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Watching a FIRST Competition Robot Being Built (Video)
We have shown clips from FIRST Robotics Competitions before on Slashdot, with a concentration on the Dexter Dreadbots because they're the "home team" for Slashdot's home office in Michigan. Today we hear from team mentor Jennifer Bryson and watch as the team works on their 2014 competition robot. They need to have it finished by February 18, so they're in the home stretch of the robot-building task. The competition itself starts on February 28 and keeps going until the world championships are held during the last weekend in April. The Dreadbots did well last year. This year? Who knows. But win or lose, it's all For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, AKA FIRST, also AKA "The ultimate Sport for the Mind." And if you're not near Ann Arbor, MI, check for a FIRST competition near you. It's an international organization, so you're likely to find one -- and if you don't, perhaps you can help start a FIRST team where you live.And for those of you who don't see the video below, here's a link to it.
That why I usually prefer the BEST competition. Very similar events, but BEST puts everyone on the same playing field. http://best.eng.auburn.edu/wor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
Slashdot's home office is in the Murder Mitten?
My son is on the Dreadbot team, the one in the video. Last year was his first year, too. The team is only four years old and is not well funded, but we managed to get into the world championships last year and make almost all the way to the top of our division. For the record, we're not particularly well funded; we had to beg for money from local businesses so we could afford to go to the state and world competitions. I know some teams get a lot of funding and mentoring from big engineering companies, but a talented team can go a long way without that.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I participated in this program in 1996-1997, in Manchester, NH. Since the program was founded by Dean Kamen (of Segway fame) - and his offices were based in Manchester - the program was pretty big there.
At the time, my team was sponsored by PSNH (electric co.) - as a result, I learned a lot about engineering, and programming.
I really see it as a major influence in my decision to ultimately go to engineering school.
While it looks like the team now has a new sponsor ( http://powerknights.com/ ) - and they no longer go to EPCOT for national competitions, like they once did - it is great to see that this program is still active, and vibrant, since it really offers so much more than a "battlebot" type program.
Kudos to all the sponsors, and mentors out there.
"MODULE ERROR. Problem downloading the player. Please check your internet connection."
Uh, right. My Internet connection is just fine, thank you.
I helped mentor a first time high school team for the smaller FIRST Tech Challenge - FTC Block Party a couple of months ago and even that was a blast. We built a smaller 18" robot for collecting and dumping 2" bricks into baskets and doing a couple of other higher point challenges such as a flag raise and a pull up out of Lego MindStorms and Erector like Tetrix pieces. We did pretty good coming in 3rd out of 11 teams considering it was our first time ever at a robotics competition.
I hope they can eventually step up to the full size FIRST Robotics Competition at some point. We also had a guest team demonstrate their last year's Frisbee throwing robot at the event and it was pretty cool as well.
Nevermore.
FIRST of all (see what I did there), as a mentor on a 5th year team, I can understand some of the frustrations being voiced in here. However, if you're spending $10k on your 'bot, then you are about $6k over the limit set for spending, and that must mean you are fudging your Bill of Materials. We have never gone over on cost, and we made it to World Championships our rookie season with a shoestring budget and only 6 kids on the team.
As far as Mentors doing the work goes, while we do help on our team, we make sure the kids do the vast majority of the work, as well as all concepts. Will we steer them in the right direction if they are way off? Of course, that's our job as mentors. But our job is also to get these kids to take ownership and motivate them to complete the work on time. This season, we tried 3 seperate concepts, mocked up and tested them all, and have completed fabrication with a week to spare ( which was a first for us). I will be the first to admit the teams with huge budgets have an advantage due to what they can do in the off-season, but the most disappointing thing to me is walking around at competition and seeing nothing but mentors working on robots in most of the pits.
I too get frustrated at the lack of availability of places to get parts, but I have also spoken to teams that used to have to scour the internet and obscure places to find what they were looking for. Is it a cash cow for places like AndyMark and Vex? Sure, but I'm not going to hate on them for being entrepreneurs. Kinda what built our country.
If mentors are doing all the work, then you're not recognizing the entire point of FIRST. That's why the Chairmans Award is more prestigious than winning the tournament. Sounds to me like there are some teams that really need to look at "Gracious Professionalism" and what it means to them. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons, then you're just another parent building the pinewood derby car for them, or the youth sports coach more interested in a winning record than actually teaching the kids to play a sport. In short, I think there are some "mentors" out there who are missing the point.
Make no mistake, I'm not sitting here with rose-colored glasses. Are there things that can be improved? Absolutely. That, too, is out job as mentors. Speak up. Give a solution for the problems, don't just vent about it. Anyone who has been around me knows I don't shy away from "sharing" my opinion. But they also know I won't complain without providing a possible solution as well.
-Matt Jenkins, Team 3352
(And I wrote this on my phone, so I apologize for any typos)
Here you go: http://tv.slashdot.org/video/?...
Allow me to dissent. Let me also note that we won Regionals and then State and are headed to World/Globals in St Loius in April.
There is no funding for us other than $100/kid. That is less than an 8 game Rec Soccer league. A couple parents bought the Mindstorm and then the EV3.
The robot score is a small part of determining who wins. We finished 16th in robot scores. The FIRST part about your presentation is the big thing if you want to win.
We told all kids/parents that all coding (every line) must be done by kids. All presentation material must be done by kids. The interviews at competitions reveal teams that cheat. Maybe that's why we won, but we have exceptional kids! We teach them how to run things and get organized. We ask questions, but cannot tell them what to do or how to do it. We can show them resources that will help. Not every team has these rules.
Your team needs good mentors. That should still be OK in the world. FLL isn't about throwing some parts at kids, locking them in a room, and seeing what they come up with.
In short: stop whining. Stop focusing on the robot score. And, get busy.
http://i141.photobucket.com/al...
I'm not going to go all F.B. because I'm not a sailor, but as a techie site this definitely looks silly.
I refuse to sign
tma;dw
Your post being offtopic aside, if you really mean what you are saying and aren't just engaging in elaborate trolling, send everything you posted to: feedback@slashdot.org with Beta Feedback in the subject line. They really do take such emails seriously. I've been on Slashdot since 1997 - hell, I even remember Chips n' Dip. And I will admit that the beta site is starting to grow on me. I sent them an email a few days ago about what I like and don't like and Timothy (I think it was Timothy) emailed me back the very same day. So the bottom line is, this is not the place to be communicating the content of your post. Copy and paste it into an email and click send.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Ok, just curious spike, are you actually a part of FIRST or just frustrated with STEM as a whole? Because I can guarantee that is not what is happening with our team. And if so many mentors are so unhappy with the program, then why are you in the program? This whole thing is voluntary.
> Watch the video - "companies hire first kids because of their experience." That is a good example lie. No company is going to hire into > robotics, a kid with just a high school diploma. f people are hiring for a factory, a kid who has been in FIRST will be picked over a kid who has not. As to Engineering and Robotics, most of the kids from FIRST continue on into College and after obtaining their degree, My company, and many other companies I know, will hire these kids fresh out of college, because they have that extra experience of designing and building robots. > To be competitive you MUST lie about your costs, and your mentor MUST do the majority of the work. The kids are only there for > appearance, sponsored by the mommies and daddies with the most money. My frustration with the whole program is more those who look in and think this is a RICH kid's program. I guaranty that our small team does not have very many "Rich" kids. Factory worker's kids, Law Enforcement Kids, Farmer's Kids, Teacher's Kids ... THOSE are not the RICH kids. The team I am with was build from scratch and when the first robot was built they had NO money left to even go to the world championship competition after they had won their first competition and earned the right to advance. The Sponsors picked up the bill. Oh, and these kids also participate in the 4H Program, and the Boy and Girl Scouts too.
Is FIRST perfect? Not by a long shot, but this competition makes these kids learn how to problem solve on a budget, learn to work as a team, learn to market their team to the community, and sooooo much more.
Go Flaming Monkeys
Charles Libby
Mentor Team 3352
If you're worried about who wins you're kind of missing the point.
You seem to be comparing FLL with FRC. Here's a dose of reality. This does not include the money for the Bot itself, which can be up to 4000 dollars http://www.usfirst.org/robotic...