Re: GP? I think not.
 

Agreed. But, I've yet to find a team that is 100% mentor built, have you? Of course there needs to be a mix. If there's a team who has their robot built entirely by mentors with no students around to be inspired, I would say they are definitely missing out on something. FIRST works best when there are healthy partnerships formed between mentors, students, school(s) and communities.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Where does Dave differentiate between choice and circumstance here?

I think it is clear in hindsight that he MEANT these comments to be addressed to teams run by students by choice, but a poorer team watching kickoff would have no reason to believe that these weren't targeted at them.

Anyhow - I've had enough of this. Time for dinner :)

Here's the short version: What Dave meant was well intended, but I and some others were a little taken aback by it. That is all.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

I'd like to take this opportunity to note that appearances can be deceiving.

254 does not have a single engineer. We have a third year physics teacher, and four college engineering students. None of us are over the age of 26.

While our team may appear to have tons of engineers, I'd be willing to bet that we have fewer mentors than the average FRC team.

Just another reason why you can't judge a book based on it's cover.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Again, nobody said otherwise. This means that there is not disagreement on this point. Unless you can find some?

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Just also notice how Billfred said
"(That's me playing devil's advocate--I'm all for a blend.)" (emphasis mine)

Re: GP? I think not.
 

He doesn't. However, I would venture that a team that lacks mentors by circumstance is probably aware that they are mentor-deficient and is at least attempting to make inroads on the problem to whatever degree of intensity they choose. (Otherwise, they'd get lumped into the "choice" category.)

Re: GP? I think not.
 

A very large number of the pro adult posts also appear to have come from those with the title "College Student" or those with the title "Mentor" that are actually college students as well. Many if not all of these college students were highschoolers in the program before they went to college and so I would say that they should be lumped together with the "students". That balances things out quite a bit.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Not to dwell on the subject, but since about 3-4 weeks of your season are spent designing (I think you told me that at SVR), how many engineers does 968 have?

Re: GP? I think not.
 

I thought it was differentiated here:

"TO BE INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSIONALS TO WHICH YOU HAVE ACCESS."

But, I see where you're coming from.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

6-8, all or almost all either in college or barely out of it, IIRC.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Cory's example of what their team is comprised of is a perfect example of how amazing this team can year after year, be successful, despite drastic changes in leadership back from when Mr. Jason Morella was the lead teacher to Cory and EJ folks. Heck, EJ was just a student when we all first started going to SVR in 2000.
Look at Travis at 968. I was talking to him about a robot from 115 back in 2001 and he looked at me and said he was the driver THAT year for the team.
These former students, now college students, is the perfect example of how a FIRST team has impacted students to the point where they have come full-circle.
Our team has a 4 year former Robotics student who is now our main welder mentor. He makes the most beautiful welds. Check out our bot! Even our teacher who taught him says he cant do better. :D

Re: GP? I think not.
 

This is engineering that we are talking about. In a significant number of cases you are going to dumb down the concepts to the point where it doesn't help at all. On top of that Dave was right. You truly loose out on learning about science and technology without an engineering mentor. I'm in college and it still manages to amaze me the things that I am learning.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

This is where there's a fine balancing act by the mentors....how much should you allow the students to fail, so they learn things on their own? How much should you teach by telling the students that the design won't work based on your own past experiences and engineering knowledge?

I know that this year I let several things slide that I had suggested the students do to the robot, and the robot quit working several times because those things weren't done. Seems to me the students were more disappointed about the poor robot performance, than they would have been about having me do that stuff to the robot. I don't know how your own students would react to this situation, though.

It's tough for the mentors to know how much to do....on top of that, building robots is about the most fun engineering work there is, so keeping our hands off is a serious challenge!

On a more positive note, I think this year went very well for our team as far as dividing up the workload, and our students having a very good feel for what they could accomplish on their own, and what they could use help with. I know I learned a lot from the students too, I was very fortunate to be able to help them bring their very good ideas to life by helping quite a bit with the engineering of the robot.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Folks,

Whether the original author realized it or not, making a point about students vs mentors in the pits (and extrapolating backwards from that point into the build season) was the core of the original comment. Let's please temporarily forget that the author muddied up the water by extrapolating forward from the pit situation to winning/losing on the field.

With that in mind, would someone please explain to me which of the two possibilities I list below describes the "better" FIRST scenario.

• Option 1) Mentors draw on experience to do X; and students learn by watching and asking questions.
• Option 2) Mentors teach students how to do X; students do X with support and guidance from mentors.

If you choose option 2 (and I predict most of us will), and then if you reread the post that started this thread; I'm curious if, in the process, you become more sympathetic to that original author's feelings about pits where mentors appear to be doing most, if not all of the work.

For the life of me I can't think of one good reason why the mentors shouldn't bust their humps teaching (through mentoring) a teams' students as much as the students can/will absorb before/during a build season and tournaments; and then, at the tournament continue to support the students, but let them hold the reins.

Notice that I didn't say doing something else is bad. I did attempt to express that I can't think of any reason why intentionally striving to do something else is better (please remember option 1 and 2 above).

Blake
PS: If someone wants to point out a significantly different third option, I'm listening. Don't let me fall into the trap of viewing this through the lens of a false dichotomy.

Re: GP? I think not.
 

Zero. They have a handful of college students as well.