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Re: Teacher Designs
I'll chime in here and, like everyone else, tell you to talk with them. This isn't a terribly uncommon problem in FIRST - after all, every year I've been a mentor I've gone home from kickoff and sketched out several robot designs. it's cool fun, interesting stuff to do. Despite that, however, I've never brought one of those sketches in for the team.
We had a similar issue in 2008 (our second year) - the mentors were doing too much, and the students not enough. The students brought the issue up, talked about it, and we worked with them to improve things that year. I'll tell you right off - we didn't improve much that year. It's hard to make a radical change in the middle of the season. But we did work with the students to layout the groundwork for improving. We came to an understanding that, in order for the team to be successful, roles on the team had to be clearly defined. We needed clear expectations of what our jobs were. And that summer, we worked out that document. 2009 was better than 2008, although it was still largely mentor-driven. 2010 was even better still. This year, we're almost entirely student designed and student driven. As mentors, we walk around and offer thoughts on discussions, but we aren't leading the talks. We aren't leading the experiments or the prototypes. We're simply helping the students where needed, and when they ask for it.
So please, open the dialog with your teachers/mentors. If it helps, write out the issues in an anonymous letter for them. But above all, keep things constructive. You don't want to push such dedicated people away - you want to talk about what makes FIRST so great, and how you want your team to evolve into something that gives you an even better understanding of the design process. Let them know that you appreciate the time and effort they've put in, and that you love their dedication - but they need to find a way to include the students and allow you to share in the process. The last thing you want is for this to turn into a finger pointing game, or to sound whiny and immature. You have legitimate complaints, and if you approach them with the right attitude, you can get a lot accomplished.
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