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Unread 31-01-2013, 01:53
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Ivan Malik Ivan Malik is offline
Any other Anthropologists out there
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Team Role: Alumni
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Rookie Year: 2007
Location: Michigan
Posts: 61
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Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot

TL;DR skip to the 3rd paragraph...

I have been both a student and a mentor, and have seen the over bearing mentor archetype from both perspectives. I, as a student, fought frequently with the mentors on my FRC team to allow other students to become more involved with the robot, instead of relegating them to tasks like button making. As a sophomore, I gave away my own assigned jobs to two or three people and stood by and filled the role of mentor, so that they at least could go home and tell their parents that they did something that day. I used every approach known to man to confront the mentors, each time trying to limit as much damage to my fellow students as possible. It got to the point that, I was asked to leave the team by the mentors because other students were starting to take up arms as well. I was viewed as a troublemaker who was trying to instigate a hostile takeover of the team. The same team where it was common place for students to watch a group of mentors huddled in another room talking design. No attempt by the mentors to include the students; every so often a student would attempt to push their way in, but to only be treated like they didn't exists.

As an FLL mentor, I watched as other mentors and head coaches would simply change code or redesign the whole robot and not explain it to the students. When parents would enter the room, at the end of meetings to pick up their kids, these mentors would act quite differently. Any attempt to talk to these colleagues about their actions would end in their denial the events ever happened.

For me the line is right where those who are on the outside looking in think it should be. Where parents who are not involved, sponsors who hear a team's presentation, even just the innocent bystander on the street who wanders into a competition think it should be. While they may not understand all of the trials and tribulations of the process of "inspiration," they are the ones who ultimately judge the success or failure of the team. How would they view the team in its current state, if they could be a fly on the wall at meetings? How would they view FIRST at large if all they had was a snapshot of this one team?

Try and do this for something you're not even remotely involved in. Then come back and try and look at your team in the same way you did that thing. It can be quite eye opening...
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FRC Student: 2007-2010 ~ FLL Mentor: 2007-2009, 2012 ~ FIRST Volunteer: 2012-present
Scouting, Chairman's, Mechanical, Business, Community Outreach, anything that doesn't have wires or code, but I dabble.
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