I agree with outside help, but during sack attack, there were a few teams in my area that the adults had obviously built the entire robot. The students were only there to drive Dad’s creation. This I hate. They didn’t win awards, but I think it ruined the spirit of the game.
Judging isn’t the same as refereeing. It’s totally discretionary and there are no real rules, only guidelines. If the judges want to not consider teams whose mentors have touched the robot at the event, they can do that. They should probably tell participants if they’re going to do things differently from the guidelines in Appendix D, but there are no actual requirements. Even if there were, they would be totally unenforceable. The fact that judging is designed to lack transparency means there’s no way for participants to know what rules judges are following.
This is basically why I think that qualifying teams for Worlds (or states/nationals/provincials) through awards is a bad idea, but that’s a whole different post.
So at whatever tournament this was, yes it’s possible that teams weren’t considered because of mentor involvement. It’s also possible that this happens at other tournaments without participants knowing.
This isn’t quite true. For the robot competitions (skills and the tournament) there are a lot of rules. If the tournament is qualifying teams for a larger tournament such as worlds, then any deviations from the manual need to be ok with RECF. For judging though, unless someone from RECF is looking over their shoulder during the judging process there’s no way to know for sure what went on during deliberations. So yes, where judging is concerned they can pretty much make up anything they want.
Robonaut, although it should be not quite true, it has happened and has been reconciled after the fact in the lower division. RECF has acknowledged that some policies will be amended. I can find out about this policy, I hear was an acknowledged posting in the iq forum. As for making up anything is referring to the guidelines. I can find out which ones, but I heard PV, chadwick, and 2 others (I will respectfully refrain from posting actual names, partners, and teams involved though… not getting into this). Everything said was from each of several events (again was part of lower divisions in which our peers have attended). Some of these guidelines they follow are not enforceable as you have mentioned. I agree with your other statements as well.
I don’t know anything about the world of Vex IQ but I guess I’m a little puzzled that it might be treated differently with regards to mentor/teacher involvement. Is that what I’m hearing here? And would this be a Vex thing or a RECF thing or…??? I guess I’m perpetually confused about the relationship between RECF and Vex insofar as team rules go.
Also, since Vex IQ feeds into the world of metal Vex, should we expect to see a change in rules as more kids move up from the plastic to the metal?
Most rules are similar. VEX IQ is not as refined. Higher divisions help (or volunteer) at these lower divisions such as iq. There are rules and guidelines. And most of these being new, some take it to the extreme end and interpretations. Those that have done metal are little bit more understanding and knowledgeable.
RECF seems to take on the overall rules and game-related seems to be VEX. This is just based on how certain questions are answered and type of questions. But the same volunteers (or a set of) do feed in to metal later on. Hopefully they also gain more knowledge and not interpret guidelines differently. It is understandable that when they are new, they tend to be more judgmental (sorta speak). Hopefully we see an improvement.
If I may use a sports analogy… In baseball, for example, junior division (AA, AAA) uses an umpire that is external and is one of adult or high school. In elementary division, a high school vex participant might be a mentor to iq. In several events, high school folks with one or more years experience in metal vex were either judges or refs. Now these people should know the rules or guidelines better right?
I am thinking that experienced folks (such as James Pearman) know about helping, touching robot interpretation, judging, etc and understand difference between helping and crossing lines… Then there are others that see adult helping the team to be bad without knowing the situation.
There might be a learning curve to those starting fresh and moving up …
I don’t know much about this either beyond what I read on the VEX IQ forum. But I think there is more tendency for parents (I’m afraid mostly Dads) to want to take over with younger students. I was at a recent competition where VEX IQ was running, I’m looking at the scores and one team was head and shoulders above the others in that their programming and robot skill scores were 2-3x what others were. I wanted to see the robot so found the pit, Dad was there pretty much being drill instructor and (and I’m not making accusations here) it seemed highly likely he had built the robot. I don’t think 5th graders are going to tell Dad to back off, high school students often tell their coaches and mentors to back off.
They may have been at a CREATE tournament. Their code of conduct rules are very explicit. See the attached link. All going to the US Open should be aware of this.
I can’t specifically remember any teams from sack attack that had robots like this, however I do know that it is something I’ve seen in this area before. Students should be able to learn and grow through vex, with help from parents and mentors as a reference and guide. This doesn’t mean that the adults should do everything, however I don’t think they should just back away and let the kids go crazy. I can’t think of a competition during the last 4 years where I haven’t been asked for help on someone’s robot, whether it be from our school or not.
Wow, this is very interesting and surprising! Much different from what we are used to.
There. Right there. That’s my dream. To tell my kids something and have them actually listen to me. :rolleyes:
My students aren’t that bad as a Teaching Assistant but that might just be age difference. College students for the win. 
The first year I coached or mentored a team, I helped a lot because we all knew nothing. But now this year my help is limited to the lab where we hash out ideas and build the monsters. I generally will do whatever a team asks and will help in anyway as long as it helps them learn and grow. At a tournament I have more fun watching, talking with other advisors, and helping run the tourney. I will help any team that asks and usually advise the on programming or whatever. The way I view it is:
A) Is it going to help them learn?
B) Would I want my kids to ask for help in this situation?
C) If I help all I ask is that the kids pass it on and be respectful.
D) Pay it forward… what goes around comes around… be nice, shake hands, and build character!
This entire idea is something we encourage and enforce heavily in the state of VA for our competitions. We take this idea of the kids doing the work to a large part. But we’ve also had issues to where you ask a student something about the robot, and they can’t answer a thing about it, and the adult mentor is there seething.
There’s also the case of the adult mentor answering all the questions about the robot and crowding around during interviews. It’s not only VEX and VEX IQ where I’ve seen this. I’ve seen it in FTC and FLL as well.
There are cases of parents or mentors directly building the bot, and we’ve had photo evidence, and where there are no kids around, or you see kids just goofing off.
Our policy for it in VA is to inform a head judge and they will tell it to the other judges and they decide from there.
At the end of the day, my opinion on this is that its a competition for kids. I’ve played sports for all my life and have seen the egos and obsession of parents vicariously living through their kids trying to win and reclaim whatever glory their is to be had in a youth level competition.
I don’t want that for robotics, and I certainly make sure the teams I mentor know I won’t be building on their bot, or programming for them.
The easy solution for this part is just not allow parents or adult mentors in the interview. Have the interview in separate room and only the judges and the student team members are allowed in.
We saw some of those kind. So far we have seen some adults answering questions and crowding around during interviews. But never seen any adults involved during interviews (ie, adults answering judges questions directed to team member). I did not even know that was possible. If it was it would be something to think about.
Regardless of who is present or standing around, only team members are allowed to answer questions. It might also be true some parents answer general questions around but judges evaluate responses from the team during interviews. How do adults come into picture? Last I heard even at State one adult was allowed to go sit in the interview room away from the table. Just a distant observer. At least no crowd here to worry about.
There were several events where interviews did occur in separate rooms. Have seen it. This does help keep others away, esp where other team members come and disturb the team being interviewed (2 instances). When out in the open it is entertainment for some, and just crowd around even if they are not the parents of the team being interviewed.
I think this line is really important. When a team becomes competitive through assistance, things get a lot more tricky.
When a mentor helps a team out, the kids generally end up with a better robot and they do better in competition…If the mentor is worth his salt that is 
I think the mentor is getting the level of assistance right when the kids are achieving the maximum level of learning. Too much assistance will likely end up worse than too little, as the team will just rely on the mentor to “make everything alright”.
This year I am helping out a new team of young kids who are in their first year of competition. They are as keen and as green as my boys and I were when we first started 5 years ago. I am coming to the realisation that I need to let these kids make some mistakes, because continually steering them away from bad ideas or errors that I have seen made multiple times already, is not having the same learning impact as when they see the consequence of doing something “wrong” and then have to think of a way to correct it. They only learn the what, not the why.
Really good thread. Really nice quote by n5nei
Not how our judging process goes. Never had the space or capability for separate judging rooms. Our judges walk around in the pits and interview teams. Makes it easier as teams scheduling things always was a hassle.
So I started out with more crude robots as a kid, things like pinewood and soapbox derby cars. As a kid, with limited hand / machine tool experience, a good chunk of the cars had pretty advanced “dad mentoring” involved.
Lots of times an extra finger is needed to make a task go easier and I’m happy to help. I’ve coded since the early 70’s so I’m going to help out. I’m not a Yoda, I move in and help and once it’s going well move out of the way. You should read some articles on mentoring to get a better guide.
In FRC there are teams that have robots that are designed / mostly built by mentors. There is still a whole lot of inspiration going on, which is what they are after.
I want my roboteers to succeed, so I’m going to help and not let them wander in the dark.
The number of robots that are 100% parent built are few and you don’t know the reasons that it is that way. If I have a physically disabled roboteer, I’m going to build their design and watch them drive.
Create has a specific rule set, it’s their event they can do what they want to. I don’t like the rules so I won’t compete at a Create Event. So that’s pretty easy.
I doubt that RECF will come close to that level. There are lots and lots of us out here working with new roboteers that require the extra help to stay highly inspired.
As far as the “Helicopter Dad” that did all the work, welcome to the real world you will see that the rest of your life. Deal with it by creating better roboteers that can beat “HD” don’t put convoluted rules in place.
I have a theory (completely unsupported by any data whatsoever) that educational ecosystems go through about 5 stages of development before they hit homeostasis.
In Stage 1, pioneering amateurs develop the ecosystem. It goes something like this:
“Hey, mom, I just read an article about this really awesome NASA cannon that can shoot things out of earth’s atmosphere and into orbit. You think I could build one in the garage this weekend?”
“Sure, Dorothee, but I’m busy right now writing up the final report for my experiment on Dark Energy Casimir effects. Could you ask your dad to help you until I’m free next week?”
In Stage 2, the pioneering amateurs lure their school friends into the ecosystem. It goes something like this:
“Yo, Jamar! I built this really cool cannon that can shoot cell phones out of earth’s atmosphere. Uncle Carjack says he can help me with my latest idea: to shoot CubeSats into low earth orbit. You wanna come over this weekend and help me launch one?”
“Sure. That’s sounds cool. Can we play MineCraft when we’re done?”
“Sure.”
“Awesome.”
In Stage 3, the pioneering amateurs find other amateurs doing exactly the same thing, so they start a club. In other parts of the world, other clubs are formed doing the same type of thing. Competitions begin between clubs because that’s human nature. Everyone involved enjoys the competitions because, even though they are going “against” each other, they enjoy hanging out with like-minded people who are passionate about launching tiny CannonSats into space and recovering them safely. The kids have a lot of fun and learn heaps of science stuff along the way.
Stage 4 is where things really pick up. CannonSat competitions become all the rage in education. Every respectable school must have an Advanced CannonSat program. Or two. Private companies offer CannonSat tutoring, CannonSat summer programs, CannonSat textbooks, CannonSat Prefabs, and CannonSat vacations to Bermuda. School systems struggle to keep up with parent demand for more CannonSat-oriented events. McDonalds hands out CannonSat toys when kids buy something meant to eat. Millions of children are herded into CannonSat programs far and wide. The prestigious International CannonSat Competition Corporation takes control of all events and airs them on PayPerView. Giant mile-wide cattle chutes are parked in earth’s orbit for the multitude of CannonSats to score their points through.
Stage 5. Parents of new teams grow fuming mad when their little darlings don’t come home with first place trophies at the competitions. After all, their kids always got trophies at everything else they were signed up for. And, furthermore, they paid good money for that CannonSat summer program, and that CannonSat tutor cost them a fortune. The fuming parents look over at Jamar and his friend, Dorothee, who’ve been doing this for several years, and they see them standing with Dorothee’s mother, who’s the Hawking Professor of Casimir Physics at the Vacuum Energy Institute of Technology, and Dorothee’s father, the renowned software guru, and Uncle Carjack, a former astronaut. Something isn’t right. That’s not fair. Something needs to be done about that. Obviously children like that couldn’t have possibly built a cannon that big all by themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves.
The school board receives complaints. The PTA (Parent Trophy Access) organization is outraged. The Harrison Bergeron Committee for CannonSat Competition Fairness is formed and immediately scandalized by the lack of rules governing equal access to CannonSat trophies and CannonSat ribbons. The PWWDLMTWCDTKOFD (Parents Who Want to Do Little More Than Write a Check and Drop Their Kids Off at the Front Door) threaten to sue the International CannonSat Competition Corporation if the playing field isn’t leveled in their favor. PayPerView covers the congressional hearings.
Legalistic bickering ensues. Young men and women, fresh out of law school, are pulled out of the unemployment line and put to work.
Stage 6/Homeostasis/Stage 1…
“Hey, dad, I read this really cool NASA article on how I can teleport stinkbugs using a jug of hand sanitizer and a microwave oven. Can we do that this weekend?”
“But I thought you were going to go to CannonSat club this weekend.”
“Nah. The club leaders said that to make things fair, kids wouldn’t be allowed to pick their own team mates anymore.”
“Oh, uh, well, you know, you do need to learn to work with all kinds of people in life. So, uh, maybe that’s a good thing.”
“But they said we couldn’t shoot anything higher than 100 feet anymore.”
“A hundred feet? But that… that’s not even out of the atmosphere.”
“And they wanted me to sign some document said I got no help from you and mom or Dr. Jamar when I built the cannon. No help whatsoever. Dr. Jamar started to read it but it’s a thousand pages long.”
“A thousand pages?”
“Yeah, but that’s nothing. You should see the new rule book. And Dr. Jamar said half of what’s in it makes no sense at all. Please, dad, please. Can I just borrow the microwave oven this weekend and test out these stinkbugs? I promise I won’t teleport them anywhere except to Mars and back.”
What about mentors who don’t touch the robot but give the design and building details step by step, and the teammates follow the instructions and actually understand what the are doing, and it is virtually impossible to find out who really “built” it? Even though this might be a problem, I don’t think mentors building robots is much of a problem right now at all, but it might be if vex makes their future challenges way harder like making your robot to teleport through a series of rings because they might run out of easy challenge ideas. :rolleyes: Let’s just hope they don’t. :eek: :