doesn't mean they stay that way. The rules change in response to questions. I don't really see a point in reading on any days that aren't update days.
Generally I keep up with changes and q&a more because it let's me see what other teams are thinking not what is in the rules

[KrazyCarl92]

We had an issue a few years back during a Regional where another mentor on our team felt the need to start telling the drivers how to play the game when they were on the field. This same mentor was completely unaware of the number of game pieces that could legally be possessed by a robot and was also unaware of our robot's game piece manipulation sequence. Luckily, our drivers were savvy enough to recognize that the "advice" being disseminated was not something they should listen to. When I politely pointed out to this mentor that the advice that he was giving did not comply with the rules, he replied "The rules are not my thing." My wording was something like "I recognize you would like to help the team succeed. However, the best way you can help is by either reading and understanding the rules, or allowing those who have read and thoroughly understand the rules to work on strategy." This did not motivate this mentor to read the rules, but I believe it helped him realize that by not reading and understanding the rules he had in a way given up any claim to strategic input.

It was a frustrating situation to have a mentor who had not read the rules telling our drivers to play the game a certain way. But on the other hand, it is not vital that mentors read the rules to contribute to a team's success and inspire students. We have one mentor who has been welding FRC robots for 23 years. He has not read the rules but respectfully asks questions to verify that, for the function he performs on our team, he does what is necessary for us to comply with them. While he is welding our frame each year, he teaches students about the safety, geometry, and chemistry considerations of welding an FRC robot and has students assist him with fixturing our frame pieces to prepare for the welds. By leveraging his vast experience we are able to inspire our students and provide them an opportunity they probably wouldn't get otherwise, while building award winning robots.

These arguments are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I would say the importance of understanding the rules depends on the role of any particular mentor has on the team. However, an absolute necessity for ALL mentors is to be willing to accept and respect the time and effort other team members (mentors and students) put into thoroughly understanding the rules.

[MooreteP]

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