Thread: [FTC]: Should FTC be more like FRC or FLL in regards to mentor involvement?
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Unread 10-08-2012, 03:02
jcarr jcarr is offline
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FTC #3539
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Re: [FTC]: Should FTC be more like FRC or FLL in regards to mentor involvement?
I argue strongly for it being more like FLL. Partly, that is because our teams grew out of FLL teams, and partly because the kids get more out of doing the work themselves. If there are too many kids on the team, the extra kids are idle. If you have 50-70 kids on a team, how many of them will ever touch the robot? On the other hand, with the new requirement to have a fully equipped machine shop, all those extra people can help raise funds, but I don't see how that helps inspire them to be engineers.

Also, in FTC, one coach can manage three teams (although it is a challenge!) because the kids do all the work. With FRC-like teams, you need many more mentors and skills per team. The simplicity of the coaching job for FTC makes it easy to expand the number of teams, which is partly behind the growth rate. Changing the rules to be more like FRC means that you need metal shop skills versus engineering skills and you need more people to mentor a team.
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