[Tom Fairchild]

Honestly, I'm relatively insulted with what you people expect out of the students. Last year, I was the driver for my team. We had two adult mentors out for most of the matches, with a student programmer replacing one of the adults every now and then when we had potentiometer issues. The coaches job was to make sure the me and the other operator were aware of other things happening on the field that were not near our robot. They also helped count down time for us as well. I was the one who strategized with the other teams. I don't see how teams could do it any other way. The impression that I get in some of these posts is that adults need to be there in case something doesn't work that someone who knows about the robot could be there to know what's going on. I knew as much about last year's robot as most of our mentor's.

~Tom Fairchild~, who was a driver and a student and still knew everything about his bot.

edit: I feel like I should tag a little extra onto this post. Usually it was when mentors got involved in strategy talks that we got into problems. Yes, I realize that coaches also do many more valuable things, especially this year when they can keep track of score, but have a little faith in us "children." We'll do just fine.