[magnets]

The answer to this question really depends on the team. On our team, we never even think about having an adult coach. Ever. The students would kill the mentors. Our team works on the theory that student build the robot, and mentors provide engineering guidance. However, many teams are much different. For instance, 148's idea is to have mentors and students work with each other with equal roles. As a result, the students may not do as much work, but they still get as much inspiration, and get to work on and get exposed some of the more advanced and technical stuff on FRC robots. There are fantastic teams with adult coaches, and fantastic teams with student coaches.