The Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation’s mission is to increase student interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by engaging students in hands-on, affordable, and sustainable robotics engineering programs. We believe that the student-centered model of learning is aligned with our mission and provides effective educational benefits to students. The REC Foundation student-centered policy should be frequently reviewed by organizations participating in REC Foundation events.
What is Student-Centered?
There are a variety of definitions for the term “student-centered” in the educational community, and the REC Foundation would like to communicate a definition for student-centered that will apply for teams that participate in the Aerial Drone Competitions to increase the transparency of the expectations and increase the student learning opportunities. The term student-centered is encompassed in both the learning and application settings for REC Foundation events and activities:
Student-Centered Learning: Students are actively involved in learning opportunities to increase their knowledge and skills in piloting, programming, teamwork, and the design process for the competition logbook, under the guidance of adult mentorship.
Student-Centered Application: Students have ownership on how their drone is piloted, programmed, and utilized in match play with other teams and Autonomous Flight Skills matches.
The REC Foundation acknowledges that students participating in official REC Foundation events come from a spectrum of educational backgrounds, and ultimately it is the responsibility of the adult to determine the appropriate amount of support for the individual student. Due to the competitive nature of these programs, teams may be tempted to prioritize winning over learning. We encourage adults to ask the following questions in each of your learning experiences with students to help gauge the appropriate amount of support for your students:
Am I teaching or telling?
Am I encouraging students to express their voice before sharing my thoughts?
Are the students asking for my assistance or are they able to be independent?
Are students able to use the knowledge or skills that I’m sharing independently in the future?
Ultimately, students learn the most when they are given opportunities to test their own ideas, fail, learn from those failures, and try again. Often in stressful or competitive situations, it may be easier or faster for an adult to solve the problem or fix a drone, but by doing so, the adult is missing a learning opportunity for a student. Instead, we encourage adults to provide guidance when needed to help educate students on the thinking behind problem solving rather than solving the problem. Adults can be a valuable resource to help students learn the skills they will need to work in a team and program drones. In the examples provided below, the role of the adult is primarily a facilitator for learning so that the student may apply the knowledge to their own drone, competition logbook, game strategy, and communication with other teams.
Using the Guide
The overarching mandate is that adults should not provide an unfair competitive advantage by having students use designs, programs, and game strategies that are inconsistent with the students’ ability and knowledge base.
Common terms have been defined below to simplify the language in the provided examples.
Student: A student team member participating in REC Foundation events or activities. Please refer to the Aerial Drone Competition game manuals for program specific age/grade levels.
Adult: A teacher, parent, or mentor who serves to provide educational guidance to the students. Students in advanced programs who are mentoring younger students would be considered “mentors” in this case (e.g., a HS student mentoring a middle school team).
Event: Tournament or League competition that is an official REC Foundation qualifying event or under the jurisdiction of the REC Foundation.
Outside the Event: Any learning environment outside of an official REC Foundation Event. This can refer to any location where teams are meeting to learn and build their robots.
Interpreting the Guide
The provided examples are grouped into two main sections: “At Events” and “Outside the Event." Each section shares tangible examples of behaviors that range from Student-Centered, Only as needed, or Non-Student-Centered.
Many of the described behaviors will overlap between the “Student-Centered” and “Only as needed” columns to allow flexibility with providing appropriate support for students.
Student Centered: This represents the goal for student-centered learning and application. Students and adults should strive for these behaviors, although it expected that students with novice skills may need adult guidance to achieve these behaviors.
Only as needed: These examples represent appropriate adult guidance that may be given to students with novice skills to help them achieve student-centered learning and application. Adults should be cautious that they reserve these supports for students who need them and strive to remove supports when appropriate.
Non-Student Centered: These examples represent adult guidance that is not aligned with the REC Foundation student-centered policy and may be considered a violation of the Code of Conduct.
This guide does not encompass every possible scenario that may arise at an event or in an outside learning environment, so participants will need to consider the spirit of these examples to help interpret situations not explicitly covered.
Student Centered: Students collaborating to discuss game strategy with alliance partners at the practice field, team pits, and queuing areas. Adults offering cheerful and positive encouragement as spectators during matches and helping students to reflect after a match is complete.
Only as needed: Students consulting with adults on overall game strategy and alliance selection tips for their own team. Adults explaining how an event is run and assisting their own teams in getting to the matches on time or finding alliance partners.
Non-Student Centered: Adults giving team members or alliance partners step-by-step match play instructions prior to or during a match. Adults specifying which teams to select for alliance selection without student collaboration.
Student Centered: Students actively working on their drone and investigating failures. Adults sharing troubleshooting strategies when students have questions.
Only as needed: Adults demonstrating how to assemble a component or make minor repairs with the assistance of students. Students making improvements after the demonstration is completed.
Non-Student Centered: Adults building or fixing the drone with no student assistance or with students only watching.
Student Centered: Students creating and revising their own programs and explaining code functionality and development over the season. Students demonstrating application of programming concepts contained within their code. Adults sharing troubleshooting tips when students encounter a complex programming task.
Only as needed: Adults describing programming concepts and debugging techniques that may be useful for solving an issue that the team has encountered. Students devising solutions and making any necessary code changes.
Non-Student Centered: Adults programming or revising code. Students are unable to explain the code functionality or development without adult assistance. Students cannot demonstrate application of programming concepts contained within their code.
Student Centered: Adults being respectful of the interview process and allowing students to represent themselves independently. Students collaborating to discuss possible interview questions and responses. Students can describe in detail the development of the:
Functionality of the program(s) utilized on the drone being used at the event
Only as needed: Adults reviewing best practices with students on how to effectively speak to judges. Adults assisting with ensuring students are available in the pit area for judges.
Non-Student Centered: Adults actively prompting students during pit interviews or being a distraction to students or judges during the interview process. Adults answering interview questions or approaching judges after an interview to attempt to add information.
Outside the Events
Student Centered: Students watching the game video and reading the game manual to review criteria and scoring strategies. Adults reviewing scoring techniques and reflection strategies with the students. Students agreeing on game strategies to influence programming and match play.
Only as needed: Adults modeling for students how to organize game information needed to help influence programming and match play. Adults organizing mock game scenarios to develop students’ teamwork and communication skills.
Non-Student Centered: Adults telling students which scoring strategies to use to influence programming and match play or providing step-by-step instructions on how to play in a match (piloting or autonomous).
Student Centered: Students programming their own drone and developing an autonomous strategy. Students learning programming fundamentals from Adults or other sources that can be applied to create custom programs for their drone. Students crediting how programming concepts were derived as comments in their code and in their competition logbook.
Only as needed: Adults collaborating with students on developing their program flow using pseudocode, flowcharts, or other visual representations.
Non-Student Centered: Adults developing an autonomous program or strategy with no student input. Adults programming the drone. Students copying/pasting all or portions of custom code developed by Adults or other sources. Students utilizing programming techniques that are beyond their ability to explain or create independently.
Student Centered: Students document their design process in their team’s engineering notebook throughout the season. Students and Adults review the competition logbook rubric and discuss ways to improve documentation. All documentation is a product of student work.
Only as needed: Adults assisting with the organization of the competition logbook and modeling documentation strategies for students. Students applying these strategies to their own competition logbook and in their own words.
Non-Student Centered: Adults writing, creating, or editing portions of the competition logbook documentation. Students failing to credit ideas or code leveraged from outside sources.
Pit Interview Preparation
Student Centered: Students practicing mock pit interviews and getting feedback from adults and other students. Students and adults reviewing the team interview and competition logbook rubrics and sample judge questions.
Only as needed: Adults and students working together to practice talking about their programming and game strategy.
Non-Student Centered: Adults giving students scripts or step-by-step instructions of what to say in their pit interview.
Student Centered: Students selecting and completing the project/challenge requirements. Students and adults reviewing the project/challenge requirements. Submissions represent the product of the students’ ideas and work.
Only as needed: Adults assisting with reviewing the project/challenge requirements with students and providing feedback on students’ ideas or work. Adults assisting with the upload process.
Non-Student Centered: Adults creating all or a portion of a project/challenge product. Adult feedback driving the direction of the project.
Further Notes on Programming
The guidelines for student-centered programming are challenging to define due to the variety of programming learning resources and the amount of available code online. It is beyond the scope of this guide to specify the legality of all possible scenarios and it is recommended that specific questions be posted to the challenge Q&A on Robotevents.com.
Importance of Fundamentals
Learning a new skill or concept should begin with the fundamentals to build a solid foundation so the student can understand and apply this knowledge. Students with novice programming skills should use learning resources that emphasize building and applying foundational knowledge and should not incorporate programming concepts into their robot that are beyond their current ability level. This general guideline supports appropriate learning progressions and fair play at competitions.
Teams that utilize example code or custom libraries from outside sources should use caution. The program used in the robot should represent the students’ design efforts and abilities. Blindly using code without understanding the code functionality is not consistent with the educational goals of this program. Students should be able to understand and explain the code used on their robots, and students should be able to demonstrate that they can program on a level equivalent to the code included on their robot.
If students are using a custom function, they should be able to describe the functionality of the custom function and demonstrate how to create and use a custom function.
If students are using a custom library, they should be able to describe how the code used from the library functions and should have the ability to create and import a custom library.
Overall, students should be utilizing skills that are within their ability levels and understanding.
Advances in ideas and technology are often built on the knowledge of others and it is important to give credit to those contributions. Teams that use or adapt mechanical design ideas and code developed by someone other than the students on the team should cite these sources in their engineering notebook and code. During team interviews, students should describe how these contributions were utilized. Teams may select their preferred format of citation, which should generally include the following information:
Title of resource or source code
Date of publication or release
Version (if applicable)
Location (where to find the source)
Many online resources are available to learn more about the importance of citation, what to cite, and how to cite sources. Teams that use or adapt outside sources are encouraged to research more about citation.
Communicating and Enforcing
Within Your Organization
The REC Foundation highly recommends that organizations carefully review the student-centered policy and share this policy with all students, teachers, and other adults associated with the team at the beginning of each season. Each registered team on Robot Events is required to provide a Primary Contact. This contact must be an adult (18+ who has graduated high school). The Primary Contact is typically the person who accompanies the team to events and is responsible for ensuring all team members, including parents associated with the team, comply with the student-centered policy. If the Primary Contact cannot attend the event, another adult accompanying the team should be trained prior to the event to fulfill this role. Below are a few suggested methods to communicate and enforce the student-centered policy within your organization:
Host a team meeting at the beginning of the season to review the student-centered guide with students and adults associated with the team. Create clear expectations for adults who are mentoring teams and attending events.
Model student-centered learning activities for adults to show the educational benefits.
Encourage parents to volunteer at events—this provides a valuable resource for event partners!
Team activities outside of events should be supervised by an adult familiar with the student-centered policy.
Teach students how to advocate for themselves, and give positive reinforcement for student-centered learning.
Develop definitions of success within your team structure that value individual team goals and growth throughout the season.
REC Foundation Enforcement
The goal of this guide is to communicate expectations to organizations and encourage an alignment of best practices within the community. The REC Foundation will evaluate concerns related to behaviors inconsistent with this policy per the Code of Conduct. Although it is never the desire to punish students for adult behaviors, it is imperative that organizations are held accountable to ensure fairness and increase the learning opportunities for students.
Aerial Drone Championship Events
Teams should expect increased scrutiny of student-centered behaviors at Aerial Drone Championship Events. The REC Foundation reserves the right to individually interview teams to determine compliance with the student-centered policy. In general, team behaviors observed at Aerial Drone Championship Events, should be gravitating towards behaviors in the “Student-Centered” examples in this Student-Centered guide.
Student team members should be prepared for the following if called into an interview by an approved REC Foundation committee during Aerial Drone Championship Events:
Describe in detail the development and functionality of the drone program(s) being used at the event.
Provide an electronic copy of all programs used in matches upon demand.
Demonstrate programming concepts on a level equal to the concepts included in their code without adult assistance.
If a student team member who has expertise on a specific portion of the programming cannot attend the Aerial Drone Championship Events, the other attending team members should be prepared to share the knowledge and demonstrate functionality.
Toggle the categories below for links to documentation for the 2022-23 Aerial Drone Competition season.