I’ve yet to hear about one, though I hear of many complaining of them. Truth is, if there ever was a team like that, it likely disbanded the year following. You need students to continue to have a team, and most students are probably not as enthusiastic about just watching others.
Back to the original point of this thread, at what point does it become unacceptable? I have read both sides of this issue and I propose an easy solution. During elimination matches…only students may touch the robot and mentors may get no closer than 5 feet away. This rule would virtually eliminate the design/build conflict, since maintainability will rely strictly with the students. If they didn’t design/build it…it would almost be impossible for them to repair it.
A few years back I visited a team asking for assistance. When the conversation turned to how last years bot was built, the students told me “the mentors built it and dropped it off to us just before our competition”
Kusha,
This debate has been around ever since the beginning. There will never be a defined line. It is a team decision, not a personal or even a FIRST decision. The team decision will change from year to year. Mentors will come and go as do the students. Skill level and enthusiasm changes with each person.
Remember there is always something to learn in every situation.
Off topic but…happened in my shop two days ago…just saying :eek:
Glad I’m not the only one yelling across the room ‘bad idea in action…’ :yikes:
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You’re going to find yourself by yourself if you’re in support of that. What would happen if a student couldn’t diagnose what was wrong? What if the repair involves work that students aren’t trained to do (Welding, etc.)? It’s not black and white, and you can’t just place a blanket rule like that. Everyone will suffer from a rule like this. Shunning your mentors means you are getting rid of your most valuable resources.
Our team has struggled with some of the issues you all have been talking about. One thing with student involvement, is that the students themselves must have the desire to commit to the team, and all of its operations. I am currently a student, and I’ve see those around me complain about not having enough student involvement (particularly last year), but there have been cleanup meetings after stop build day when i was one of only a few students to attend.
This year, we've been running the team entirely differently, where students have been doing almost all of the prototyping, with mentor assistance on machining. When we have to make a design decision, we discuss it in an open meeting, where our committed students and mentors voice their opinions, and we come to a collective agreement. So far, this has settle all of our problems, instead of polarizing the team on multiple different ideas, and getting hung up on the decision making.
Last year, I think everyone, including our own mentors, realized that we needed to become a more student oriented team. That being said, the students need to take it upon themselves to come in and build their prototypes, get their ideas heard, build a strong knowledge base of FIRST, and understand what is feasible during a 6 week build season.A friend of mine from a team near ours told me that they receive the bot whole without so much as a strategy meeting. while he may be exaggerating most of his teammates (95%) could not answer simple design questions about their bot.
That should be on you and them. What if they’re not very good at driving the robot, does that mean you should do it? And if you have to do welding or other similar work during elimination matches, then you probably have bigger problems… Not saying I’m in favor of the suggestion, but I don’t think these are particularly compelling counterpoints.
This might not be one either, as it depends on the student/mentors in question, but a mentor not being allowed to work on the robot could be the difference between an orderly but hurried major repair (of quality better than “It should work for this match”) and a panicky, chaotic major repair of poor quality. Just that calming presence and experience troubleshooting that a good mentor can bring (or fake, if need be) could be the difference.
I agree, it depends on the team. For me personally, if a student is politely asking a mentor to let them do the job, and the mentor is entirely refusing for no reason, that is right about the unacceptable point (mentors refusing because the student doesn’t know how to do the job yet and failing to teach is also unacceptable to me–I don’t call that mentoring). To any student I happen to work with, that happens to read this, if I’m doing a job you can do, feel free to push me out of the way (though asking first is encouraged in case I’m doing something that needs a safe shutdown).
Yes, although exceedingly rare based on the people I’ve talked to that were on one. I would be willing to be there are a much larger proportion of teams where students feel disenfranchised by the amount of work done by mentors, and an even larger proportion of teams that get accused of being “just watch the mentors” when they are in fact a happy partnership. The first step is always to talk to them as if students are off gossiping in the corner most of the mentors I know are content to continue working without you – but we’d like it even more if you’d help us! Plenty of adults would love to teach you, but are hesitant to tell kids to get back to work that they did not raise.
When 1276 won BAE in 2006 (my then HS team), we got accused of being mentor built on CD (I can’t find the thread, it was an implication but clearly us)! I can assure you that we were in fact a happy 50/50 partnership, and as I begin the journey into being a mentor I find myself eternally grateful to my Dad, Keith, Joe, Phil, and others that volunteered their valuable time to teach me things I didn’t even know I was learning until I have had to apply them later.
It is my opinion that teams should refer to their robot as “our” robot. It is not the “kid’s” robot, and it is not the “mentor’s” robot, it is “our” robot. Successful FRC teams build partnerships and people that many companies would pay good money for. Working at a big company I’ve taken classes and listen to plenty of talks about leadership, and have friends taking MBA classes. IFI and AM have figured this out…
I think a lot of companies give FIRST/FIRST teams money for not-quite-the-right reason. They consider it training for their future workforce, but they miss out on all the off-hours lessons their current employees could benefit from. I am 100% certain I would not be where I am today with FIRST.
TL;DR skip to the 3rd paragraph…
I have been both a student and a mentor, and have seen the over bearing mentor archetype from both perspectives. I, as a student, fought frequently with the mentors on my FRC team to allow other students to become more involved with the robot, instead of relegating them to tasks like button making. As a sophomore, I gave away my own assigned jobs to two or three people and stood by and filled the role of mentor, so that they at least could go home and tell their parents that they did something that day. I used every approach known to man to confront the mentors, each time trying to limit as much damage to my fellow students as possible. It got to the point that, I was asked to leave the team by the mentors because other students were starting to take up arms as well. I was viewed as a troublemaker who was trying to instigate a hostile takeover of the team. The same team where it was common place for students to watch a group of mentors huddled in another room talking design. No attempt by the mentors to include the students; every so often a student would attempt to push their way in, but to only be treated like they didn’t exists.
As an FLL mentor, I watched as other mentors and head coaches would simply change code or redesign the whole robot and not explain it to the students. When parents would enter the room, at the end of meetings to pick up their kids, these mentors would act quite differently. Any attempt to talk to these colleagues about their actions would end in their denial the events ever happened.
For me the line is right where those who are on the outside looking in think it should be. Where parents who are not involved, sponsors who hear a team’s presentation, even just the innocent bystander on the street who wanders into a competition think it should be. While they may not understand all of the trials and tribulations of the process of “inspiration,” they are the ones who ultimately judge the success or failure of the team. How would they view the team in its current state, if they could be a fly on the wall at meetings? How would they view FIRST at large if all they had was a snapshot of this one team?
Try and do this for something you’re not even remotely involved in. Then come back and try and look at your team in the same way you did that thing. It can be quite eye opening…
My dad’s friend’s cousin’s neighbor said she knew a guy who woke up in NYC in a bathtub full of ice and missing a kidney.
There’s a lot of conjecture based on hearsay, and I’ve yet to see any incontrovertible proof that purely adult teams exist (outside of DARPA challenges and the like).
The good thing about FIRST is that you really only have to run one team: your own team. You don’t have to worry about what other people are doing with their team or with how their team is organized. If it is really not about the robot, then why should anyone care about what another team does? The competition is merely the vehicle that is used to get student excited about science and technology.
Within your own team, you must have a discussion among all team members and determine what is right for you. Find out what your team wants to do. Remember that mentors are an integral part of what FIRST is about; it’s what makes this different from something like a science fair or a math team. Students and mentors are supposed to work TOGETHER to have a meaningful experience and to have a successful season. Open communication is truly the best way to solve most of the problems that exist in any relationship, not just mentor/student.
Does anyone disagree with this? How so? Please let me know, because this is how I’ve thought of the program my entire FIRST career.
I have also seen this at FLL competitions and rumbles. Although comparing FLL mentor involvement and FRC mentor involvement is like comparing apples to oranges. In FLL mentors are supposed to, I don’t have my handbook in front of me to actually quote it, step back and let the students do the work but help them work through issues and challenges. Just look at one of their core values “We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.” It doesn’t happen often but in our region we actually disqualify FLL team if we see mentors/coaches doing the work for the students.
FRC mentor involvement, as everyone has said, is a fine line. These students are working with tools and parts that can be dangerous if not used properly and sometimes there is a need for a mentor to do some of the work. Each team is different find the balance that fits your team and keeps every single one of the students engaged in the program. If we don’t allow students to learn anything or be inspired we have not met what FIRST strives to do. We want to promote STEM fields and teach life/career/business skills. How can we achieve this by shutting students completely out of the process?
Yeah, what Don said !!
This is an old thread in a new bottle. Teams ( student/mentors ) need to have an understanding of what success looks like. Having a winning robot is fun, but not necessarily success.
Teams need to have an understanding of what the off-season accomplishes in order to be ready for the on-season.
Knowing what success looks like, what you are trying to accomplish and focusing on that will help a lot. Solving team dynamics problems (forming, storming, norming, performing) before the on-season before kickoff helps a lot.
Team goals just collided with team dynamics !!
This is my 8th year doing this and we have had years with maybe 75% mentor involvement, 50%, 25%, and now about 1%. Next year will be maybe 33%. If we can keep it to 20 or 30% over the long haul I will be happy with that.
It is really nice getting things to the place to where the mentors can step forward or backward into the process as necessary.
Speaking from my team’s experience, the students are the ones who design, build, and test everything. What we as mentors try to do is help the students better understand why somethings work and others don’t. We help them with learning the fundamentals of how things are created. As a former team member and now a mentor I feel like it is the students who should be doing the work and the mentor is there to guide them. If mentors were to take the aspect of robotics that students enjoy the most we would be missing the whole idea of FIRST, which is to inspire students in the fields of math and science through application
I wanted to come back with a great example from my team last night, and to reiterate that the tipping point really is when the mentors stop listening to the students. If the students say “you design it”, then go for it - that’s what they want. But if they want to design it, step back and let them!
Two nights ago, we realized there was a problem with our climbing mechanism. Without going into too many design details, we realized that reaching for the next bar was geometrically impossible given the current setup and all of the parts we had constructed so far.
Yesterday, the build mentors spent time thinking and e-mailing, trying to come up with a good solution. We ended up going to the meeting with 3 possible solutions in our back pocket, all of which we didn’t really like.
So, we started the meeting by gathering everyone around the robot, and having the student leading that portion of the construction explain the problem. She went on to list two possible solutions she had thought of (both of which we had discussed over e-mail and had ready for the team if needed), and why she really didn’t like one of them. One of the students in charge of another part of the robot then explained why she really didn’t like the other one, as it would have significantly impacted what she was trying to accomplish.
Like I said, we had solutions, but we really didn’t like any of them.
So, then another student chimed in. Basically, she reversed the way the arm worked (only requiring software updates, the construction would stay exactly the same), and suddenly the problem was solved.
We never even pulled out the third solution we had in reserve. There was no need. In fact, as mentors we didn’t propose any solutions to this critical issue (although at other points in the build we have proposed solutions when needed).
So, the moral of the story is… Listen to your students! They’ll have ideas, and some of them will be great ideas. They’ll tell you if you’re doing too much, or if they need more help. There’s nothing wrong with doing some prep work and coming to the meeting prepared to spoon-feed them. But listen to them first, and determine if its really needed!
Here’s a personal example of a little too much mentor involvement, by myself, on my own team. Student designed gearbox plates – very nicely done. I needed to make a couple minor changes/additions, broke his CAD model, and ended up re-doing it from scratch. When we go to look at the final plates (all 12 of them), oops, they’re too big, and will drag on the ground. Now we need to go in and rework them. Moral of the story here? Students, trust your mentors, but only so far. Check their work. Even those of this who have been in it over a decade can still make mistakes.
The argument seems to frequently stem from the appearance of some of those top tier robots.
“It looks professionally built, there’s no way high school students built that.”
I’ve heard it dozens of times, mostly aimed at 1114 and 2056, since the Canadian regionals are my stomping grounds.
I know because I’ve dealt with these teams many times, that the students are no less involved in the process, its just that their process is different to the average team.
In many cases, the competition robot appears professionally built, because it is. I know that several of the more recent 1114 machines (starting in 2009, IIRC), the production of many parts for the final machine happened at their sponsor’s facility by a machine. Those parts look professional, because a machine produced them from a CAD drawing. Often though, the students DID assemble the final product.
The difference is in the focus of their program compared to the argued “student-built” machine. The “professionally-built” teams focus more on the prototyping and design and engineering process, often outsourcing the manufacture of the final product parts to a sponsor, while the “student-built” teams focus on manufacturing the robot. Both have merit, they’re just different.