[Ken Leung]

John,

Can anyone honestly say they know 100% about teams other than their own? I don't believe so. So before you know take up the courage and talk to the teams, you should not make such a quick judgment about them and how much their students learn. Until then, don't just go to the computer, come into this forum and post whatever you choose to believe about those teams.

In a lot of area, they are lucky to have a FIRST team. There are many reasons that could explain that... Can you honestly say the students aren't inspired as much as you and your team did?

Teams have different policy on how much their student learn because of many different reasons. Can you honestly say EVERY team should have the students do 100% of the work on the robot? Comparing a team with 100% student and no robot at the competition, and a team with engineers building the robot with the students, I would say the latter team's student got more out of the experience than the other one.

And how do you know the students weren’t involved in designing the robot, and constructing the parts in the machine shop along with the engineer/mentor? There are many many ways for a person to get inspired about science and engineering... Working in the pit is just one of them. One other really popular method is to go around the pit area, and actually MEET other teams and TALK to them, and share the experience, and build up a network with others in the program and learn from them. Have you given that a try?

Dean say that FIRST isn't about education... I don't exactly agree with that statement, but at the same time I believe that inspiration and exposure are the more important aspect in FIRST. You can learn many things by doing FIRST, but the more important result is that it inspire you to stay on the path of science and technology. When compare to years of experience of working with companies and even the 8 years total of undergrad and grad school, FIRST is only the first step that open the eyes of students and reveal them the path they will take.

You don't have to acknowledge the effort and energy those engineers and mentor put into the team... Just don't reject and undermine them, and out rightly say it's wrong.

And besides, why do you have only 1 advisor and 1 mentor on your team? What happen to the 10 month in the year for you to raise fund, and find more support? It is the team's responsibility to keep their program sustainable, as well as improve every year.

I really hope you make use of your time at competition and learn something from it.

And to yangotang, I repeat the same thing about not having enough engineers and mentors on the team. I happen to know three of the adults on Aragon Robotics, and they are some of the best people I've ever seen, and are involved in a lot more than just building a robot for 6 weeks. I hope you appeciate the fact that they are on your team helping instead of "being paid to work with bellarmine"