[Brian C]

Just to add another perspective.

My son and I mentor 5 different teams in our area. He is a former student team member of a now defunct team and we have been involved with FIRST since 1999.

Our level of involvement as mentors differs with each team. Our personal goal is to have the team complete at least 85% of the robot build. There are some areas where we get involved mainly to get the robot completed at the end of 6 weeks. We believe that it's important for the team to have a machine operational at some level when they get to a competition.

We have found that our level of involvment is directly related to the teams abilities and resources. We respect the wishes of the students on each team and encouragge them to create on their own with guidance from us. As can be expected some teams are better at this than others.

The main goal is to guide as much as possible and help when necessary.

Remember an old mentoring mantra:

You watch me do it, We do it together, I leave you to do it.