[dtengineering]

Well, regardless of how you might feel about your mentors' involvement in the design process, just remember that without their involvement you don't have a team. They are also under pressure to keep your build program on schedule. Depending on the schedule for your team's build, you may NEED to have a design ready to go. NOW.

It is also important for students to know that you can't just show up on the first day of build and design a robot. In my experience new students have been able to contribute ideas to the design process, but only my most experienced students (three to five years' experience) can really visualize the entire machine from gears through to grippers based on sketches and drawings.

If you want to have more impact on your team's design process, I'd suggest getting as involved as possible in this year's build, learning what works and what doesn't, and taking notes of your ideas. In the off season, learn to use Inventor, and re-build a virtual robot that addresses the issues you saw. Talk to your teachers about how your design would work.

When you start next year's build you'll have more experience with design, you'll have Inventor to help you express your ideas, and your teachers will know that you are serious about wanting to contribute ideas.

Sometimes the reason people "don't get to have a say in anything" is because they don't have very many useful things to say. If you and your teammates learn during build, and keep at it over the off-season, you'll likely have many useful things to say next year and will be surprised at the impact that you will have on the design.

Jason