So today despite my mentor telling me not to I decided to do a blue motor drive. Mentor found out and forced my teammate off my team. I was just wondering can she just force a teammate off my team just because I did something she didn’t want me to?
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No, this is not allowed. I feel bad for your teammate being illegaly forced off.
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She also threatened to kick me off of robotics
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I’m going to assume there is some context here.
Frankly, there’s not a whole lot we can do, gaining the support of the VEX forum through withholding context (not saying you are but that’s usually what happens) isn’t gonna get you a lot.
It sucks that your teammate was forced off of the team, but we’re gonna need a little bit more context
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The mentors are there to give nudges in the right direction rather than explicitly tell you how to build your robot. The point of the VeX robotics competition, aside from fun, is to provide a learning opportunity for students. The competition is meant to serve as a stimulus for students to learn and develop engineering skills. I would say that a mentor trying to force a team into building their robot the way the mentor wants it goes against the point of the competition, taking away from the learning experience it can be for students.
Here is a topic discussing a similar issue: Overly Involved Mentors
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What is the reason for this – both the mentor stance of “no blue motor drive” and your choice to do so anyway?
From the mentor perspective (and within a student-centered outlook): Blue motor does not really imply any particular solution. There are gear ratios using both blue and green cartridges that result in similar end speeds.
All motors come with a green cart, and all blue carts are ordered separately at a cost of $12 per cart. If blue carts are a limited resource, requiring teams to build their drive bases with one of the many viable 200rpm options is a valid requirement for a mentor to place.
As for a team member being kicked off or threatened to be kicked off, you have not provided nearly enough context to make a conclusion… and (as others have mentioned) this is not a place that you can get a resolution.
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Imma be honest that’s all the context. there is no other context to this situation. She allowed another guy to do it and had no problem with it
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That is illegal.
Your mentor may be important, but students are the bosses of a team. You may want to switch teams if the mentor is threatening you.
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We have a surplus of blue motor carts. their only reason for not allowing me to do a blue motor drive is cause in her words that’s what the vex engineers wanted. I decided to see what it would be like on my bot and she found out and only got mad at me even tho my teammate also helped with it.
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Theres really no point loingering on this topic, it is NOT student centered and even if you get the VEXForum supporting you, there’s not much we can do to help you.
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Coaches arent really supposed to tell you what you have to do desighn wise but they are in charge of assighnment of parts. so if blue carts are asighned to another team or something or whatever then thats legal. if its just trying to control your desighn its definitley not legal and u just have a sub par mentor.
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Really?
There’s no other context?
There is no other reason that your mentor kicked off this person?
Just because they used a blue motor?
That’s unusual…
There may be more that has not been shared with you…
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I am very sorry to hear this as I know that you and your team was only trying to improve your robot. Is there another person higher up in the organization that you could talk to? Do other teams have problems with this mentor? I hope that this problem is resolved soon
- Truett | 7701A
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Woah woah woah. There is some serious bad advice on this thread.
Who are you to say what a mentor can and can’t do with their team? This is quite literally their job.
This is absolutely not true. This mentor was not forcing students to build a certain way. This is absolutely within the realm of “as needed”. If a mentor refuses to buy polycarb for their teams, are they intervening to much? Absolutely not. This mentor had a reason for doing this.
You can possibly appeal to them and tell them why they are wrong…
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Oh sorry. I’m new to robotics and vex…
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I have worked a long time with middle school teams, so I am inclined to suspect there are reasons the adult mentor’s action had some missing context. Let me give you some examples of draconian actions I took:
- No pneumatics for a long time - complex and other less expensive solutions existed. So never stocked the gear, not enough budget bang for the buck - that becomes a design constraint for my teams.
- No chains - students made belts, necklaces, lassos, … the nail in the coffin for them is finding a lot of it on the floor. So I took away all the sprockets and chain that season. Clearly if it is on the floor they do not need it. Another design constraint for our teams.
- No cutting of metal without a fully drawn out documentation with units - they are free to dumpster dive and find pieces from the cut metal bins from prior seasons. Good engineering practice, guess what they got Excellence/Design over multiple seasons.
You can argue not student-centered, but sometimes these are constraints organizations have to make.
@Gigabyte sorry you are having a rough time with this. I hope you can rebuild trust with Mentor.
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They aren’t assigned to a single team. She lets us use them for intake and everything other than drive because according to her it’s not what the vex engineers wanted. That’s her reasoning for also not allowing us to do screw joints.
ask her what her thoughts on every single dome team starting from spin up to Over Under, she will notice how every single team recently has been using blue motors on their drive.
if she continues to punish you it may be time to look elsewhere for a team, ask around, or if possible with whatever finances you have, maybe go private.
stay strong gigabyte
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moderators, Maybe time to lock this thread? I don’t think more posts will help (sorry @Gigabyte, I don’t think the vex fourm can help you with this.)
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I already asked the mentor their thoughts and she said well their on a way more advanced level than you so you shouldn’t build it until you get more experience.
I already looked into joining a team and we are currently talking about logistics right now
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