[goofy173]

I made my feelings known today, and to no avail, so if there is a problem, I'll stand back and say, "Told ya so" and go from there.

The lead mentor believes that as long as the field person can come out to the robot and see the router lights without too much trouble, we'll be OK. I'm going to have the kids mount the router at an angle so that it can be seen looking down into the front, just above the bumpers. If inspection says something about that, then again I can say, "Told ya so."

I am fighting the shop right now because they wanted the electonics on a drawer, and both times it was test fit, it didn't. The first time they forgot to take into account the height of the cRIO. This time new items they mounted on it blocked the drawer from even starting to slide in, so they rotated the drawer 180° and although it still didn't fit, they want that. So now all the electronics have to be removed and installed differently, and where I was told we could run wires from side to side, is now not available for wires. All this and they expected a running robot today. Very frustrating for me being a rookie mentor.

I just told the kid in my electronics team that I will be there when they try and blame us for any problem or being late, and I will remember that the shop changed everything for us twice (so far). The mentor in charge of the build (also a rookie) complains about a lack of communication between teams. I guess he feels that being in charge of the build means he doesn't have to communicate with anyone.

After 27 years of being in a union shop, I'm used to getting blamed, so its no big deal to me at all. I'm just going to go to bat for my students because they've done everything they've been asked to do.