Reflections are key to success for anyone taking up the task of teaching others, be it in the classroom or elsewhere. Just as our reflection in the mirror might allow us to see a blemish or pimple or changing mole or tick that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, reflecting on our teaching practices over time can allow us to clearly differentiate between successes and failures. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, and sometimes our perception of a lesson is much clearer after the shine of prestige, or the fog of failure, has weathered away. Following are reflections from my time coaching FTC and LEGO robotics at the middle and high school level. Hopefully these reflections will help you keep smiling as you guide your robotics teams in their quest to kindly and professionally annihilate all comers in competition.
Reflection 1: If at first you don't succeed.....yes disassemble. (Keeping Focused)
"Reflections", so says the song, "of the way things used to be". I used to think I could give my highly capable high school FTC students a general framework of event expectations, rules, and goals, and watch them soar. These students were killing it in math classes I barely got to in college, were building all sorts of computerized devices in their free time, and were playing important parts in all sorts of extracurricular activities.
I failed in my first round of coaching to realize that this thinking power and motivation would create a perfect storm of unfocused creativity. Some of the team members were born engineers, and provided weekly designs on graph paper for advanced points scoring mechanisms, complete with calculations detailing input and output forces and more. Some team members were born programmers, and took it upon themselves to improve the program here and there, whether or not there was a means of testing these changes. S, and took it upon themselves to build and tweak every little part of the robot, whether it could be tested or not. To be fair, why would you test something if you
know its gonna work? That would take too much time!
What the entire team had in common was that they were dreamers, and everyone had an amazing vision of what the final robotic product should be. Can you guess how that worked out?
If you guessed that we ended up creating and then killing several versions of the robot, and were left scrambling just to have something come competition time, you would be correct.
With around a month left I had to lay down the law. Once the team had a driving robot, further changes to the basic chassis were prohibited. Changes to programming were prohibited too, causing one quiet programmer to audibly voice his contempt each meeting. A single scoring mechanism was to be focused upon, and this was all the team could work on.
That year in regionals, we consistently scored points. The robot mostly ran the entire time, and the team left happy with our performance.
Everyone learned the importance of picking a single, simple, attainable goal, and sticking with it. Since that first season, I have made a few changes in my approach to working with these students. Once the season's challenges are announced, this procedure is followed:
- Each team classifies scoring opportunities in order from easiest to most difficult.
- Teams brainstorm and list means of scoring for each of these opportunities. I observe this process closely and play "Reality Police", dissuading teams from designs that we can't realistically produce in the time available.
- Teams choose a single, relatively easy design and start working toward it. My role now becomes keeping each team focused on their specific goal, making sure they don't stray too far from the original concept. Once the team can consistently score with this design, they may move on to another one.
Reflection 2: Advanced robotics is for everybody (A well-rounded team)
Early on as a coach, I had an idea of what I thought FTC team members would be like: High-achieving students, strong in science and math, busy in a variety of extracurriculars, probably sci-fi fanatics, you know the type. This turned out to be fairly accurate, but I realized we were really lacking in the department of turning wrenches, managing wires, etc.
Soon, I recruited a student who had no plans for college, but was on the fast track to a good career as a mechanic. He introduced the team to things like zip ties and using files, and he was easily the team's best builder. His background racing R/C cars made him the best driver too, by a long shot. On top of all this, he offered a voice of realistic reason when the rest of the team dreamed a little too much. Example:
Future Programmer: "Lets build an oscillating robotic arm that can pick up the ball and place it automatically in the 3 foot high hoop and then grab the bar and make the robot do a pull up at the end! I can program it while you guys design it!"
Future Mechanic: (
Laughs)
Future Engineer: "We could have it designed and built by next week!"
Future Mechanic: (
Falls out of chair laughing) Future Programmer: "Well, maybe it would take two weeks....."
Another example:
Future Engineer: "Our robot has excessive torque to the rear wheels and insufficient forward weight, and this is causing the front end to lift during acceleration."
Future Programmer: "We can program the robot to gradually increase speed, thereby reducing the front end lift"
Future Engineer: "What if we redesign the robot with an all-wheel drive system? The equal front/rear torque distribution would minimize the differential in transfer of energy, since the front wheels would pull as the rear wheels push. This would also place more weight on the front of the robot."
Future Mechanic: "It just needs a wheelie bar."
Rest of team: "What's a wheelie bar?"
Future Mechanic: (takes five minutes to install a bar on back of robot to keep front wheels from lifting during acceleration)
Rest of team: (applause)
The specialized skillset provided by my mechanically-minded team member was a priceless addition to the team, and all of the team members built a solid relationship as the season progressed. If you are coaching a secondary robotics team, be sure to ask your CTE teachers for suggestions regarding students to fill this role. I found too that this team member "unlocked" some hidden building potential in the rest of the team.
Reflection 3: Assume Nothing! (Leadership)
As I previously stated, I initially thought my students would take FTC robotics and run with it, and that I would wind up with a passive role. After all I had great, well-rounded team members, and all of them were extremely capable and versatile. They just needed to build and program a square robot with four wheels and two motors, and then modify it a bit......easy!
Alas, I was mistaken.
Halfway through my second season of coaching high school FTC teams, I realized the problem was two-fold: First, the team dreamed up and even put to paper ideas that were well above their pay grade. They were tough nuggets too, as even when reality kicked them in the face they came back for more punishment. Second, there was a disconnect between team members that had to be addressed. While Future Engineers were working on or even trying to build a magnificent point-scoring mechanism, Future Programmers were coding a slightly (or completely) different mechanism that often didn't even exist yet, and Future Mechanic had given up and was watching Fords race Chevy's in mud on YouTube. The disconnect was unintentional, but a killer no less.
The team needed leadership. I intended to give this responsibility to a team member, and I observed them to closely to determine who would take that roll. Then I realized:
My most senior team member had not completed 2 full years of FTC robotics competition. I had team members that were competent in their individual disciplines, and by the end of that season I had some that were capable in all aspects of robot building and operation. Unfortunately, because my team was new, I had
nobody that was capable of seeing the big picture, the timeline constraints, the limitations imposed by ability and tools and budget on hand, and how all of this should guide the team's direction. That left the job to one person:
ME.
Once I took on a bigger role in making decisions and maintaining a narrow focus for the team, they made progress very quickly. By the next season I probably would have been able to hand more of that responsibility to a team member, but even then I would have had to play a big role in the team's day-to-day workings. As fortunes would have it, the next year would see me taking on two additional middle school FTC teams, and a different coach would take over my old high school teams. The high school students did a great job, and by the end of that third season a very clear student leader had emerged. If you are working with a new FTC team, don't be afraid to jump in and play a big part as the team (coach included) gets a good feel for how everything works, and what a good team looks like. Luckily FTC's rules allow the coach to get pretty involved in building and programming, which is great in my opinion as it provides coaches an invaluable learning experience!
Reflection 4: Robotics isn't for everybody (Team Size)
I have coached middle and high school teams, and seen a ton of teams at competition as well. With both FTC and LEGO robotics, I have noticed that there are people actively working on the robot, and people sitting off to the side twiddling their thumbs. The more people there are on the team, the more thumb twiddling. Idle hands are the devil's playground, and it's best to make sure everyone has a job.
I refuse to have more than 6 students on an FTC team, or more than 4 students on a LEGO team. I am very, very happy with these numbers.
6 students on an FTC team allows for at least one great programmer, one great builder, one great engineer, one great PR person (help with notebook, poster, etc.), and a couple utility players. The utility players can be younger team members growing into one of the main roles, or just kids that are into robotics that can help out wherever needed.
4 students on a LEGO team makes for a couple of good builders and a couple of good programmers. Competing in FLL, I would swap a builder for a PR person.
Reflection 5: When it comes to robotics, robotics isn't everything (Engineering Notebooks, etc.)
I love working with building and programming robots. I love watching the students drive their final product around. I love troubleshooting, and helping other teams, and guiding my team to help other teams.
I can't make myself excited about engineering notebooks or team posters.
If you are like me (and I know I'm not alone), start the season with a strong emphasis on the engineering notebook. Create a template, share it out, and provide a concrete document showing when each team member is responsible for an entry. Appoint a team photographer while you're at it. You may have a student that is quite happy to take on the entire notebook, and that is fine too.
For the team poster, find that outgoing student on your team and guide them through the process of getting the poster started. Odds are there will be a parent from the team that is more than happy to help with this task too -- gladly accept that help! You won't be sorry!
Reflection 6: Hit the track! (Practice!)
This past year, due to a most excellent job change, I got the opportunity to coach a brand new middle school FTC team. There is something nice about a clean slate, and I was able to run with it. With the support of a second coach (she took care of the engineering notebook and poster), we started with the task of building a driving robot. The team took about two week's worth of practice (around 4 hours total time) to build the standard Push Bot from the instructions, leaving them about 1.5 months to prep for regional competition.
I asked the students to practice driving, and they ran with it, timing one another around an obstacle course they created. Once the best driver was identified, the team decided to stick with that driver the rest of the season (great idea!).
Moving forward, there was never a practice where the students couldn't practice driving for the last few minutes of the day. The robot was lightly modified, never fully disassembled, and the students were intimately familiar with its operation by competition time. It wasn't the best-built in terms of points-scoring mechanisms, but it worked consistently and the students practiced a lot.
We had a county-level competition in December. The new team competed against a variety of middle- and high-school teams, all of which had at least one year of experience. Prior to the competition, I told these new students that they would probably get crushed at their first competition, and that that was okay.
The students easily passed all tech inspections, they rocked the interview (which got them a trophy), and they pretty easily won their first round of competition. Then they won the second round. They were one of a very few teams consistently scoring, even though their robot was a lot more simple than most of the others there. As the competition continued, they stayed pretty high up on the scoreboard. They got the opportunity to compete in the playoffs, and made it to the final round, and darned near won that.
Come regionals the team continued to perform well, very nearly making it to the state playoffs. Not bad for a first year team!
This was the first time I've had a team practice so heavily, and there is no question this was a huge part of their success. In the off-season we were able to acquire an FTC field for their school, which will help them continue to improve next year.
The low-pressure practice sessions provided an invaluable opportunity to catch design faults, such as grinding gears and overheating motors, will in advance of competition time. Case in point: Be sure your practice schedules leave plenty of room for driving practice, in addition to building and programming!
Our full agenda (and all resources/materials from the day) is available here: moorerobotics.com/may4. While 100 participants observed our students in action, the other 100 received an introduction to the engineering/design process using Keva planks to build an 8-inch bridge. We then flip flopped the two groups so they could experience the piece of the morning they hadn't yet seen.
We would like to publicly thank NCDPI for providing us the opportunity to share these ideas with others. We'd also like to thank all of our hard-working teachers, coaches, admin, and STUDENTS for the wonderful work they have put into this over these past 4 years. We look forward to continuing to provide these opportunities for our students as well as cementing these new partnerships across the state in order to spread the impact of engineering/design on K-5 students all across North Carolina!
