[Alex Chambers]

Our team i very student oriented, we build the robot, we do the design, we do the programming, but we do have mentors to ask for help when we get in a bind and to check our ideas against to insure we don't do something foolish. However as my teammate pointed out many design ideas in first are not arrived at by students but rather by mentors or students who have had some contact with first for multiple years. This year our robotics team as usual was run by students and designed by students but some of our designs drew heavily on teams that we viewed at the national competition that were more mentor driven and as usual some ideas were discussed with mentors before being finalized. Still i am a firm believer that students should always be more involved in the robot then mentors in order to get the best learning experience from first. Don't get me wrong i respect and appreciate all our team's mentors and I don't hesitate to ask for help, but at the same time i expect them to, for the most part allow the students to be responsible for the robot and provide help only when they for-see disaster or are asked.