Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

But what if a student makes a mistake and gets so disenchanted through FIRST that they no longer have any interest whatsoever in STEM because they think they're horrible at it?


Oh, I almost forgot



It's that time of year again

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I think that without guidance it is hard to learn anything, and that is the problem. Imagine that you've never gone swimming before, and have no idea how to swim. Would you prefer that someone just chucks you in the lake, or would you prefer if someone was there to aid you when you need help, and let you go when you don't need help?
Mentors give team members the guidance they need and steer them into the right direction.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

Let's not bring politics into this, but if he wants to bring this up with FIRST, emailing FIRST HQ or asking Frank might be the way to do it.

Regardless of all of that, I think FIRST has made it clear through their ambiguity and refusal to address the mentor vs student nonsense that it honestly is up to the team to decide how much the mentors should be involved. Many times have people complained and emailed FIRST about mentors being coaches and on the field, etc, but many times FIRST has ignored or gone the other way and promoted mentor involvement on the field.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I was hoping for an actual argument on the petition page (out of curiosity), but there's nothing...

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

Right. We do something like this, we'll have a field full of these:



How inspiring is that?

-Nick

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I don't like how you have set up this thread with an anonymous account. If you have a petition that you don't want to be associated with it then why have you created it at all.

If I don't know who you are I don't think its worth discussing this topic or supporting it.

Plus its against the rules to have more than one account

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

Only 99,999 more to go! C'mon people!

While we're at it, let's get the white house to ban all metal on robots! WOODBOTS ONLY!

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I'm aware that similar threads in relation to drive coaches exist, as a longtime lurker of CD. However, my views extend beyond those previously mentioned, and I didn't want my views to be immediately dismissed like in those threads.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

By forcing students into stressful situations where they have no guidance and don't know what to do?

I have been in situations like this and let me be the first, and definitely not the last, to say they are not fun. Being around my mentors gives me confidence to speak up, because I know they will have my back and answer any question I may have.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I agree with Andrew's assessment. As a student 10 years ago, I'm glad we had mentors on the field.

If mentor involvement wasn't acceptable, FIRST would put it in the rules.

There is no such rule.

Oh, and...

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I was under the impression that there is (or at least was in the past) a rule against anonymous posting on CD. If there isn't anymore it should probably be reinstated.

I'm all for having this discussion as soon as I know that the OP isn't just trying to start fights/troll.

MentorForChange, why not associate your name or team number with your account?

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

With mentor support.

Just like in engineering in general. (replace mentor with peer)

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

Same Here

A Name and Team number would be nice.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what FIRST and FRC are about, and what the mission of this program is.

FRC is not about finding the best students in the world / North America.

FRC is not about having a competition where those that refuse or don't utilize mentor help are put on a "fair" playing field with those who accept mentor help.

FRC is not an "adult hands off" competition where students have to learn and apply complex engineering principles entirely by themselves.

FRC is a competition where students and mentors work together to solve the tough engineering challenges that come with building a robot. Teams in this competition interact with, compete with, and help a variety of other robotics teams of varying backgrounds, budgets, and resources in order to achieve the common goal of inspiration. Above all else, FRC exists to inspire students to pursue STEM careers and inspire the greater community to recognize the importance of STEM.

The key elements there - the student-mentor partnership, the inspiration, interaction with differing teams, are all hurt by your proposal. Banning mentor involvement results in less functional, and thus less inspiring, robots. Banning mentor involvement puts more burden on students to already have the skills they need to help an FRC team; quite frankly the students who walk in knowing how to machine / design aren't the kids that need inspiration. In a quest to make the competition more "fair" (a loaded word which in this context means "every team is run the way [you] want them to be"), you reduce the diversity in team backgrounds and resources. This may seem like a "good" thing at first, maybe, but the result is more similar robots, less chance to be exposed to something new, a lower target for students to be inspired by and reach for...

Lest you feel I'm posting merely to defend my own ability to play with robots, I can assure you, that's not my intent. I work tirelessly with my team to get as many students engaged and involved as I possibly can. These rules would get in the way of how I've been able to do that.

Re: Petition to Diminish Mentor Involvement
 

And for that reason his account has been disabled. Also going to close this thread, because it's obviously headed nowhere good.

If OP wants to put a name/team to his account, he can do so and then post again later if he'd like. Until then, thread closed.