[Katie Reynolds]

You've got to keep in mind that (usually) it is the sponsor that is putting out the big bucks for a team to be able to function. And as someone said before, some schools have a bunch of high schools involved with one team. We just incorporated the high schools involved with our team into our team name (N.E.W. = Appleton North, Appleton East, Appleton West.)

Rbayer - I completely agree. It really irks me when I see engineers working on the robots in the pits and whatever - not because I don't think they should be involved, but because I feel it's a better learning experience for the kids to actually be able to do something, and work on the robot than to stand around and say "Oh, cool. Look at what my engineer is doing." That's why I love our engineers. In the pits, and especially during the build season, if we need to build or fix something, our engineers step back and say, "get to it," rather than saying "oh, ok - watch me while I fix the problem." If a kid can be inspired by just standing around and watching an engineer work, that's fine - but I really think they are missing out on a lot of the experience of being in FIRST if they just sit back and polish wheels or something.

All in all, I don't think 'sponsor before school thing' is a huge deal. Just because the sponsor's name comes first doesn't't mean that the students don't do any work. How you can even deduce that just from how the team is announced at a competition is beyond me.

- Katie