[engunneer]

I also want to weigh in here. When I was a student, our team had a great sponsor, and four to six engineers from the sponsor would come help us out (not to mention great parents as well). We were a large team, and the different engineers were all interested in different things, so the mentor student ratio was pretty good all around in my view. We were lucky enough to have a machine shop in the school, and our teacher (A WFA winner) was the shop teacher and knew how to inspire kids, and guide design decisions with a light touch. The fancy parts of our robots were still made out of plywood and welded metal. I'll end this part by saying my experience in FIRST as a student made me want to go into engineering, and made me want to be a Mentor.

When I was a mentor with 1318 in WA, I worked for a machine tool company that made waterjets. The school had some drill presses, and that was about it for machine tools. Our milling machine was a bunch of freshmen with files. We had a few students very interested in CAD and design, and we spent a lot of time together talking about how to design with the given tools in mind. I got them thinking about how to design things that can be made out of flat parts. Our 2008 and 2009 robots were jointly designed, but students had the last say for final design. One student was taught how to make DXFs for the waterjet, and I'd cut them out at lunch and after work. The students got a tour of our shop and got to learn about how our machine tools are similar to the robots they build (and what a machine shop looks like). I don't think it should matter that I cut out the parts instead of the students. It was an exercise in ordering machined parts from a vendor. They had to learn about drawings, tolerances, and making sure it worked in cad before ordering. It's very much like a real engineering company. Our 2009 robot went on to seed between 111 and 67 on Galileo, and the students all went on to good college programs in things they enjoy.

This year with 2151, I didn't have access to a waterjet, but I do have a 3D printer. The tool situation is similar (they at least have a band saw). We were going to try to do CAD this year, and have separate Design/Build phases, but one mentor got sick, and the programming mentor had to travel for work for long periods during the season. The students turned out to be not interested enough in CAD for it to be effective, so we basically went to design while building. They decided the basic outline of what they wanted, but it took a lot of prodding to get them to prototype and build things. We made great strides this year, but I would estimate I designed at least 35% of the robot. I did not get to go into the design process as much as I would have liked with the students, but I think we'll still have a good competition. I've heard the students talk about the "rich, mentor built" teams, and have tried to discourage that as being necessarily bad. Most of the 3D printed parts on our robot were designed and printed by me. Towards the end, two of our seniors got to get into the process, and they have parts on the robot that they designed.

I guess my main point is that each team is working with the resources it has. Some have money, some have engineers, some have a machine shop, some have time, some have large numbers of people, and some have tenacity and resourcefulness. The nice thing is that any combination of these elements can create a successful robot and can inspire students to learn. I no longer focus strictly on Science and Technology, but just about learning and thinking in general. FIRST is good at teaching how to run a business, how to build confidence, how to present and talk to strangers, how to build things, how to use tools, how to write, etc.

Our robot isn't the prettiest or the best, but it works. 111's robot will be prettier (They know how to make a robot look good), other teams in the area will have faster and stronger robots. (This is my first year in this regional, so I don't know the other robots/teams well). Our mentors picked up tools and helped build the robot. Some teams frown on that to the point of extremes. We all do and think different things, and that is what makes FIRST great.

TL;DR, I agree with Taylor here. Student built vs. Mentor built is not as important as inspiring students to go on to do great things.