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Re: At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot
The argument seems to frequently stem from the appearance of some of those top tier robots.
"It looks professionally built, there's no way high school students built that."
I've heard it dozens of times, mostly aimed at 1114 and 2056, since the Canadian regionals are my stomping grounds.
I know because I've dealt with these teams many times, that the students are no less involved in the process, its just that their process is different to the average team.
In many cases, the competition robot appears professionally built, because it is. I know that several of the more recent 1114 machines (starting in 2009, IIRC), the production of many parts for the final machine happened at their sponsor's facility by a machine. Those parts look professional, because a machine produced them from a CAD drawing. Often though, the students DID assemble the final product.
The difference is in the focus of their program compared to the argued "student-built" machine. The "professionally-built" teams focus more on the prototyping and design and engineering process, often outsourcing the manufacture of the final product parts to a sponsor, while the "student-built" teams focus on manufacturing the robot. Both have merit, they're just different.
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