[ASmith1675]

The biggest challenge of being a mentor is allowing some of your ideas to take a backseat and allowing students the chance to wrestle with the challenges set forth in a given game.

I agree with the notion that simply saying "No that won't work" is not the way to inspire and educate. When I think something may not work in a discussion, I instead like to ask questions to spur further thinking about overcoming an issue that I can see with the suggestion. Ex. "Have you thought about Y?" "How would would overcome X?" What I hope this does is allows students to be able to see what my years of experience building robots have taught me.

Often times these types of questions will lead to better ideas from both mentors and students. Mentors will shed some of their inherent biases, and students will gain a greater understanding of some of the details that need to be worked out.


In terms of trying to get mentors to change their biases, proof is your best option. The biggest issue with changing a drivetrain is that it is often (nearly always) the most critical system of a robot. A fantastic mechanism may mean nothing if you can't easily maneuver around the field. Developing a new drivetrain would be a great offseason project. This allows iteration away from the time pressures of the 6-week build (nothing ever goes as smoothly as you'd like). Then during build season you have another tool in your design toolbox that you can use to accomplish the game task.