It’s an alumni pin. He confirmed this during the teams talk.
Thanks for the update. How did it go and what topics were discussed if you don’t mind me asking?
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Don’t mind at all, we recorded the conversation with a room camera, but wasn’t able to record our screen with OBS (school computers wouldn’t let us). We will be posting that after editing.
Topics discussed:
Vision for the near future:
He has 2 main goals. First lowering the barriers to entry for teams. This is partially the motivation behind the new KitBot and FIRST creating more documentation about how to do stuff, the build season planning timeline, etc. Goal 2 is to make the program worth more to the stakeholders. Stuff like credentials and certifications for Students and Mentors. Possibly doing a new case study about the impact FIRST has on School Districts and Communities, not just on students in particular. FIRST previous did a case study on that subject, but when it comes time for us to talk with our school admins or school boards it’d be great to come back with data they care about more. Does it help test scores, lower costs in other areas, stuff like that. It would help us all get more participation from our Beauracratic Overlords.
the reasons for the choice to make the FRC and FTC robot controller the same for both leagues after 2027/2028:
This is to help teams transition between the two easier. For example any students coming from FTC to FRC would be better trained on the main programming and control system but just changing power distribution, motors and the scale of the parts. The code of the robot doesn’t change and that’s huge. Many FRC teams mentor FTC teams so having students and mentors trained on how to setup a REV control system for FTC and then a different NI system for FRC is a lot to ask for. I agree having gone through this myself. This is a fantastic decision and done for the right reasons.
What made him choose to start working at FIRST after he was already in the field:
He saw an opening for Kit of Parts engineer and interview with Kate who had a vision for changing the K.O.P. from the 2000 era style to something better in the 2010s and beyond. They at that time worked to introduce the vouchers, digital KOP, and trying to get away from 1 generic box of parts teams may or may not use. The fact that he met with his would be boss and got to understand the Vision she had for that department sold him.
What skills learned in FIRST were applicable to his career and positions he’s had:
This was a dual layered question because there’s the raw technical skills and then the teamwork skills. Bokh sets applied in his time at Bastian and other places. Learning how to work with FRC vendors and parts meant they had other options when they needed a new part. He was familiar with Andymark hardware so for some applications they would use FRC parts in industrial applications. You use what you know and like. The people and teamwork skills were key. As he said to us, many times you are working in the field and you don’t get to pick your coworkers, the customer, the situation and you all have to buckle down, work together in stressful situations and still get the job done as professionals. That’s something you can’t teach students in any other place but FRC or team sports.
What impact winning a FIRST scholarship had for him and how it affected his decisions in College:
The scholarship was great for him, but he had already decided he was going to go to Perdue either way. The scholarship let him focus on his studies and not have to worry about trying to work during school or having a massive loan to pay off afterwards. One wrinkle was the GPA requirement attached to it. He tried to mentor a rookie team for one semester but his grades suffered. Because he didn’t want to lose the scholarship he stepped back to volunteering and got his grades back on order. So in some ways if he didn’t have the scholarship he may not have made that same decision and he may not have gotten to where he did if he let his grades fall.
How his career at FIRST has evolved over time:
He’s had a variety of positions and technically left FIRST for a short bit. When he first joined he moved his family to New Hampshire to work at HQ. At that time there were not really any remote positions available or a way to facilitate it. He was originally from Indiana. When his first kid was born he left FIRST for a short time to be back near family in Indiana. He missed First too much and kept looking for ways to go back while not leaving home again. Finally a position with FLL as a project manager let him get back in as a remote worker and the rest has been that way since. In his time as well other regions and districts have grown and they also have employees and positions in their organizations. He is very close with Indiana First and in our teams case there’s First in Michigan. So if you don’t want to move cross country there’s options out there that weren’t there before.
What subteam was he on:
Mechanical, but he has a great respect and healthy fear of electrical. As he also pointed out nowadays there are very few purely mechanical systems made. Most will connect to electricity and talk to sensors or networks. Understanding how your physical parts need to work to facilitate that is key and learning about other disciplines is good. Mechanical gave him a very broad perspective of how it all gets to go together. That made him decide that for his Major at Perdue as well.
What are the best ways for a struggling team to improve:
Finding a veteran team to visit, sit in on a meeting with and see what they do differently. Find local teams to communicate with and try to collaborate when you can. Find mentors in non-technical fields and technical fields. You need more mentors that you can ever find and there is applicable knowledge in each and every one of them.
If I can think of the other topics I’ll add em here. I’ll also try to jot down his answers as well. Might be worth a topic all its own once the video is done
My summaries are from memory and paraphrased. He was much more eloquent and it’d be best to watch the video probably. But seriously I was impressed by his knowledge and vision. Talking with him gave me confidence we have a good leader who had been exactly where we were as students and gets it. Gets it more than I think many of the original staffers ever could.
Even Dean, Woody, Frank, (the other names that belong here) were not students in the program. Chris Rake even with his extensive technical experience from his time at NI, wasn’t a student on a team. It’s a different experience being an adult leader managing/working in an organization built around students vs being one of the students all grown up. You can’t get people like Collin who lived it, until it’s been around for awhile and they work their way up through the organization. I’m glad we have someone with that perspective in the mix.
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Thanks!
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To further add on:
I had given the students a “Crash Course on Collin” the day before. This was part of the worksheet along with a guide about trying to create good interview questions. This came directly from a FIRST blog post
Facts About Collin:
- Started on FRC team 234 as a student
- Attended Purdue University on a FIRST Scholarship
- Earned BS in Mechanical Engineering
- Worked for Rolls-Royce
- Intern after graduation
- Full time project engineer
- Worked for Bastian Solutions
- Material Handling Solutions
- Same industry as Coach Siefen* (Mobile Robots and Application engineering)
- Material Handling Solutions
- Working for FIRST (2010 to Present)
- Kit of Parts Engineer
- FRC Team Advocate
- FLL Project Manager
- Stewardship Manager
- FRC Sr. Program Director and Interim Director
- Volunteering for FIRST
- Emcee & Game Announcer (FRC)
- Robot Inspector (FRC)
- Judge (FLL & FTC)
- FIRST Indiana
- Joined the board in 2015 for 4 years
- Served as president for 2 years
- Joined the board in 2015 for 4 years
- Helps Coach FLL Challenge and FLL Explore teams
- Earned his MBA from Indiana University
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Sounds like Collin expects WPILib to take on the support burden of FTCFIRST Tech Challenge officially. Beyond the work to support the new robot controller, the expansion of features like the DriverStation class will be interesting to watch.
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Again that’s a summary on my end. Double check what was said in the full interview (as soon as its posted). I would assume its not gonna be a drop in replacement for all code. For example there are 0 CTRE products for FTC. All CTRE code is managed by them with some crossover code for compatibility with WPIlib. I imagine whatever the new control system is will still work in a similar manner. The main focus was on the setup, troubleshooting and training being the same. Code being more similar is an assumption to go along with it.
As far as who is responsible for the libraries I would assume that’s a discussion as part of the RFP and approval process for whoever wins the controller contract. It could be REV as they have the furthest head start on both modern FRC and FTC control system components.
Naturally the vendor libraries would be different, especially since IIRC FTC is mainly PWM and will likely stay that way. Nevertheless, expanding WPILib for FTC use on the same controller, given the fairly similar gameplay structure, would be probably worth the effort from a FTC->FRC skill transfer perspective and an FTC software capability perspective.
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Finally got the recording edited
We couldn’t record our screen so a camera in the room did the best it could. The battery died a few times so one or two parts get interrupted. We typed out what questions were asked because it was hard to hear them otherwise.
Seriously worth a watch for anyone coming into FIRST. He laid out alot of great advice for new teams, people thinking about making teams, etc. Veteran teams who know what FIRST is like will appreciate the direction his is moving us in I think and will really like hearing about the RFP portion, and his vision for the future.
I seriously wish we could’ve just gotten the screen cap and that one student didn’t have to move every 2.5 seconds /s but otherwise this is how everyone else in the room experienced it. I’m glad we were able to capture it somehow
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