[Alex Chambers]

I think that one of the best guidelines for the mentor student relationship can be found in the first mentoring guide

:Have the kids do as much work as possible

basically, i think that if a team could not possibly create a robot with out significant mentor help mentors should step in but if a team has the ability to build a "student built robot" then they should because I feel like one of the reasons I have been drawn to first and it has sparked my interest in engineering is the amount of work i have had to invest into the robot on my own with little assistance. I have had help from mentors in the past and whenever i have needed it it has been very much appreciated but i'm also grateful that on my team our mentors are willing to let the students "do as much work as possible" and this often means that the mentors deal with the team members with great restraint, evaluating our ideas, helping us solve problems that we cant solve, but that they also let us choose our own path and make our own mistakes. I feel that learning from my mistakes has helped me significantly in my development on the team and i am glad that my mentors have allowed me to struggle through my problems.

The things that heavily mentor influenced robots do for first are wonderful, they help innovate the way competition robots work, they expand the ability of first competitions to be innovative and interesting, and they allow other teams to learn from their designs. But i'm grateful that I have been on a very student oriented team, and i would not want my first experience to have followed any other path.