[hrench]

With all of the mistrust and apparent antagonizing, I think the first thing you need to do is remember you're a team.

When you start out saying "student run," I don't think that label helps at all and really doesn't mean anything. Adult mentor-volunteers don't like to be told that you're in charge of them. So stop that. You all run it. You're a team. Not student run, not mentor run.

My next advice is you need planning. You have to plan who will do what jobs and by when. You have to plan how decisions will be made. And the plans need to be written down so there'll be no question when the time comes.

If you can't get CAD done, just do the important parts. If you can get students trained in CAD, no bigee--plenty of 'bots are build without it.

You probably need some democratic procedures to decide things so everyone will be included and expect what's coming before decisions are made. "We'll choose which regional to go to this way..." can be written down.

And I recommend you let your mentors know that you don't feel like your input is being incorporated. Democracy doesn't always work, but its important that everyone is at least listened to.

You mentioned that you had a bad robot in 2014. Bad robots happen. But you need a procedure where you can't blame each other for it. When you design the robot, you need to be all together. You need a process to pick the design of the robot that relies on fact and testing, not on one or two people (student run?) telling the rest what to do. Then you all hold hands and jump off the bridge together, hoping for the best.

If something fails badly, you discuss and agree and fix as much as you can.
You don't give up. And never mention that that other concept would've been better. You fix what you have. Mostly. Not many ways you can completely redesign after bag day.

You're all concerned about screen shots and privacy, but I believe being up-front, honest and in the open is way more helpful to your team. There is nothing I've ever said on my team that if someone 'screenshotted' it I'd be embarrassed about or have to back-pedal on. If you're all talking about each other behind backs, not GP.

So there's no value in blaming, private criticism, turf wars and decision dictators. You need to leave those things. If you have some unhappy people on the team--mentors or students--then they need to find out what they want out of the experience and work to make everyone get more of what they want. I think 'taking a year off' will kill any team, I don't recommend it.

As for officer selection, I don't think younger kids really need a say in this as they don't have the history in front of them...you're not having a popularity contest. Leaders rise, you don't have to pick them. Usually its pretty obvious who the leaders need to be.

We're not building robots here, we're building people. That's the focus. I don't care if your 'bot wins. I'm here to turn you onto STEM people. I want to turn you into successful people. I want to enjoy my time as a mentor and I want my fellow mentors to also.

You're at the first step--you care.