[Parks]

Our school is really tight on legal stuff so we have a staff member 'supervising' is at all times. They are there for liability reasons and that is it. They know little about robots - we do everything ourselves. If you asked anyone but a student anything about the robot they would have no clue. Our team is completely student run and the mentors are there because they have to be say the rules.
We do get help from a retired electrical engineer and the father of one of our team members.
Even if our robot is junk, which it certainly isn't, I would rather have built it than just have a beatiful bot that I hadn't touched. I really think that FIRST should look into this closely and ensure that students are extracting all the experience they can out of the competition, and are not just learning how to watch and keep their mouths shut.