Starting a Rookie FIRST Robotics Competion Team: Lessons Learned

FIRST For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology – is a global program that inspires students to learn and love STEM. FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) engages students in grades 9-12 to design and build a robot according to the competition specifications revealed at kick-off; marking the start of build season which lasts a little over six weeks. The students then travel to district events where a drive team of four students operates the robot; competing in numerous matches over a two-day period to earn ranking points and ultimately qualifying for the State Competition. FRC is an excellent hands-on activity that promotes intellectual and emotional growth for all students involved. The opportunity for learning is immeasurable thereby making participation in FRC highly desirable. There is a need for more teams in order to give more students this learning opportunity. Unfortunately, the demand for more teams is coupled with a deficit of mentors. Many adults feel unqualified to mentor for numerous reasons. It is hoped that by sharing lessons learned of five, successful rookie teams, more adults will realize their potential for mentoring and/or starting a FRC team. The 2016 FRC season was filled with excitement, a challenging competition design (FIRST Stronghold), and many talented youth, mentors, and leaders. This paper focuses on the lessons learned from five, successful rookie teams; analzying the data for common themes. The teams have provided lessons learned from the perspective of the lead mentors, specialized mentors, and the students; thereby creating a comprehensive list of helpful hints, techniques and strategies. A reminder, the FIRST competition is more than robots. It's about people, it's about learning to work together, it's working together toward a shared goal, doing teamwork, it's about finding and using each individual's unique talent to make the project team greater than the sum of its parts. It's about applying skills that will lead to success in whatever you do in life. John Abele, Chairman of the Board, FIRST Universities are increasingly partnering with FIRST by either sponsoring a team and/or hosting a regional event as a way to recruit top students. However, the program is very mentor dependent; i.e. it takes more than one adult to lead a team. Because we live in a society with a growing need to become more technologically literate, because FRC is very time dependent, because FRC is expensive, and because the first year can be very overwhelming, there is a shortage of mentors. For those willing to start an FRC team, there is a great deal of support as everyone is encouraged by FIRST to act with “gracious professionalism” and to engage in “coopertition” not only during build season and competition season but all the time. Veteran teams reach out to and support rookie teams not only with materials but with knowledge and guidance. This paper presents some of the knowledge that rookie teams return to the FIRST community. Methodology Five rookie teams from the 2016 season willingly provided their lessons learned for this paper. (See Appendix.) The teams were all from North Carolina and had submitted the lessons learned at the end of the season as fulfillment of the requirements for the Argosy Foundation Rookie Grant. The author had hypothesized that the lessons learned would be focused more on learning mechanical aspects; such as for each wheel, one must order a wheel hub which can be a 1⁄2” hex, a 3/8” hex, or a 1⁄2” round with 1/8” keyway. This in turn has to match the gearbox output shaft; another item ordered separately. Gearboxes can be ordered with several 4:1 reduction stages that can be combined to give 4:1, 16:1, 64:1 or 256:1 reductions. However, if more specialized reductions, such as 9:1, 10:1, or 12:1 are required, then planetary gearboxes can be ordered and assembled; making sure to order the ring gear which is separate from the gear kit and typically sells out half way through build season as do 3:1 gear kits and 5:1 gear kits. The latter being a lesson learned. Note that grease and bolts are not included and it does not state in the assembly directions that one must grease up all gears before attaching the gear box to the motor; another lesson learned. Once one decides what parts to order, then comes the question of which distributor is the best to order from. This is analogous to a potter throwing clay and successfully making a bowl only to then have to figure out which glazes to use. The lessons learned are listed in the Appendix. It can be noted that they did not include mechanical advice other than from Team 6214, “Check your connections and make sure you can’t rip them out by hand. If you can then they will fall out after your first obstacles for every match until you replace every weak connection.” The lessons learned primarily included advice on mentors, funds, and time management. Mentors: Team 5854 stated, “One or two mentors are NOT enough. To really keep a team busy, happy, etc. you need a veritable army of helpers and mentors. Not just propeller heads (the techy types), also need food people, fundraisers, organizers, artists, business managers and so on. All skills are useful.” Team 6214 stated, “Start looking for mentors early. We were only able to get mentors at the end of the build season, and although we did not get any direct money sponsorships. The sponsorship we did get was facilitated by the mentors in the community.” Fundraising: Team 5854 “FRC is expensive. REALLY expensive. It can be done on a shoestring, but not well. Whatever you budget, double or triple it. Then you MAY have enough.” Team 6004 “We struggled to purchase needed equipment and learned the value of getting sponsorships to help with the cost.” Team 6214, “Fundraise as much money possible before competition that way we won't have stress about the cost and instead can focus more on making sure the robot is ready to go.” Team 6215, “Having community support and corporate sponsorships make resources more readily available and promotes sustainability and successful outcomes. Fundraise 24/7.” Time Management: Team 5854, “Design the best bot you can. Build as much of it as you can during build season. Then continue to make it better throughout the competition season. If your state is district use the 6 work hours in between competitions. You ARE allowed to modify your robot. Prepare everything you need to change, repair, or work on before you unbag, schedule out your unbag time. Then unbagyou can be way more efficient in your unbag time this way.” Team 6003, “The most productive days of the week were Friday evenings (usually 5-10 p.m.) and Saturdays starting at 10 a.m. and going until 6 or 7 p.m. Taking time off is necessary so it is better not to meet every day. Moving forward, we will not meet on Sundays and will take one evening off during the week. Wednesday night is a good choice because it is a busy church night and a good time during the week for students to study/prepare for exams which are typically given on Fridays.” Team 6004, “Keep up with your build time and cut off dates; time management is a necessity.” NVivo Analysis of Lessons Learned The lessons learned were analyzed using NVivo to see if any other common themes emerged. A Word Cloud – where the more frequently used words are emphasized – was created for each team. A total Word Cloud was created for all lessons learned combined. Figure 1: Team 5854 Word Cloud Figure 2: Team 6003 Word Cloud Figure 3: Team 6004 Word Cloud Figure 4: Team 6214 Word Cloud Figure 5: Team 6215 Word Cloud Figure 6: Total Word Cloud All the lessons learned were coded and the below themes emerged. It is interesting to note that the lessons learned do not include technical advice such as how to wire, build or program the robot. They touch upon the other aspects of running a successful team such as fundraising, materials, time management (build season, preparation for competition), communication, mentoring and designing. A hierarchy chart was created based on the number of references as shown in Figure 7. Figure 7: Hierarchy chart references Due to the nature of build season – where teams have 6.5 weeks to design and build a working robot – it is not a surprise that there were many lessons learned by all five teams about the build season. The time constraint imposes a certain sense of urgency that makes it imperative to prepare as much as possible before build season starts. A great deal of preparation also goes into the competition; more than one can anticipate. In addition to creating a working robot, one must plan logistics such as room and board, transportation, outfitting the pit, and preparing buttons. Discussion As a lead mentor, the number one excuse heard from other adults when asked to mentor is, “I know nothing about robots.” Yet, none of the lessons learned were centered around technical knowledge of robots. There was no mention of materials, fabrication, assembly, wiring, programming or testing. There can be several reasons for this; the mentors were already technically savy; they didn’t think there was a need to share lessons learned around technical knowledge; or they didn’t think it was a lesson learned. There were several lessons learned in the telling of the wheel story alone. First lesson learned is that wheels don’t come with hubs to attach them to shafts. Perhaps even another lesson is that wheels must be attached to shafts. Then, the shaft shape has to match the hole shape on the hub. Etc. For someone who has never assembled a robot, these are all lessons learned yet none (or something similar) were reported. If we are to empower adults who have never built a robot to mentor students, lessons learned such as these would prove to be very valuable guidance and help reduce the fear factor of the task at hand. Another option is that those from each team who contributed to the lessons learned only contributed what impacted them d