Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneYoung
It's rather the square peg in a round hole scenario when you create a thread/poll such as this that tries to drive 1 single most important aspect of a team forward. What purpose does it serve?
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We learn when we ask difficult questions. I agree with Ed, saying the entire team is the most important is a cop-out. Obviously, there are strong teams, but how did they end up that way? Just accepting that strong teams spontaneously pop into being by virtue of being a good team sounds a lot like
spontaneous generation to me. Someone's gotta plant the germs.
I think it is absolutely dedicated NEMs (or EMs acting as NEMs). I've never run a FIRST team, but after running a college club I'm pretty sure I don't want to. There are so many forms to be filled out, meetings to attend, and decisions to make that have nothing to do with the 120 pounds of robotic goodness that goes onto that field. It is draining (at least for me) in a very different sense than building the robot. Give me a pot of coffee and I'll stay up all night designing/building/testing mechanisms, but a stack of paperwork is the death of me.
Dedicated students are obviously important too (here comes the chicken-or-the-egg bit), but I its easier to get students interested when you've got dedicated mentors as opposed to getting mentors interested when you've got dedicated students. To deal with the vast amount of stuff that goes with running a FIRST team, you've really got to love it. It's not a temporary gig, and you can't just do it for your kids. You've got to love it (or learn to love it). I know lots of dedicated adult mentors probably get involved because of their kids, but they stay involved because they love it. And if they don't, they burn out real quick.