So the two eternal questions await you:
Where do you build the robot???
AND
Does your team’s students actually build the robot?
We build our robot at the high school metals shop and YES the students on our team actually build it. (with a little help from the engineers and machinists of course!)
The reason I ask these two simple questions is I want to know where people build thier robots(obviously) AND I want to see how many teams actually have the students build the robot or just have thier robot built by engineers and then have a litteral “crash course on driving” when the robot is finished???
You can definately tell the teams who had the engineers totally build it and give it to the students, just by talking with some of the students . I think this approach is wrong! The robot should be almost totally student built!(with a little help from the engineers and machinists of course!)
Despite what some people assumed about our team last year, our robot is built about half and half between mentors and students. Students do a LOT of the fabrication. The area we work in is a small garage bay in the back of our school, but we also do some machining at NASA. There’s another thread around here somewhere about construction rooms, but I’m too lazy to find it.
*Originally posted by Elgin Clock *
**You can definately tell the teams who had the engineers totally build it and give it to the students, just by talking with some of the students . I think this approach is wrong! The robot should be almost totally student built!(with a little help from the engineers and machinists of course!) **
hopes this thread won’t turn into a which is more in the spirit of FIRST discussion/argument and that it doesn’t cause tempers to go like it always does.
Team 86 builds in a garage shop in one of our adult member’s back yard. We have all the tools we need, nut of course would love more, and our students build most of the robot. some things are done my the adults at night if we get behind so that something else can get started and progress can continue while students are at the shop rather than having them stand around.
*Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan *
** hopes this thread won’t turn into a which is more in the spirit of FIRST discussion/argument and that it doesn’t cause tempers to go like it always does. **
You know me, would I ever do that?
Team 111 has a small room at Motorola right next to the model shop where we do all our building & assembly. Take a right, another right, then a left, and a right and you’re at our playing field.
The students and engineers sit down and together come up with a strategy, concept, & high level design. The detailed & individual parts design is done by engineers. The precision machining is done by machinists. The ‘slop’ machining is done by students and engineers. The assembly is done by students. Students can always sit in with the engineers & machinists and observe / ask questions / offer suggestions on parts of the process where they’re not the key players.
Elgin, before you make huge assumptions about a team’s student involvement, make sure you get the whole story. Many teams are large and some students never touch the robot because they’re on Chairmans, yearbook, animation, web, or some other subteam that doesn’t build the robot. Be sure you’re talking to the right people when forming conclusions. There’s a lot more to FIRST than designing parts & turning screws.
And since I always like to get people thinking & talking, I’ll stur the pot a little. A general observation I’ve had that isn’t aimed at anyone in particular: some teams with mostly student designed / built bots have an aura of arrogance about it, and that has no place in FIRST.
Our team finally got a little space in one og the high schools. We still use the equipment we bought our first year buying some new things every year and even use the tables we made out of stuff we found dumpster diving. Yup, we were that poor our first year.
For building it, I think it’s 60% student, 40% college mentors. There is almost 1:1 ratio of students to mentors on our team, so a lot of what goes on looks like we’re building it, but really we’re teaching them how to do things. Unfortunately, some of us mentors are more commited then the students.
I wish we had enough people to have a whole group to do the Chairman’s Award. All we have on it is me, two students, and two other mentors. Every single one of us are building as well.
We have the loan of part of a small building. It has about 7 rooms one of which is fairly large. We hold meetings in it. It’s been very nice as we do not have room at school. We are short space period at school. Building program should break ground in a couple of months.
We are trying to have students do as much of the building as possible. As a rookie team we have a lot of kids learning about this sort of thing for the first time. We hope that kids will be able to do even more next year. Eventually we “adults” would like to just sit around and watch.
There is a complete spectrum here. The most important letter in FIRST is “I” for inspiration. Some teams achieve this by having mentors and engineers do most of the designing and building while students learn on the side. Others have an “only high school students touch the robot” approach. FIRST does not say one is better than the other – nor should they.
Our team consists of about 50 students, 2 HS teachers, 7 college students and one college professor/engineer. (We have an occasional parent in to help on weekends.) Everyone does “administration” type jobs, everyone designs and fabricates. The non-high school people tend to keep as much of a hands off attitude as we can.
We do nearly all of the fabrication at our school’s metal shop, but some work is done at the college.
Our sponsor Conoco lets us have a building on the complex that is not occupied any longer so that is great. No room in the school system. We only have common shop tools there hand tools and we finally have a stand up drill press. All of our precision maching is done off site at various shops in town, we have the students go with us to talk to the guys when we have work done. We we fab we “try” to let the students do as much as they can. some are better than others but it is not a perfect world. We do stress that it is thier ideas that matter.
I have sort of a unique outlook on this subject, and I still don’t have an official position. In 1999 I started an all student team at my high school. This was after three steady years of corporate sponsorship including 3-dimensional services, lear Corporation and General Motors Truck Group. My decision was based on team dynamics and an eagerness to try it on my own. It just so happened that we did extremely well that year, seeding six at nationals and placing 4th overall…we lost to wildstang and technokats in the semis.
I went to college the next year, and we started a team. Now I was the engineer. I had a whole team of students, and I was still a “kid” myself. There were four college students including myself, all former firsters, and about ten high schoolers. The team has grown since then…we add new firsters every year when they get on campus.
The point here is this. Our robots are almost exclusively engineer designed and built, partly due to restrictions like working in a college machine shop where students aren’t allowed, and long nights when students usually have class early. Mostly though this fact is due to lack of high schooler interest.
I grew up with first. It’s a huge part of my life, and I feel that it will remain so for years. We’ve yet to get a steady group of students who share the fever. Many are too busy to dedicate the hours, and most are pulled in a dozen other directions already…when the eager students arrive and want a hand in things, then they shall have all of the control they want. I try to excite them about it every year, so far with minimal success. The upper peninsula of michigan is far different than any other place in the world(from my perspective).
Until we get some guys and gals who want the first experience as much as we did, we’ll build their ideas and hopefully produce a champion along the way!
Here’s the skinny on how GRT builds it’s bots:
We have a very nice facility on our campus, comprised of a lab where we assemble our robot, a shop where we machine it, and a classroom that becomes our playing field.
We fabricate about 95 percent of our parts. there are a few things that we are not able to do, b/c some of the tools are like pre-1960. We do a lot on our own, which means we mess up more often.
good luck with your robot.
The TechnoKats build our bot at our lovely shop that is “donated” to us by a very gracious partner Cinergy PSI (power company), our shop is actually part of a warehouse that isnt being used. At our shop we have enough machines to build almost every part possible that would be needed…and if we need an even more precise part we have students at our schools “career center” make them in their machine shop.
We are in an old auto shop that was gutted a while back when Fairdax county decided to put all the ‘vocational’ classes at one school. It was made into the drama room, and then band took half for storage. We now have a quarter, band has a quarter, and drama has half of what was a three door auto shop. So we had the floor to stick in the lathe, mill, bandsaw and two drill presses.
Almost all of the fabrication is done by students, with the ocasional enginner helping, or making a part at home (dave, who doesn’t count as an engineer). The enginners help with drawing out what we have invisioned, and somethings NOT to do (Whatever you do, don’t cross the streams) but the ideas come from the students, who then fabricate it.
we build our robot in the tech wing of our school and the tech ( a local tech school). the students build almost everything. we are a part of every design process and if a mentor builds something there is always a student observing.
I applaud all of the above teams for their candor and think that this was the intention of FIRST, students working WITH engineers/coaches/advisors. The real problem here is- the teams who receive crated robots, manufactured COMPLETELY by some sponsor, will never have the guts to say so in this thread, and if they did, how could they ever justify it. Where’s the learning curve for the students.
It can never be regulated (honestly, that is) because students are already supposed to be taking part in design and construction and those teams who aren’t allowing it now will continue to have a “best-robot-at-all-costs” mentality in the future.
Our robot (StART team 506) is built almost entirely by students. I’d say 90-95% of it is student built and about 97% student designed with occasional engineer modification suggestions.
We are a bit low on both space and resources. We build our robot in a physics classroom in our school. We have to completely clear it out each night for the next days classes and then take everything out again after school to build and work more. Our most presice tool is probably our countertop drillpress.
I admit I would love to have some of the tools that the teams with machine shops have access to, or at least a room to leave stuff out in, but it is interesting to see how much we can do with what we have. Last year (our rookie year) we placed 3rd out of 13 rookies and 17 out of 33 overall.
I know someone mentioned they don’t want this post turning into a “spirit of first” type thing but I do feel that competition and winning aside, doing the work with little help from engineers is more enjoyable and more interesting than having a marvelous robot that was almost totally built by engineers. As far as i’m concerened the true objective is to have fun any way possible so long as it does not prohibit or decrease the fun of others involved.
We (Team 360) build our robot at Metal Marine Pilot (they make autopilots for boats)
We have access to a large assembly line, so we have electrical components, building components, basically everything. We also have a machine shop and everything. hehe
Students (like myself) build the robot, we also have a ■■■■■■■ advisor (Stoke - Dawg) who works with us =)
The Sea Dawgs build at Lincoln High School, and a student member’s house (she has a mill, lathe, etc. in her garage). The students are doing almost all of the building. The only things they aren’t building are our wheels. Our sponsor, Applied Materials, made our wheels. The students also do al of the assembly.
we build the robot (we being the college students). the high school students are ninnies: lazy, ritalin underdosed, or unmotivated, or even undependable.
i believe they prefer a “winning robot” than one built by hs students.
furthermore, none of the students are able to actually meet during the late hours, which is when the engineers meet.
if it were up to them, i’d laugh (and also be on the slopes rather than at the shop during my weekends).
-anton
ps. in the end, they do learn from the experience nonetheless.
Team 702 builds there robot at our high school. We stole the autoshop from all of the autoshop students that are too high to notice. They barely noticed that we moved a mill, laith, drill press, chop saw, and a band saw. I think they were to into watching day time tv. The ENTIRE robot is student built, our advisor points out that engineers are not there to do your work only point out your mistakes. And laugh.
Our robot is built at our school and it is done mainly byour mentors but we students weigh heavily on the desighn and desighn process. We also help build .
**