Just a real-quick note on the red dots thing - it's not just the 'senior brain trust' handing out the red dots here. I got some for my post in this thread with just the caption 'No' or 'Wrong' from people who apparently disagree with me.
Considering this is an opinion discussion, that's basically the equivalent of reaching across the table and slapping the person you're debating, instead of actually responding to their point.
FWIW, I use red very sparingly - people outright breaking forum rules, rudeness, trolling hard, or just generally being the antithesis of the community. If I don't agree with a post, I'll neutral it with some sort of comment/question as a way to take my individual thought to a PM with them if they so choose.
That said, I'll speak again to the initial point of this thread:
The following is actually from the 'Quest for Einstein' thread, but I think it works here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wesbass23
I have never been to Einstein myself so I cannot really speak from experience but there are a few things I think it takes to compete consistently at an elite level. The first thing is good mentors that come back every year. You need mentors who understand FIRST and who are able to devote their time each year to the team. Alongside this you need the full support of your school/community. You cannot constantly be dealing with roadblocks set by your school administration concerning things like fundraising or the number of days of school a student can miss.
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When I was a student, 1923 did not have consistent mentors. At all. Some of us were
proud of that. (I'll chalk that up to being young and stupid - I was administrating our rookie FRC team at 14 without any help.) We spent every build season in varying states of 'oh god we're lost', and never fielded competitive robots.
Not only were we terrible, but it was absolutely exhausting as a student leader, to have to teach my fellow students everything and then also have to work with the school's roadblocks, and advocate for us to the community and our sponsors. I don't recommend complete student leadership to absolutely anyone, not even my worst enemy. I'd end build season sick, exhausted, and usually alienated from my teammates since I so frequently had to be the 'bad guy'
(I could take a tangent on to why this also applies to first-year university students coming back to mentor their old team, but I'm sure a thread will come up on that later.)
We finally fielded a consistent mentor who not only taught us the basics of FRC, but brought in connections from other industries who could teach us about the things even they didn't know. Some of the students from the original few years were upset that
we even had an adult working with the team. They were mad. Why is this adult taking our work away from us? How come we don't get to run everything anymore?
It took one of the kickoff speeches many years ago (I think it was Dave?) to remind them why this was a good thing. I couldn't tell you what year it was, or even find a transcript, but the line that hit me was something like this.
"There are teams who are proud they don't have engineers on your team. Guess what? You've failed. That's not the point of this." He went on, but he was completely right.
Having someone to teach, to advocate, to bring legitimacy to your organization is not a bad thing. Without mentors, are you really doing FIRST? For
Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology?
How are you, a student with basically the same knowledge base, inspiring someone to go into the career path they choose - are you lending them your industry experience? No. Giving them advice on university & internships? I sure hope not, you haven't been through it. You need some sort of partnership, even if it's just a little bit. Mentors are more than just Wiring101 teachers. There should be a connection there, helping foster something new in the students throughout the FIRST process.
1923 has reached a really comfortable balance now, where a team of several mentors works alongside our co-captains to get things done. It's brought us greater success in all the goals we set, and it's made for a really great relationship between mentors and students.
As an example, let's say we want to approach a new company for sponsorship.
- Our Finance Co-Captain comes up with the idea and starts to write a presentation.
- Our advisor reaches out to the company with the initial communication, to set up a time to meet. (The letter she sends is one that was collaborated on by students and mentors to make sure it's attention-getting and effective.)
- I take a look through the presentation to make sure that it's all correct, that our branding is consistent, and spend the time practicing with the student(s) that will be meeting.
- Students who are interested will join our Finance Co-Captain on that presentation to demo the robot, answer questions, and represent the team
- At least one or two mentors accompanies them, to lend credibility to the organization.
It's about a partnership. The balance is something the team decides on as a whole, to make sure we run efficiently and meet our goals. There are some roles that are a better fit for adults than students, and that's okay.
Another example we're working through right now - we're having a programming problem, and I want it fixed yesterday so our drivers can practice. One of our mentors knows how to fix it, so am I just going to let the students flounder around the issue and waste precious build season time? Of course not - that doesn't help anyone. We fix the issue immediately, and then the mentor who knew the solution spends the time to teach the students how he got around it
(after the robot's functional, because ain't nobody got time for that right now).
If that doesn't work for your team, then that's fine. I can speak to the fact that it works for our team because I know that the next time an issue like that comes around, I'll have at least 5 programming students who can go "Oh! I know! Mr. P taught me how to fix that".
It's about balance. My team's balance is not your team's balance, and that's okay.
Our team decided on how we run things as a group, and everyone agrees to it. We're all happy with it. It works for us.
Above all, teams should do what works for them, and not worry about what other teams are doing.
TLDR: 1) 1923's philosophy, which works pretty well for us. 2) How another team inspires their students is not anyone else's business.