Quote:
Originally Posted by BenjaminWard
This isn't a tech firm, it's a non-profit robotics competition. Many of these teams have low to minimal mentor involvement, and they do perfectly fine. There's a certain extent of mentor involvement that both works well and allows the students to enjoy themselves and be inspired. There's a difference between helping a struggling team and taking over from the students.
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The point was that for sustainability reasons each individual team should be run like a small tech firm. I agree that the philosophy doesn't mean the mentors make all decisions and do all of the work*. Mentors are definitely needed at the critical decisions in order to prevent a single group of students from dictating or ruining every other students' experience in a season. Sometimes this has to happen forcefully, depending on the culture of the community & the students in a given season.
The level of how much involvement is an art - we certainly have been overly-involved in the past - but as a team gains experience they'll find the right balance for themselves.
*Except leading the fundraising team ... I have yet to meet a student who successfully solicits a large business for fundraising without significant mentor involvement...