I would like to challenge all teams to have at least one Mentor receive RI training and volunteer to do first-day inspecting at every event you attend.
Everyone will get inspected sooner
The workload per inspector will be lighter
Your team will be able to effectively check your own robot before inspections, letting you get through with fewer issues
This is a great challenge. We have one key mentor volunteering to inspect at two events (not ours) but we can do more.
We might be tight on mentors, but if we can’t train someone else up to inspect a legal robot per the rules, how are we expecting ourselves to build a legal robot?
Yeah… I should probably get around to “doing my part” at events.
I need to be careful about having my fingers in too many pots at once though. Whereas I successfully have managed to stay out of the pits as a mentor I have often been bogged down with Scouting/strategy stuff.
Probably best I pick and event that I am not competing at (as was mentioned):
Not just a mentor thin-ness thing. It’s an individual time thing too.
As an aside: anyone have an opinion on the ethics of using knowledge gained from robot inspections in your strategy meetings? I’m going to personally place that firmly in the “shouldn’t be used” category, but on the other hand: the pits are pretty open and most teams will let you have a pretty in depth look at their machine/talk you through it.
I would love to get this sort of influx of volunteers. Even if 3/4 of the inspectors were a “Thursday only” volunteer, it would be awesome and leave us with enough left over to handle inspection-related tasks the rest of the event.
And yes, Thursday-only inspectors are a thing! I’ve had a couple of them at most of my events over the years. Sometimes they get pulled off into other volunteer roles (I once inspected Thursday and then judged the rest of the event!), other times they go back to their team.
I think a lot of mentors don’t realize that they can both help out by volunteering with the event AND spend the majority of event with their team, since if given an either/or choice they would preference spending the time with their team. Helping with inspection and set-up/tear-down are a great way to help the event run smoother while still being available to support your team directly during ‘match play’ time.
This is a great challenge that I feel as though 90% of teams can definitely do. Even if a single mentor or dedicated parent can volunteer, it makes a huge difference during the rush that is over 30 teams all waiting to be inspected. Because of this we try to have any mentor who doesn’t have a dedicated job inspect on the first day of load in.
When trying to sell robot inspecting to our mentors I always talk about.
It makes you a better mentor just seeing how other robots get built.
It makes you more active in your local first community.
It will allow you to inspect your own team better before you go to competitions.
It allows you to look close at other robots at your competition.
You can definitely inspect the first day then mentor the rest of the competition.
You will help a lot because it relieves a lot of the stress off the inspectors there.
Love this, love all of this. My usual role of key pit mentor might limit me personally from inspecting at events my team is at, but would it be possible to still be trained as one so I can better understand how the process works so my team can be better prepared for it?
You shouldn’t be allowed to inspect your own team just like I couldn’t be a judge for my team. Conflict of interest. That being the case you can inspect your neighbor and they can inspect you, which would be great.
I typically am a “Thursday” inspector at the events that we compete at and I have to say that there have been times that items seen during inspection do bias how our picklist is formed, both positively and negatively.
I have not really ever thought of this as unethical or special knowledge that others cannot get that should not be used. Teams are typically open to any teams that would like to come by and look at a robot. Especially teams that know they need to be picked to keep playing. Even though you are typically a little deeper into the robot as an inspector many of the same items that are a green or red flags (bumper mounting/construction, wire management/ component placement) can easily be seen by anyone who takes a look at their robot in the pits, or has watched matches.
I defer to Al and Chuck and other LRIs for the formal training procedure, but in my experience:
Pass the RI test (when it is released)
On-the-job training at your first event
For those who state that we have “paper and pen and we can take notes” - not always. There’s a tablet system that I have used, everything is electronic. Even the rules.
If you want to take notes, bring a notebook.
Juggling the tablet and all the other stuff I usually carry (tape measure for frame perimeter/height, handy 3D printed “bumper measuring tool”, jumper wires to bypass compressor, examples of wire gages, flashlight) is no easy feat.
Have pockets or a good backpack.
A pair of “cheater” safety glasses come in handy too.
Riddle me this Batpeople. Will I, as a primary mentor for a team competing at said event, be allowed to be an RI according to the FRC rules? In our area, I am not allowed to be a judge at ANY event due to my affiliation with a team. The two reasons that are thrown around are conflict of interest and the desire to involve non FRC folks to increase awareness. Would this logic affect being an RI?
I can confirm. I put inspection as my first choice and queuing as second. I’ve only inspected on Thursdays. At Tallahassee this year, they’re planning to pull me over to queuing early Thursday afternoon.
Frankly the old standby of scouting bumpers is probably a good proxy for what a RI would see on the deeper dive. You most likely aren’t gaining any real knowledge beyond what is already apparent in from a 30 second once-over by someone who knows how to properly pit-scout.
My opinions are frankly a little influenced since I spent so many seasons in the cheesecake era. now that we are out of cheesecake (for the most part)… shrug
Fair point, a good start is to avoid assigning a RI to a team that they have any affiliation with, but the inspection process is a lot more open than the judging process. and frankly there is a point where you need to let the people who can volunteer actually follow through.
I’ve always worn some form of team identification while inspecting and often do events our team is attending. No one had had an issue with it. Obviously I stay clear of our team.