Yes, students need to build the robot, but teacher and engineer guidence is a must. The lesser expierenced students need the most guidence (most of the time) and then as you spend more and more time doing this, less guidence is needed. Your engineers are kind of like the instruction manual for building the robot. If you build without instructions the product will come out incorrectly most of the time, but with the instructions it will help guide a path to success.