Robotics teacher support

Technical Robotics Education and Curriculum
1

Are there any public school teachers out there that might want to discuss the challenges of running FIRST teams in small, rural schools? This is hard. All the technical challenges are fun as is introducing STEM to kids.

The hardest part is getting kids to rise to the challenge of an intense schedule and complex project. We are in a town of 2000 three hours from the nearest Home Depot with 100 kids in the entire high school. Every student is in multiple extracurricular programs.

We run this as a class with after school sessions five days a week during build season. We have few if any technical mentors available, virtually no mentors that can show up during school, and few that will make time in their evening schedule for robotics.

My goal is to introduce STEM and provide an exploratory path to those with an interest in tech. My only competition goal is to show well, build a robot that excels at our basic strategy, and hopefully get selected for an alliance in our regional event. It is not about winning or world.

I am constantly self-checking myself to ascertain my location on that fine line between teaching engineering and guiding them towards solutions that they might not come up with themselves. If I don’t have one student that sees the entire picture and takes leadership, I feel like the only one holding the roadmap. I fear I am just issuing work assignments more as a project leader than as a trail guide.

Those of you at bigger schools probably have kids that live and breathe robotics with this as their main or only extracurricular. My kids do everything. Last year, our main mechanical fabricator and lead driver was also the quarterback of the 6-man football team.

We are doing better this year. I am assigning areas of responsibility to each student to make them feel like integral parts of the team. All major decisions (strategy, drivetrain, etc) are done with the team. Every small decision is done with one or a few students working one on one with me or independently. We are in better shape than last year. Still, I wish that there was a bit more leadership and big-picture thinkers. It is really hard to stay on top of all things FRC without something falling through the cracks.

If anybody has suggestions or wants to commiserate, please do.

Rob
BSEE, MSEE, 3rd year robotics instructor Marfa ISD, Texas
FRC 5771 (2014)
FTC 10302 (2015)
FLL 23227 (2016)
FLL 27521 (2016)

2

We’re based at a large rural school (The nearest Lowe’s is 45 minutes away) While we don’t face obstacles quite as extreme as yours, running an FRC team in a rural location has many challenges that are different from those in urban and suburban areas.
Student transportation is one of our larger challenges. Some of my students live nearly 50 miles from each other. Car pools and ride sharing help with that a lot.
Convincing mentors to drive for 45 minutes to an hour to get to the shop is also a large burden to overcome. Luckily we are blessed with several talented and dedicated mentors who are willing to sacrifice their time to help us out. But it always comes up as an impediment when we are trying to recruit new help.

Let me know what you’d like to discuss. I’m more than happy to “download” any info I have that you might find useful.

3

Rob,

I just spent all summer restructuring my team from pretty much zero. If you want to pm me and I can share what I put together and what we are doing im more than willing to help.

4

Hi Rob,

I’ll first admit that I’m in Houston, in a large school district and about 10 minutes from a Home Depot. So I won’t be offended if you want to toss out all my input.

I do feel some of your pain. It can be tough to appropriately straddle that fine line you referenced. I have changed from thinking about how much I influence the design, to how accountable do the students feel for the success of the robot and team. As long as the students feel accountable for the successes of the team, than I’m happy to be working just as hard as the students on design and showing them what can be done based on what they can understand rather than what is something they could have come up with (based on their more limited experiences). If they don’t feel accountable I’m re-evaluating my actions as to why they may be depending on me to do work rather than trying to solve the problems for themselves.

I think an important thing for y’all this year (without really knowing nearly enough about your team) is to know that Hub City this year is going to be a very tough regional. Almost every good team from Texas, a world champion from Illinois, and a good team from CA are all there (and that’s without me looking too close at the rest of the field). I’d recommend making sure that your team members have their goals set around if your robot completes the tasks you set out to do. Being a smaller regional, and hopefully having lots of teams that are scouting well will mean that if you successfully implement your strategy reliably you’ll hopefully be picked - but if team goals are centered around making the playoffs, I think that’ll be a harder task this year than the last 2 years. But if your goals are centered around being able to score # of pegs, or put # of balls in the boiler in 80% of matches, the team can recognize your own success rather than worry about comparing to others. It sounds like you’re already doing that, but I’d make sure to make it explicit.

I’d also make sure to encourage you to make sure that your students go check out some of the awesome robots that will be in attendance and ask how it works. Seeing some of these designs up close and how they work is often what gets someone “hooked” into really making this their priority club.

All of that’s easier said then done.

5

I know this tune. We have 19 kids on our team this year; this past Saturday the sixteen of them on the swim team were at competition rather than building a robot.

We rather consistently run with only 4-8 kids at any given time, and technical mentors are hard to keep (they keep moving away as the Western New York economy collapses.)

Which is okay, if that’s the level your team is at that year.

The law of small numbers will bite you, here. Some years you’ll have insanely dedicated, super-smart kids who go crazy on all things FIRST. Others it will be like pulling teeth to get kids to show up, and to get those who show up to put in any work.

My suggestion is to get 7th and 8th graders involved as early as possible. Pull in kids (and possibly mentors) from nearby districts. Partner with Boy/Girl Scouts, 4H, Rotary, etc.

Patrick

6

Team 103 has had a rural support network for as long as I can remember:
http://www.cybersonics.org/tabs/ruralsupport/ruralsupport.php

7

How about trying to run a FTC program? Then you can attract down to Grade 7.

When you have enough kids and mentors, you can try to convert the High School FTC to an FRC program. That will leave you with a Jr High FTC program to feed the FRC program.

8

Why not let 7th and 8th graders on your FRC team?

We call it our “shadowing program”–they can do anything while at home, but at competition they scout.

9

Are they “team members” (sign up through TIMS)?

10

This and more… we move kids from FLL to FRC as soon as they are mature and ready. Which means we have two sixth graders on our team this year. One is our milling expert, the other works with the awards team.

Running an FLL team in the fall is a great way to fill the pipeline of kids that are motivated and get FIRST by the time they are on your FRC team.

11

We do as well, but as full team members. We ask that a parent be there as a mentor if they are under 13.

One student who started as a 7th grader has been a driver since 8th grade (so this is his 3rd year, and he could have 2 more).

12

Rob,

Looking forward to seeing you guys again this year at Hub City again this year.
I know your pain as a teacher since I was raised in a small West Texas town.
DM me and we talk about how we can help you guys from Austin here.

Engage those middle schoolers and make them part of your team.

Norman

13

Yes.

14

This. Students cannot be expected to design in an optical sensor subsystem to detect reflective tape if they have never heard of a photodiode. If I don’t introduce the concept and explain the theory and give them parts to play with, then they have no auto and just align by camera. They are learning, documenting, and owning the results. I often wonder how the top tier teams manage this relationship when there are 25 engineer-brained mentors trying to share their ideas and experiences. At the end of the day, we win if that one student goes to college knowing how to wire and align a ring light, lens and photodetector assembly, win or lose at competition.

It’s just that fine line between leading them to a solution by asking them to name three ways to solve a problem versus suggesting a technique they have never seen.

15

Yes to all this. Sports really impacts our robotics programs. The kids love sports and they do everything in a small school. I just gotta roll with it.

I agree on 7th and 8th. I started an FTC team last year and two FLL teams this year. I joke that I am building my 2024 robotics team.

16

Thanks. Emailed them.

17

Thanks Norman! Nice to hear from you. I look forward to seeing you and your team in action again. They inspire our team. I’d like our teams to have a good relationship. They surely remember Team Appreciate. Mostly I need help inspiring the kids to be active leaders that take responsibility for their part with a sense of urgency. It’s the hardest thing for me to teach! Say hi to my sister Colleen in Special Ed Dept if you see her.

Rob

18

Does anyone have any solutions or suggestions for this aspect of mentoring? I’m having the same challenge with my team (urban-based). While they’re interested in robotics and show up each day, they don’t take ownership of any tasks and don’t exhibit any urgency in completing prototypes. No one is accountable to anyone else, either.

I’m struggling to explain this to them without sounding pessimistic. While I see the schedule slipping in my head, the students see themselves “way ahead of where they were last year”, which I don’t think is a great benchmark–especially if they have the potential to be so much better than they were last year.

19

I am sending you a DM for contact information.

Thanks for the kind words.

Leadership development is tough from year to year for us and always ongoing.

We have students coming from FTC as juniors and it is a huge learning curve for FRC. Sense of urgency is a struggle every year. Students do not understand that once they answer one question, they need to ask the next question rather be satisfied with the current state.

Norman

20

Lady Cans FRC 2881 had a similar issue 9 years ago. Girl Scout robotics team, not tied to any school or school district, after school, talkative girls, girls that are overly active in all school activities, yes insanity and frustration.

We began recruiting middle school girls that were waffling about staying in FLL, it took a while, but we have a good strong middle school base that can lift up the high schoolers.

Yes, 6th graders seem young, but if you find the right jobs and pair them with a good mentor and Junior Leader, then it is workable. They are great at prototyping in wood! Measuring & cutting bumpers is a perfect starter job, building field elements is a good starter job.

7th graders that have been to one competition have a good sense of what needs to be done and are more interested and are more focused.

8th graders are our core build group. Supervised by good mentors, our 8th graders are fantastic.

We have a very broad attendance policy. Middle schoolers have more time to come build than high schoolers. Didn’t know that at first but now it is a blessing.

Don’t be afraid of girls. Have each girl invite a friend. The girls know which of their friends are interested. Give the girls that show up REAL jobs. Don’t give them fluff jobs, that will be an insult and they won’t come back. Assume that the girls are smart and capable and teach them how to use the tools properly. If a girl asks you the same question twice…vary the choice of words.

Hope that helps.

Susie Rich
Lady Cans FRC #2881
Austin, TX