[JABot67]

Umm.

To say that another team's students do not have enough influence on the team or on the robot is just the generic, baseless insult in FIRST.

I've heard it applied to other teams from students on my team (3322) and I've heard it applied to my team from the students on other teams. I'm not going to go into details about how my team works but I will tell you that the students play a gigantic role in every aspect of the team and are very knowledgeable about designing, building, and programming robots, but even so the mentors definitely have their hands full of work.

The reason this insult is completely baseless is because you do not know how another team works, or how much their kids are being inspired. I've read countless posts on CD that go something like "oh, their pits are full of mentors" or "golly, I tried talking to their students and they knew nothing about the robot" because chances are there are some students on the team that know about their robot.

One of the students on my team claimed that another team was mentor built and their students didn't know anything about the robot. I then went and talked to one of that team's students who proceeded to explain many great technical things about that robot and the programming thereof.

It's almost like teams are using "that team is mentor-built and their students don't know anything" as an excuse as to why they don't perform as well as another team.

On my old team (67), if I happened to be in the pits my freshman or sophomore year and someone came up to me asking how the robot worked, I would have been one of those "students who don't know anything because the mentors do everything". If that same person came back my senior year and asked me the same thing, he/she would have been quite surprised that I had programmed the whole robot while the mentors watched.

The obvious solution to this problem is just to not judge other teams.

end rant