[JesseK]

Unless reading the rules as a group is part of the original Day 0 activities, the rules can't be forced upon a mentor. Even then, many mentors simply tune out the strategy discussion and start envisioning devices to play the most obvious parts of the game. In my experiences on my teams and at competition, most mentors don't care about the rules until they hit them.

It's a double-edged sword - not knowing the rules removes the perception of what is "supposed to be" or "what the GDC wants", leading to more creativity or outside-the-box thinking. Yet not knowing the rules has a major impact on a team's success when everything comes together.

Each mentor has a role on our team, and is charged with being the best at that role. Even the build lead does not need to know every Robot rule in order to be effective at his role so long as he has people guiding him along the way. He has personally accepted that some of the things he and the students come up with will have to be modified to fit within the rules, yet that's the double-edged sword/fine line he walks. The student leads are also expected to know the rules that apply to their sub team(s). I fulfill the role of rules/strategy guru for the mentors, and the student leads have their responsibilities for doing the same within their groups (or cross-groups, for some of them).

I think it's important to remember that many mentors have active lives outside of mentoring, even during the 6-week build season. Find a way to work with them in a way that doesn't make their lives harder, especially during that time. Arguing is the probably worst possible thing to do, even if the student/other mentor is technically correct. The best way our team has found to do this is better communication via written drawings or typed documentation (or posting of phone photos of pencil drawings). Most ideas and decisions are compound and constructive on our team, leading to decisions with associated rationale. If someone was out of the loop on Day 2, then there may have been a lot of progress by the time the person returns on Day 3. We simply tell the person to read, follow links to rules, part sources, etc and then re-join the conversation. We have implemented this via an online forum & Drop Box ( maybe Evernote one day).