How many teams are 100% student built

FIRST General Forum
#33

First off I would like to say that many of these mentor/ student built threads are based only on a person’s mood at the time. Im sure that at some point people wanted to be 100% student or 100% mentor. I know that I have swayed back and forth on that.

However, the very important fact that everyone seems to forget is that FIRST is about learning. Personally I understand that there is a HUGE amount of information that one person can find and comprehend by themselves. But…the point of the matter is that even though they learn all these new things, there is still so much more that they can never even think of knowing.

Over the past three years our team has developed greatly and has gone from being built by enthusiastic students…to enthusiastic young adults. We began solely on the basis of building a robot, but we now understand that just building a robot is not enough. Personally I have learned an immense amount through my own experiences and research. On the other hand, the knowledge I have gained on my own cannot even come close to the amount of insight I have gained through talking with mentors, engineers and company owners.

This year I have taken a completely different look at how a robot should be designed and built. For the first time, we are making detailed CAD drawings and testing ideas both with prototypes and 3D CAD models. We also have taken the time to use physics and math to optimize weight vs. strength. In my opinion the most important aspect of this “design concept” is talking with engineers, not simply getting their ideas or having them look at yours. We have been able to use the engineers ideas to elevate our own and change things for the better.

It is my opinion that students MUST be involved in the design and build process, but it is EQUALLY important to involve mentors and engineers.

Jonathan Morgan
Team 1626

#34

Team 1726 is a second year team. Our rookie year, there were no mechanical engineers involved, the students did all the design and most of the building (with adult help for those things that required use of machines they could not use). The team was successfull, the robot worked, students and mentors (and parents) learned a lot, and people in our city became enthusiastic about robotics.

This year I’ve been poking my nose into the design process, teaching the students about how a mechanical engineer (me) thinks about design. I don’t want to make any decisions about the design or fabrication (aside from safety issues), but I am surely going to offer a lot of ideas (which are mostly the result of having experience), and I am doing what I can to teach the students how to figure out if a design is going to work or not…while it’s still in the concept or design phase. I’ve had to get out the books and learn and relearn a lot, and I’ve been really pleased to see some of the students eagerly soaking up quick lessons on how to calcluate moments of inertia, maximum stress due to bending, moments, CG, weight of materials given the dimensions, torque multiplication, what motor ratings mean, etc. None of these things were actually engineered in last years robot.

I’ve seen first hand that a 100% student designed and built robot can be competitive, and I have also seen first hand that high school students simply are not engineers…yet! This is a great opportunity to show them how to be an engineer (the short lesson). We are fortunate to have a few parent engineers, as well as two non-parent engineering mentors, a very enthusiastic teacher, and a great facility to work in.

#35

I usually do not post on these kinds of threads, but like someone before me has said these responses are mostly based on what mood you are in at the time. I just had a few questions for some of you.

Those of you that are part of a proud 100% student built robot:

1.) I was wondering what kind of relationship you have with your sponsors?

2.) When you graduate, and/if you decide to come back are you going to take no part in the build, even if it would help a student learn or better understand what he/she is doing. If you ask me I think to not teach a new student something that cannot be taught verbally is holding that student back which is doing more harm than good.

3.) Do you look down on teams that have a mentor or an engineer help them with their robot?

4.) What is your reason for not letting an adult help in the building of your robot.

I am not from a team that is 100% student built and let me tell you something I am proud of that. One thing I can tell you is that I learned more in my 4 years of FIRST by working side by side with engineers and mentors than I ever could have taught myself. By doing this they will help you learn how to work on a team that has its member at different levels of education. When you enter into the workforce dont you think it will feel good to know that you have helped bring the new generation students together with the current workforce? Now I am in no way supportive of a team that has a majority engineer/mentor built robot. But I will stand behind any team that has engineers teaching students the design/production processes, for these teams in my opinion have accomplished the purpose of FIRST.

#36

Gee RedBarron, after your above post it appears that you can almost hear the crickets chirping. This has been a good discussion with some good open ideas. If it does continue I hope that it remains that way. A responsible exchange of ideas is always a good thing.

#37

When my team started out in 03’ we were 100% student/parent built. But over the last 4 years we have been able to obtain more and more engineering help. Right now we have a solid group of 3-4 engineers and 3-4 college mentors who are really helping our team. Throughout this transition, I have been able to see the drastic impact that engineering mentors can have on a team. The level of efficiency and ability to get things ordered and accomplished has increased immensely with the addition of engineering mentor help. Plus, seeing someone who is actually in the engineering field getting really excited about the robotics program is really inspiring.

I guess, in conclusion…Yes, it is admirable to be 100% student built, but you are missing out on a large percent of what FIRST is about.

court

#38

Good Discussion guys. (Even though it has been hashed out let the newer members hash it for awhile.)

I am glad for however you get your robot on the field and develop some skills along the way.

With our group we are about 75% student designed and about 80% built by students. We do this for one because we can and we have a collection of great mentors. I know that some teams don’t have mentors at their disposal so they make do with what they have. Our students value the education and experience the mentors have that they have yet to achieve. At that point they step back and observe how things are done by professionals. To have respect for the process you are in right now, respect the knowledge around you by using it to your full advantage. By having the engineers involved you bring in industry standards, project management, and fresh ideas.

Anyway, good luck however you go about this. See you all in a couple of weeks

#39

I belive that adults should have some influence on the robots because they are older and wiser then some of our more… interesting students. And I’m not just saying that to be a suck up. But we are about 70%.

#40

This year’s bot I am very proud to say was 100% built by students. Not one single part was sent out of our own student team member’s hands. I am also proud to say that this year’s design not only beats every other year’s designs in both strategy, functionality, and “simple complexity”, as I call it, but it was also pretty much built with basic hand tools, with the exception of a drill press.

#41

Our team is 100% student, which I believe in. The main argument for mentor/engineer built is that the students will not learn any other way, but there are ways for kids to learn other than having someone else do the work for them. (Asking questions on this forum, for example)

#42

Team 195 is completely student designed and mostly student built. The only thing that isn’t being done by students is welding.

#43

I’d say our robot is more than 95% built by students, with the mentors making parts in order to show other students how to make parts, and the students then take over. Also, during the week we had finals, (and couldn’t work) our mentor made a couple parts for us, but they were things like bushings, not like our lift mechanism. The main components of the robot are completely student made, with mentors advising.

#44

114 is 100% student built, with the exception of the CNCing. All parts which are CNCed are 100% student designed though.

#45

Team 204 is 100% student run. We have our advisors who make sure nobody kills themselves :smiley: but other than that, we find travel arrangements, hotels, food, metal, machining, driving to get parts, ect. We are very proud to be a very competative team with zero help from any professional engineers or machinists. We all feel that by building the robot ourselves, it will only benefit us in the long run. Instead of “watching” how to build a roboti, we jump right in and do everything ourselves.

#46

I’ll answer these as I would have after my first season in FIRST, and as I feel now after a few years mentoring.

Then: Not much of a relationship. They sponsored us, but didn’t send any engineers, so we were really didn’t have an opportunity for mentoring anyway
Now: On my most recent team, it was about the same. Some of the sponsors were student’s parent’s employers, so the parents were there, but they would have been anyway. The other sponsors (school board) obviously couldn’t send anyone. Really, I’d call it about equal to my original high school team

Then: I probably would have said I was going to return, because in fact I did return to that team the very next year. I felt pretty guilty about every line of code I wrote or helped write outside of teaching C/C++.
Now: I still feel pretty guilty giving too much more detail beyond a general algorithm outline. I feel good teaching stuff they typically wouldn’t have learned in HS math or computer science courses, but I feel bad saying “alright, so this is exactly a method or algorithm that will work”.
3)
Then: Given a team that had any adult touch their robot at any point during build or competition, I would have thought they were, if not cheating, bending the rules of what was purportedly a high school competition.
Now: I mainly only dislike teams with pits full of adults, which is difficult to reconcile with my enjoyment of hanging out in the pit with the programming team begging to adjust code on the robot.

  1. Since my old HS team was primarily a fabrication-based team, the teachers view it as an extraordinary chance for the students to apply their manufacuring skills that they’ve been learning. Thus, there is little need for adult mentors seen, as all the senior students already know how to mill, lathe, drill press, and weld. Also, there was a strong view of the competition as a primarily high school competition, so teams with super-heavy mentor involvement were seen as bending rules. Plus, the students get a much better feeling of accomplishment after finishing a robot and knowing that they did it ALL.

So there are my answers to your survey. Right now I’m pretty fine with heavy mentor involvement, but primarily limited to teaching students how to use tools to get the job done. Whether those tools are lathes, hammers, algorithms, or math, that’s all good, just so long as the mentor isn’t the one implementing the code, fabricating the part, or designing the robot.

#47

Team 1501’s stand has always been student lead and built. The mentors are there for help / teaching, and advice.

A good example of this would be our Monocoque deisgn / construction. If it wasn’t very Jerry Smyth taking us under his wing and showing us what it was all about, and the concepts of it, and then how to apply those, we would have never started that way. Now, Jerry is still there teaching the new students, but unlike the first year of 1501, there is now senior students teaching new students.

Students make decisions on there own. For example, we had several robot design conceptions. So a mentor jumped in and set why don’t you use a voting system like this to vote on the designs and the strengths and weaknesses of it.

FIRST should always be about taking a students interests and letting them go with it and do what they like to do (with limitations of course), and if they don’t know how to accomplish something there is always a mentor there to help.

Personally I like seeing students have fun and gain knowledge from other students or mentors that they will use for the rest of their lives. There just does not seem to be any point on being a member of a FIRST team if the mentors are going to build it or do all the work, because what does the student learn then.

#48

  1. We are not sponsored by any professional engineering company’s, just local companies who are willing to help us out.

  2. After I graduate, if I do come back, I will not put a single nut or bolt on the robot. This is a highschool club and it will continue to be, I should not even do the slightest modification for the kids. Ill give them my suggestions and my input on the situation, but I wont touch the robot.

  3. I don’t look down on the teams that have engineers build their robots but I think that it is just unfair. There are some teams out there that have NO way of getting engineers to help them out so it is an unlevel playing field. I just dont see the point in having 20 students up in the stands while 10 grown men mess and fix the robot. Even though, I get great satisfaction when we blow out a team and 10 men run out onto the field yelling, picking up the robot and sprinting back to their pit with it.

  4. The reason we don’t let an adult touch our robot is because this is a HIGHSCHOOL club. If this was a community club, and any age could join, then I could understand, but this is for kids, in high school. I know that in the name, no where does it reflect that it is just for the kids, but are you really helping kids when you build a robot for them? When the kids grow up, dont you think one day they will be in the same situation again saying, man, wheres Mr. so and so, I dont know where to drill this.

Sorry if I came off to harsh, but this kind of thing really sets me off

#49

You might be setting up a “false dichotomy” here. That is where you look at a situation in black and white terms, ignoring the (much more likely) middle ground.

I fully agree that having 10 adults in the pits working on the robot, and 20 students in the stands, is not a desirable situation. But I also feel that having 10 students in the pits, and one adult sitting there keeping quiet, is just as bad. Either way, there is no student-mentor interaction. How about aiming for the middle ground? Having one mentor working with perhaps 3 or 4 students at a time, discussing a robot problem, and thinking of and anylyzing ideas to fix it, can get a lot done on the robot. It also provides a valuable educational experience for both the students and the mentor.

This “either-or” mentality seems to me to be quite the opposite of what FIRST is all about. Those people who support mentor involvement with the robot design and build are not suggesting that students stay out of the process. We all know the students should be as involved with it as they can be. But students are still students, and might be wise to use the knowledge and experience of the mentors. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

#50

FIRST is about partnerships and teamwork (as any team who has submitted a NASA grant knows). I love Woodie’s quote about the “robot being the campfire we gather around.” Mentoring is hard work, but can be one of the most meaningful experiences someone can have, for all parties involved. There is no blueprint for how to do a FIRST team, but it is always apparent by all these threads that there are a lot of mentors doing a heck of a job.
Maybe my definition is too broad but to me “100% student built” is not totally right unless the students are also doing all the fundraising, paperwork, shipping arrangements, travel, on and on. Which they are not. It takes a community to have a FIRST team, so be proud of what you have accomplished but recognize there are a lot of “non-students” who helped you get there.

#51

Bingo

#52

I am going to reply to this a second time because I believe my first post was misunderstood. I do not come from a team nor do I want to be on a team where the robot is engineer built. I believe that a engineer working with a group of 5-10 students where he/she is “HELPING” not “TAKING OVER” is o.k. When a student is stuck and cant figure it out, if the engineer goes over to help them than that is o.k. in my opinion, as long as they dont go over snatch the part up and put it on themselves. But if the engineer walks over and gives them advice or a description of how something goes on, then thats a lot better than if they were to sit there and say well I guess he/she will figure it out themselves or go on chief delphi and post a question while I sit here. Like I said before I believe that a student will learn far less by watching an engineer do the work, but I also believe that a student will learn more by working in a group of students that is working with an engineer.