Originally Posted by xitaqua (Post 814460)

Hello All,

As a mentor, I would like to reach out to all the mentors reading this thread :

Remember what it meant to be a mentor to you before the season started.

If the reason that you volunteered to be a mentor is so you can build a robot, you probably joined the team for the wrong reason in my opinion. As an adult you have plenty of opportunities to see "your design" realized. Give this opportunity to the students.

A mentor is someone that guides the team, for you to be a guide you need to be an honest broker. It is like when you are a foreign country and you hire a "guide", that individual will provide you ideas of what to see and what to do, but in the end is you that make a decision. A guide shows the path, leads in the path, but doesn't drag others along.

I am aware of what my team picked for their robot design, I am also fully aware what other teams picked for their designs. I will say this, the team that will win this competition, is the team that will be able to compete next year, and the next year, and the next year, and the next year.....and ever.

I really don't care about the robot design.

It is not about who has the best design, it is about who has a team that will go on, go on even if they loose their Mentor. Or if their Coach quits because she is overwhelmed. The main sponsor drop out and you are out of $6,000.

Those are the winners.

Cheers,
Marcos.
:)