Is there really inspiration in teams?

[phrontist]

All of our alumni thus far have gone on to college, most of them into an engineering discipline.

• Virginia Tech - Electrical Engineering
• University of Michigan - Aeronautic
• Cal Poly Ponoma - Physics/EE? (I forget what he decided on)
• Virginia Tech - Engineering (Mech... I think)
• Rensselaer - Triple major Math/Aero/Mechanical (His nickname was "the team")
• Virginia Tech - Engineering (I have no idea what field)
• Hartford - Cinema
• University of Kentucky - Undecided
• Earlham - Not engineering

We are student run, with some fields being done entirely by students. Programming/Electrical have never had any mentor involvement, other than "Hey, your code is making the motors turn the wrong way!" . Mechanical has seen significantly more mentor involvement. In the end, the robot is designed by the collective, with input being considered regardless of it's source.

[Sean Schuff]

Originally Posted by Philip W.

What is the degree of inspiration on your team? What sort of post-secondary schools are your alumni attending? Are you a student-built or engineer-built team? Are you a student-managed or mentor-managed team (i.e. who is the leadership)?

Question 1 - My guess is that we have a pretty high degree of inspiration on our team. How do I come to that conclusion? Alumni students who volutneer at IRI year after year. Graduates who pursue careers in engineering and technology. And the fact that after 6 years of doing FIRST I still hear from alumni who were on the team way back when and quite frequently get together with them to reminisce about the old times, both good and bad.

Question 2 - MTU (quite a few, actually), UW-Platteville, UW-Madison, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Fox Valley, Rice, United States Navy, UW-Stout.

Question 3 - Depends on the year, the game and the resources available. We do, however, try to focus much of our attention on our students getting their hands dirty and doing the work. From a teachers perspective it is far more beneficial educationally for students to do things rather than watch them done. Research indicates that understanding and retention increase significantly when the learner is actively engaged. But FIRST isn't about education, it is about inspiration. I happen to be an educator so I meld the two together. To each his own on how the robot is built - I'm still having fun!

Question 4 - Mostly mentor-managed if your talking about administrative details. Most kids don't join a robotics team to make hotel reservations or shop for groceries the night before a competition. If you're talking about management in terms of decision making, it is very much a shared responsibility. For our team, sharing the decision making responsibility inspires ownership in the project at hand.

Originally Posted by Philip W.

IMHO, students that can lead themselves to develop a successful organisation like a FIRST team are the leaders of tomorrow. Maybe you can't say that your students are as devoted as a team where students run themselves, but please try to mention how devoted your students are (as a whole, again, I ask for no long single person success stories). The amount you work during the off-season says a lot about devotion as well.

I CAN say that my students are as devoted as a team where students run themselves! Maybe even more so. There are probably many students out there who do have the ability to lead themselves, however, there do need to be mentors around to guide them when things get rough. We can talk all day long about the professional expertise that mentors bring to teams but I think we are missing one of the biggest assets mentors have: the wisdom of years of life.

When I read some of the posts on CD I’ll pop over to the posters public profile to see how old they are. 95% of the time my guess as to their age is very close. Why? Because there is a time in everyone’s life (and it seems to typically happen during middle school and high school) when they think they know it all. Heck, I had a solid decade in the 80’s when I was certain I knew everything! Then I went to college, got a job, got married and started having kids and I realized that my WHOLE life was going to be a learning experience. That’s why they call it lifelong learning. I don’t know it all. I’ll go to my grave not knowing a fraction of it all. But I will die being satisfied that I have positively impacted the lives of those around me.

Don’t let the medals you win and the trophies on your mantel define who you are. Let it be the lives you’ve touched and the legacy you leave behind.

Sean

[mechanicalbrain]

Oh the inspiration is present. Im constantly inspired to come up with new ideas and i talk with similiar people on other teams. Whether everyone in FIRST is going be a engineer is another matter. Some people are just not going to be engineers. However I think inspiration is pretty high. Our team has swelled from 5 people to 66 and it looks like we will stay strong.

[Conor Ryan]

So here's my 1403 report, its pretty good for a 2nd year team, we're 3 in December!

Degree of Inspiration: Not, completely sure, its more of an individual thing
Student/Engineer Built: Almost a joint effort 100% of the time, 50% engineer, 50% student, though it fluctuates year to year. For instance in 04 it was 85% student.
Management: Students/Teacher
Alumni I can think of:
04:
Cornell-Engineering
MIT-Engineering
Rensselaer-Computer Engineering
Rowan-Engineering
05:
Cornell-Engineering
Cornell-Engineering
Harvard-Engineering
Michigan-Engineering
NYU-Film

i know theres always a few more, every single person thats gone through our team has gone to a 4 year college.

[tiffany34990]

S.P.A.M. 180's report
Degree of Inspiration: i'm not sure but for me it was personally... most ppl just seem to find S.P.A.M. cool and the people and building a robot yea that's totally awesome too...since we had a good year in 2002 w/ Fluffy.. it seems the team wants to of course take the Championship gold... so that's a push...though many do want to learn and make a difference...to each their own on the team...on the team there are great mentors that have truly changed students lives and this program of FIRST too

Student/Engineer Built: usually 1/2...depends on the year on the teams.. past few years it's be 70% or so student built
Management: Students/Teacher,... 05 it was more students
Alumni:
what i know...

Cornell, UCF, UF, USF, Northeastern University, Army, FIT, FIU, Georgia Tech. ...

mostly gone in to engineering but some into business, accouting and other fields...

[Mr. Lim]

"Is there really inspiration in teams?"

Plenty

We can try and come up with metrics to try and quantitatively determine the exact amount of inspiration on every team till we're blue in the face. In fact, with enough prodding, I'm sure Karthik will supply you with a nice Excel spreadsheet to automagically determine just that .

But I have a better idea... just ask!

Ask Mark (H or B), Karthik, Ian, Roly, Steve, Tamara, Tristan, Jon, Justin, Jeff, Neel, Zaid, or myself. Of course the answer you'd get from these people is fairly obvious, but what is not obvious is which team all these people came from.

Confused? They're all 188 alumni, so aren't they all from the same team? Check Andy Baker's post, and take a glimpse at Steve W's comments. Teams are cyclical - the team that "Celestica built" was different from the team Karthik and I were on, which was different than the team that Ian and Tristan were on... and that team was much different from the one you are on now.

Student-built/mentor-built/student-led/mentor-led, we've been there and back again, every which way - and all throughout these transformations, go back to that list of names above, and you'll find inspired people at each and every stage.

But what about other teams?

All teams are the same. We are all inspired A LOT. I tend to over-generalize with statements like these, because obviously not all teams are EXACTLY the same... but we are more alike than we care to admit. Why do you think teams (including ours at times) keep finding the need to claim they are "more student-built" or "more student-led" than the next team? It's just an easy way to create our own "uniqueness" which otherwise isn't there.

[Kims Robot]

I get that a lot of people here are trying to say that its hard to measure inspiration... but let me take this to the real world, as I do see a great point in starting this thread.

Point 1: A lot of companies ask their mentors just this... how can you give me numbers, metrics, anything logical that quantifies what exactly I am spending all this money on??

While we cant exactly define inspiration, we can put some metrics to it like what is the increase in high school students that go on to higher education? How many kids on your team go on to careers in science and technology (ie this thread!!)? What schools are they going to (this thread)?? And how do I get them to come work for me when they are all done?!?! Companies want to see some value out of what they are doing. True a lot of them will do it no matter what the answers to these questions are... but if we can back up what they give with great facts (which FIRST actually does if you look at some of their reports), that relate to your team, it really helps justify it, especially to any people in the company who may think there is a better way to spend that money.

Point 2: Metrics are real life engineering.

I've mentioned this before, but I am actually part of a group that is initiating CMMI in our company. Part of the improvement cycle in the engineering world is to take metrics on how you are currently doing so you can determine how and if you have improved. This is HUGE now adays as every company is trying to get ahead. We have to put metrics to nearly everything we do. The other day we were discussing what kind of metrics we could take on our testing process, failure rates, number of revisions to documents, etc.

Metrics are a way to judge how you are doing, and also look ahead to see how you can improve. I think this thread was started with a similar intention. He's not asking "what does inspiration mean" He is asking how can we begin to quantify inspiration in one way, not every way, not the big broad picture, but how do we put some math to this to present to our companies... how do we justify FIRST's mission. Have we really been inspiring students? or are most of them just doing what they would have done without all this extra money being spent on them.

*puts the soapbox back in the closet*

[Kims Robot]

This new thread EXACTLY proves my point Check out question #3!