Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[The_ShamWOW88]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

Ever heard of Baseball? There is no salary cap....

NASCAR? I seem to recall some dude named Hendrick and how he always seems to have faster equipment....Pretty sure they all use their own engine builders and the teams with the most money have access to the best engineers, drivers, and technicians, so I don't see your point.

Besides, to answer your question, our team doesn't have a CNC machine. A couple drill presses, a table-top mini-mill and a assortment of other things. It's called making due with what you have and if you don't have something that you want, start looking for help. ASK the teams in your area that YOU seem to think "have it all". I'm willing to bet, MORE than willing to bet, they would help by either getting you in contact with a sponsor or let you use their equipment. There's a host of great teams in your area you could reach out to. Of course, I'd be wary of how you do so now that you've come on a public forum and insulted many of them.

FIRST is about competition but it's also about helping the competition, that's what separates our program from the "Major Sports". You don't see the Red Sox and Yankees swapping coaching secrets.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials?

Ok, I'll bite. I'd be willing to bet you that I could build a robot that effectively plays this game for under $2000 (+KoP) with a chop saw, a drill press, and hand tools. And that robot should be within the capabilities of every single team in FRC.

But first I have to define what I mean by effectively. Would I be an Einstein contender? Nope. But I'd reliably move every match and I'd play in the afternoon at my events.

It's not about the tools, it's about the process. I have no doubt that 254 would build a 80th percentile robot using nothing but some 2x4's, a bandsaw, and a KoP chassis. But their machined stuff is more inspiring.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials?

I'll also bite.

I'll speak for two teams in this post: Yep, and Yep.

For one simple reason: One of the teams has minimal to no CNC access, and drills/cuts/welds everything in shop, or if something is sent it's sent to a shop that a team member or mentor has access to use the machines in. The other has CNC access...Run by the shop owner, who is a team mentor, with students there! (If the manual machines weren't being used instead, that is.) Last I checked, the shop still supports an FRC team or two as a sponsor and mentor. Per FRC accounting rules, the only cost there is materials. And if they HAD to count CNC time, probably no more than $1K at $100/hr, easily.

Both teams make reasonably frequent trips to eliminations (and hopefully playoffs), I might add.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

It wasn't that hard: it just took patience, a little time and a little work.

Instead of being envious of teams that benefit from generous sponsors, go out and get them yourself.

I totally agree with your post. It is the same path that we think we are currently on.

I will say that this last sentiment though, isn't one that I am particularly fond of. My first year on the team I was very frustrated at how suggestions like "just go out and get sponsorship" and "it only takes a little time and a little work" were not at all helpful. The specifics of the 'how' and the 'what' it takes to secure multi-thousands dollar sponsorships are often very challenging. Some people are in much better positions to get in touch with generous corporations than others.

For us anyway, it took a lot of time and a lot of work. And "just going out to get sponsors" failed for a long time until we refined our approach, and we are no where near 100K, but are still comfortable financially.
For instance, all my high school team needed to do to get a couple thousand was to roll up to the school board and give a full presentation, robot demo, Q&A, and student testimonial. If it were that easy for my current team last year we would still be swimming in green

All of that said, there are currently tons of companies that make getting money as simple as filling out a grant application and maybe giving a presentation or two. And I cannot express how truly grateful I am to those organizations. Opening your doors to all teams is magnificently generous.




Sorry, that's probably a long rant to basically say that I agree with absolutely everything else in your post. I don't mean to derail the conversation!

[Mr. Van]

I can understand the frustration here. FIRST Robotics is unlike any other sort of competition that high schoolers participate in. It can be very difficult for many to understand the disparity that they see on the field at an event.

Funding and resources play a huge part in our chosen sport - much more so than many other sports where rules work to even the playing field. ("Inflategate" aside, a regulation football is a regulation football wether it costs $25 or $500.)

The disparity between what teams can actually fabricate and then practice with varies extremely wildly. Budgets range at least two orders of magnitude and while some teams have full time access to a complete official competition field, many have a "practice field" consisting of a linoleum floor math classroom with the desks shoved to one side or a parking lot.

For teams working with hacksaws and hand drills, hearing other teams report that "parts are starting to come in" can be a bit frustrating.

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not a dead horse. This is a real issue that teams do face when they have to justify their existence to whomever might be influential enough to require it.

I'm sure we can continue this discussion in a thoughtful, gracious and professional manner.

Just some thoughts.

Have a great last weekend!

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

The part of the fabrication rules (R11) say the cost of parts do not need to be included in the $4000 limit if they are made by "sponsor employees who are members of the team". Most interpret that to be "Parts made by employees of a team sponsor." Is this the same thing?

This is not the same thing. Take a look at example 1 in the blue box under R11:

EXAMPLE 1: A Team orders a custom bracket made by a company to the Team’s specification. The company’s material cost and normally
charged labor rate apply.

This means if you send your parts to be made outside, whether by a sponsor or a paid service, if the employee of the company is not a member of the team, then the labor costs need to be included on the BoM.

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I work at a student-run fabrication studio at my college. I also mentor team 1648. The waterjetting I do for my team doesn't go on our bill of materials. However, if I instead asked my buddy over at XYZ waterjet services to cut the parts out, that would have to go on our bill of materials, even if XYZ waterjet services sponsors us.

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I would say they would qualify as a team member if they are registered in TIMS and manufacture the parts without being paid for labor.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

I'm not sure that everyone sees it this way. In fact, clearly there are many, many teams who don't (or haven't thought about it much). Numerous teams openly pride themselves on the relationship they have with "sponsoring shops" that are "generous enough to do XYZ cutting/fabricating, etc. for us". Is this a Q & A thing? Do we really want to open this can?

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I mean its spelled out pretty clearly in the manual. if they're not on the team (not in TIMS or STIMS) then they're not a team member.

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

Originally Posted by Rule R11

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the
Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be
$10 USD.
It is in the best interests of the Teams and FIRST to form relationships with as many organizations as possible. Teams are encouraged to
be expansive in recruiting and including organizations in their team, as that exposes more people and organizations to FIRST. Recognizing
supporting companies as Sponsors of, and members in, the Team is encouraged, even if the involvement of the Sponsor is solely through the
donation of fabrication labor.

Whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by bduddy

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

Whether or not this is a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

You're correct, I should've read further in the examples.

I guess the point that such a duality can exist still stands, and I suppose it's up to the team to consider whether their sponsors are members or not.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by bduddy

This is wrong, as explicitly spelled out in the manual.

Wow, I had no idea this was the case, thanks for posting that rule. I'm kind of surprised by that. I was assuming that all sponsor time had to be accounted for in the BOM. We have accounted for all time spent machining parts by 'sponsors' in the past (only two parts, but still).

Can we stop including that cost if we refer to the machinists as "members of our team" to avoid this headache? That doesn't seem like the intent of the rule, but I get the impression that this is what larger/powerhouse teams do. Please correct me if I'm wrong

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Can we stop including that cost if we refer to the machinists as "members of our team" to avoid this headache? That doesn't seem like the intent of the rule, but I get the impression that this is what larger/powerhouse teams do. Please correct me if I'm wrong

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm not sure how you came away with that impression based on the quoted rule.

It's quite clear that FIRST wants teams to develop relationships with companies and consider them team members. It literally says that. It then says that if a sponsor is a team member, you do not account for cost of labor.

Well, no, it says if the sponsor employee is team member, which is a very real distinction. Let's take a look at R11, example 5.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team purchases steel bar stock for $10 USD and has it machined by a local machine shop that is a recognized Sponsor of the Team. If the machinists are considered members of the Team, their labor costs do not apply. The total applicable cost for the part would be $10 USD.

This clearly indicates that the machinists are not team members by default through the company's sponsorship of the team. Now, how you define who your team members are is up to you. But I for one am not sure that (in the extreme case) someone who, over the course of the entire season, spends two hours machining a few parts for the team should be considered a member of the team.

I would, however, agree that these rules are encouraging teams to build relationships with sponsors and to integrate those employees into their teams. But the way the rule is written does draw a line in the sand. Sponsor-machined parts are not by default free of labor costs.

[Oblarg]

Just going to offer a bit of perspective from a current mentor, former student. This is not some normative claim about how teams ought to be run, just a couple of observations based on my own experience.

Team 449 is a decidedly student-run team. The robots are designed and manufactured by the students - mentors provide valuable input, but they do not do the hands-on work. That approach was a conscious choice made by our head mentor, and I am exceedingly grateful for it. When I was in high school, I was already a nerd. I did not need "inspiration" in the form of "seeing people do cool things with technology." I knew that cool things could be done with technology. What I needed (and received) were hands-on lessons on how to do things. This is sorely lacking in high-school education (and even in many undergrad programs), and is exceedingly valuable. There is a huge disconnect between knowing some of the theory behind a problem and being able to actually construct a solution. FRC is far-and-away the best program I have encountered for learning how to do the latter. Robotics was probably more valuable to me than the rest of high school put together, all-told.

I am fairly sure that I would not have gained much of anything from watching a team of professional engineers construct a robot. Does that mean there is nothing to be gained from that model, or that that is not an appropriate model for any team? No, of course not. But it does mean that there is something lost when you marginalize student involvement. It'd be nice if the atmosphere here were such that people could say this without inciting massive debates, because it's really not (or shouldn't be) a contentious claim. It does not immediately follow from this that "mentor-run teams are bad" or "student-run teams are good" - a team should try to maximize the return for the students, and this is only one factor in that calculation. If you think your team's effectiveness is maximized by an approach that does not emphasize students doing work, that is fine - but there should be no offense taken when someone points out that there are costs involved in that approach.

I understand fully why some teams choose to have mentors do much of the work. On 4464, I do far more work on getting the robot finished than would be permissible for a mentor on 449. They are different teams in different situations, and their needs are not identical. This does not mean that I won't admit that there is valuable experience that the students on 449 receive thanks to their approach that the students on 4464 do not. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out, nor does it reflect badly on anyone. It's just one piece in a much larger puzzle.

Re: the team resources discussion, it is amusing how discussion of this always progress nearly identically to political discussions on socioeconomic disparity. I think it'd be nice to see a bit more understanding of the facts that there are teams with limited resources who are not in that situation simply due to incompetence or lack of motivation, and that teams with more resources are, indeed, at a competitive advantage (in the most general sense - I am not going to argue the specifics of how big this advantage is and how it scales). There is no perfect meritocracy distributing support to FRC teams. This obviously does not justify bitterness towards successful teams - but I think a lot of the vitriol we see when this subject is brought up is as much a result of frustration at the perceived condescension towards disadvantaged teams as of the disparity in resources itself. I don't think I'm the only one who has noticed this.