[Mastonevich]

Our team also tries to keep student involvement as high as possible and having a student drive coach works toward that goal. I kind of like that students are having to discuss strategies with adults, with some of the adults very persistent. It teaches them things that student to student only interaction would not otherwise achieve. Those skills will be used the rest of their lives. Mentor/Student interaction is what FIRST brings to the table and the differing views of teams regarding this subject just brings about another method for that interaction to occur.

However, personally I believe that it is normally a competitive advantage on most teams to have an experienced adult as the coach for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

Everything is a compromise and one should be able to find positives and negatives for both approaches.