[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by EMHS2773

We have always had a student coach. We don't need an adult yelling at them telling them how to drive the robot. They know how to drive the robot and it teaches them how to think for themselves. I've typically seen a correlation between the teams that have adult coaches and the ones that let the adults build the whole robot. This year, our mentors were more hands-off than ever, and we made leaps and bounds because of this. We may not have done as well as we wanted to, but we learned so much more from from it. The STUDENTS made the mistakes, and the STUDENTS learned from it, and the STUDENTS built the robot.

Please don't judge other teams by their build styles, and please don't make assumptions about other team's building by their choice in drive coach. We have an adult drive coach and a painted, professional looking robot. I am confident that you would jump to the conclusion that we were an adult built robot and you would be dead wrong. The implication of your post is that adult involvement is inherently at the expense of student learning, growth, and development, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Be proud of what works for your team but please not at the expense or judgement of others.