[Mike Schroeder]

i think that you need the engineers to inspire, w/o them, FIRST students will not see what they have to look forward to in there future (if they go into engineering) And i think the best way to inspire is how Dean Kamen says it himslef to pair acctual engineers with students. while i have seen both sides of the fence, i think that they both have their pros and cons for one, you can build a robot and it can work, but do you know why? do you know how?

That is what the enineers are there for, if a team decides that the engineers will play a more important role, fine all the power to them, but i have seen robots that are all engineer' built and they didnt not perform as well as completly student built one,

My Team doesnt have Engineers, they have Tradesmen, 2 welders, a machinist an Electrician, a tin worker, and in my opinion we learn more from them each year

But no engineers is a perfect way for teams to opperate, as someone in an earlier post said, let teams work their own way, if they want engineers let them have engineers