1323 is proud of the fact that no adult hand touches our robots each year. We have engineering partners that help us with our design but our robot is completely student built. We have students that are proficient with lathes, Mills, aluminum welders and all your basic hand tool. I was just wondering how many other teams are 100% student built. I know some teams get some of their manufacturing done and I just was wondering how many teams are out there like us?
Well team 1875 is 99% because we don’t have the resources to weld aluminum but we do have a kid that could if we had the resources.
First off, some people around here might point out that this subject has been beaten to the ground - which it has. See these threads for reference:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/search.php?searchid=580322
(^the search I did to find these threads^)
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45496&highlight=engineer+student+built
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36962&highlight=engineer+student+built
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36384&highlight=engineer+student+built
Having said that, the students on our team do 100% of the end-design work, but the engineers/mentors help us a lot. what we students do would not be possible without our mentors. We also outsource a lot of our machining. Listening to mentors is a good thing, and outsourcing parts makes for a pretty robot.
I think it is great to have a robot 100% student built. I believe that any opportunity a student has to get their “hands dirty” is great. The only thing I make sure of, is that sometimes, it is good to give a lead to a student by example. So maybe a mentor would make one bracket to show the students, and then they will make the other 4, 10, 100 or whatever other numbers of parts.
Kudos to your team and good luck at regionals/Atlanta!!
Our team is 100% student built. In fact I just spent the whole weekend in my garage building the chassis.
Our teacher mentors take care of the ordering, finances, etc. We do all the designing, building, machining, programming, wiring, etc. We operate out of three shops, one being our machine shop, the other being our assembly room (where we keep parts, etc), and the third being my own shop in my garage. The way we work is we do as much as we can in school, then any parts are brought home with me to work on over the weekend. It begins to get difficult later in the build season, when I’m transferring a whole robot between school and my house (which is about 30 minutes away)…but it needs to be done to get the bot done in time.
We are in a similar situation as you except we only have two shops our manufacturing shop and our assembly and testing shop, We have access to these during the weekend so it’s a little easier for us:yikes:
well it is good to get some of those kids who haven’t worked a day in their lives to use a drill,saw, screwdriver, sander, grease, and lube. Maybe one day they will develop a callus.
Ok, ignoring the previously referenced threads, I have this to say (which I’ve said before):
- No team is 100% student built. Do you use anything from the kit of parts? Guess what, engineers designed and built those. So yeah, doesn’t count.
- There’s a quote that’s been used on here many times, steal from the best invent the rest. There is nothing wrong with taking help from people who know what they’re doing. This competition was created so that students could learn from their engineer mentors. That’s kinda the whole point of it.
That being said, read the referenced threads. Pay particular attention to some of Karthik’s posts. He says things well in them and really supports his points.
It’s great that your students can build things, but make sure that you’re still focusing on the original intention of FIRST. If you pride yourself on not having engineers, you’re probably missing the big picture.
We are proud to say that 100% of the parts on our robot is compeletly student manufactured and put together. Although we ask engineers if we any problems. We do ask for mentors opinions but all the decisions are made by students, 100%.
My first post was vague at best so here is an elaboration.
A quick rundown of workloads:
- Students do 100% of the in-house machining ( lathe, mill, etc).
- Students do 100% of the CADing.
- Students do 80% of the proof-of-concept prototyping
- Students do the programming.
- Students do the scouting and AV work.
- Mentors do 20% of the proof-of-concept prototyping
- Mentors teach us how to use machines.
- Mentors help with concept design.
- Mentors teach us the advanced stress calculations.
- Mentors take care of (most) budget work.
- Laser and EDM work is sent out of house.
As you can see, we students do most of the designing and building for the finished robot, but we take help when it is offered. In past years, we’ve tried doing it without design/technical input from the mentors, but that didn’t really yield professional (or working) robots. We have to draw on our mentors because they have years of experience in the things that we want to learn. Once again, without the mentors, you wouldn’t have a complete team. For the record book; we have four non-engineering mentors, and one engineer.
-Cody
589 is proud to say it is also 100% student built. A Coach/mentor has never touched any of the robots. They are there to help guide if needed, but it’s all student run. 
Thanks coachs and mentors for this opportunity. 
Our team’s motto:
“Student Run, Student Built”
That being said our robot is not 100% student built and we are proud of it. We have two machinist sponsors who do all the sophisticated manufacturing.
We require that students be on hand at the machine shop whenever something is made. The sponsors give us advice and run the machines, but we make the decisions.
The same is true for the design process. The mentors can advice us, and tell us what they think. Their opinions are highly valued because we respect them, NOT because they are adults. In the end it is the students that make all the decisions and do most of the manufacturing.
I think its great that some teams are 100% student built; but I would also hope that 100% of their students are mentor advised.
This is about the same for our team.
Anyone who says you don’t learn by sending parts out is wrong; I have learned a lot from dealing with the machinists who make the parts.
Besides, it is very rare for an engineer to design a part, then make it himself…
We are probably have 95% student work to 5% mentor work. We rely on our sponsors (Midwest Fluid Power and R&D Tool) for a lot of design work, ordering of parts, and custom machining (like a gearbox we are getting made). However, I, as Build chairman, and my partner in crime, Dan, make all the final decisions on stuff like designs, parts, etc. But 99% of the time, we’re around the rest of the build team to get their opinion as well. As for actually assembly…we do probably 95% of that too because we always welcome the helping hands of a mentor to put parts together.
I haven’t been all the way through the loop with 1618 yet, but I’d guesstimate that about 70 percent of the robot is done by the students. I had a large hand in the drive design, larger than I normally would recommend, but other factors made it beneficial for all concerned. Actual fabrication and assembly of items is largely students. The mentors may start tightening bolts if all the kids are busy, or file a slight sharp edge if we notice one and calling a student over is impractical, but we try and have them handle as much as they can.
With team 1468 our goal is to have the robot about %85-%90 student with the mentors assisting the other %10-%15 of the time. This is primarily due to the VERY limited resources available to the team so sometimes you need to be creative in what and how you do some things. This is where experience comes into play and where the mentors can pass along some skills.
The old adage of “I do you watch, We do it together, You do I watch” is what mentoring is all about.
One other thing on a personal note. While I agree that I dislike seeing only engineeers and mentors work on a robot while the students sit in the stands. I also dislike teams wearing the “%100 student built” chip on their shoulder. Both are extremes and shoould be avoided.
IMHO the right answer is a blend so that everyone learns from the experience. After being involved with FIRST sionce 1999 there is not a year that goes by that I don’t learn something from the team and I hope that they can learn from me. It’s truly a trade of experiences.
If team’s robots are 100% student built, then how am I, college mentor, to keep learning? Everyone is constently learning, even engineers. Heck, I’m still teaching the engineers new things.
A good thing is that on 648, we don’t send anything out to be machined. All of our machining is done in-house and the students watch. We don’t weld anything, so it’s that much easier for students to do the hands on work.
Congrats on having a 100% student run team, but who are you learning from? A book? What if you become a mentor, will you still accept the 100% student run mantra? Or would you be jumping at the bit to get in there an do some stuff yourself?
*Sorry if my post sounded a bit harsh, didn’t mean it.
Team 2200 has been 100% student built to date, and we are doing just great.
Not only that but our team consists of 12 programmers and 2 people with knowledge on actually machining and physically building the robot.
me being one of them.
so far i personally have logged approx 130 hours.
Its nice to know that you built it. and that you know that it will work for sure
- Bochek
FIRST stands for “FOR INSPIRATION AND RECOGNITION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY” no where does it say anything about students building 100% of the robots.
I say whatever it takes to inspire the students, do it.
As has been said before, if you used anything (controller, gearbox, motor, etc.) from the KOP, you aren’t 100% student built. Engineers built the items in the kit.
That said, have you tested your design yet? I think you’d hate to get to your first regional and find out that the robot doesn’t work, forcing you to call for reinforcements from the other teams. (And I bet that some of those extra hands will belong to engineers.) Test it now, rebuild it now, and find out why it failed if it fails.
If nothing else, you should have one engineer to figure out where you screw up when you do something wrong. An illustration: I mentored a Lego League team two years ago. The students were all rookies. The robot had trouble coming away from one mission. I looked at the “code” they had carefully and, lo and behold, I found out why they weren’t consistent coming out. They’d put a right turn in with the left wheel forward instead of the right wheel backward, causing them to jam into the field element they were trying to work with. I showed them how to fix it (or how I fixed it, I forget which) and told them to consider it a learning experience. This is what the mentors are for–preventing or fixing student errors that cost the team time or money.
100% student built is not necessarily a good thing. 95% student built means that you have a mentor who will help you to do better.