FIRST and Wikipedia

[Wedge34]

Originally Posted by Robert Thacker-

Hey, this was on Wikipedia when I typed in FIRST robotics. This is only one section of the article. What do you guys think about it?

Criticism:
Engineer centered-teams are often criticized by more student-focused teams as having an unfair advantage. Some say that since students do not get to participate as fully in the design and construction phase as they would on a student-focused team, then the students might not fully understand all that is involved, and enter engineering with a false impression of what is involved. Further, it may encourage other teams to lessen their own emphasis on student involvement, and instead shift their focus to recruiting skilled engineers to help them win.

Some people think that, in general, student centric teams perform slightly worse in competition than those with the backing of a strong mentor corps, as the teams often have designs that are less competitive than ones where the mentors played a larger role. Especially in their rookie year, teams tend to make design and construction mistakes that reduce their ability to play that year's game. Critics of the fully student-centred paradigm say that students may become discouraged and believe that they aren't cut out to be engineers, thus reducing the inspirational role of the competition. Further, students may not be exposed to a full spectrum of engineering tools or processes.

Im from 868 TechHounds, we are a student based team with 99% of our bot designed and built by students. I feel as if we performed higher than most engineer based teams. Our design is also very unorthodox and creative. I feel it is the most efficient picker and placer I have seen. It does make me sad walking through the pits and seeing many highly regarded teams with not a single student working on the bot, all mentors.

[meatmanek]

Folks, this thread should probably stop pretty soon. If we don't, two things will happen:

1. We'll get into the Great FIRST Debate again. Everybody hates these, because they just decrease good will between teams.

2. We'll start debating how the Wikipedia article should be written. This should be reserved for the talk page

Another caution: Please be good Wikipedians. Don't get the article moderated.

[Cody Carey]

Why do we have to make this debate publicly available? If you go to the Battlebots Wiki page, they don't have any civil debates posted... and I think posting one may scare some people away.


I guess what I really think is that this particular subject just doesn't need to be addressed. It is way too specific. When people (or I at least) look at a Wiki page for an organization, I don't expect to see their internal affairs posted.
Instead of waisting time on that, why don't we expand the Team organization section with tips on how to start a team, and people to contact if interested, or even add a section entirely devoted to helping new teams be started. There are a lot better uses of our time than making an argument any larger than it needs to be.

-OK,I suppose there are a lot better uses of our time than arguing about the perspective taken when trying to enlarge and already over sized argument about engineers Vs. students as well; but who's counting?

[Robert Thacker-]

As I see it, people have the resources they need to do physics tests and teach themselves programs, and make a great robot. People have the internet. People can go online and watch videos to how professionals do it. If people are "student-oriented" then the student should take it as an obligation to teach him/herself everything he/she may need to know. Some people will tell themselves "well, I have no mentor to show me" then go learn it!

Look at me! I had no one to teach me Autodesk Inventor. I learned that program over the summer, I spent my whole time learning that program and talking to people with programs to what to do. I made emails; I looked at other teams that submitted entries. I am the one that leads the design crew and we are COMPLETELY student-oriented (just the CAD team). And look at us; we won two years in a row.

So no one can sit there and tell me there stories of no mentors, b/c I don't buy it, to be honest. I believe people use it as an excuse to not commit to the process. It's about passion, drive, motivation, and heart to carry on what you learn to the next generation!

[Bongle]

Does anyone know where I can get a source for this comment?

The official position of FIRST on the issue has been to leave the issue to individual teams to decide which is best to inspire their own students.

Because that whole paragraph is probably the best handling of the issue. No weasel words, and it has a citeable sentence about FIRST's rules.