Quote:
Originally Posted by bduddy
Defending accusations like this with "well, I think they're still inspiring their students, so it's OK" is a massive cop-out.
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Since the title of this thread is "The Meaning of FIRST", I don't think that's even a minor cop-out. FIRST is about inspiration. Check out its mission:
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.
You can find that on the
FIRST web site.
I've observed a few teams with extremely strong mentor involvement in all parts of the team. One such team struck me a week ago as having an unusually high fraction of the people working on the robot being well past high school. I can imagine that some people view that as undesireable. But do you want to know that team is viewed by
FIRST? The Chairman's Award banners they have received say that FIRST likes what they do, and that they represent a model for other teams to emulate.