[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

This is not my thinking. This is what FIRST says it's stated goals are: to inspire the next generation. How a team does this mission is entirely up to the individual team. If a team chooses to inspire by having professionals design and build the robot, that's entirely their choice. This is very similar to RI3D's. If a team uses it to inspire their students, more power to them. If a team chooses another path, that's just as valid. The only thing you should take away from this conversation about my "line of thinking" is that the all teams should have access to as many tools as they would like. What they do with them is entirely their choice.

I was simply opining that I do not think it is nearly as inspiring or educational to watch a mentor build a robot as it is to do it yourself. I can state with absolute certainty that had I not had access to the hands-on problem-solving experience that my FRC team provided, I'd be much worse off. I understand that this may not have been the point of your post, but your claim that "FIRST is not about kids solving problems" is something I felt compelled to comment on, because I think that students solving problems is a very important part of what FIRST is about. It certainly was the most valuable thing I got out of the program.

As an illustrative anecdote: About a year and a half ago I began an internship at the university of Maryland, working in robotics. The professor informed me that I would not be added to the payroll until I was contributing deliverables to the research; that they do not pay students to learn. A week later I was on the payroll, almost entirely because of the hands-on engineering work experience and problem-solving skills I had gained through FIRST.

You mention that Ri3D's choice is to have engineers build the robots, in the context of teams choosing how best to inspire their students - in light of this, I think it is also worth noting that Ri3D is not a FIRST team. They are a group of independent engineers who feel that this is a good use of their time (for which I am very grateful, as I've already mentioned).