[jblay]

I am on a team where our student to mentor ratio is like 5:1 and the vast majority of building is done by students and the design of the bot is done entirely by students with mentors taking looks and giving advice. But this is just the way we run it because we feel it is what will give the kids the best learning experience. As mentors we step in and take charge when it is necessary to get things going in the right direction but we always remember that the main goal of this program is to teach students.

It is not about who does what on the robot, it is about the kids learning the most and for some teams that maybe the mentors doing more on their robots than on other teams. If the best thing for some team or for some student is for the mentor to lead the construction of a robot part and for the kids to learn from the mentor, then that is absolutely the way that team should run things.

It is important to not forget the ultimate goal of FIRST and if there are teams where the kids don't learn remember that you are getting more out of it than they are. But I personally have never really seen it as a big issue that the students aren't working on the bot. It is easier to assume that teams with awesome robots like 254 or 1114 or so on are just mentor built than to recognize them for their great work.