[patrickrd]

Originally posted by magnasmific
I don't have a problem with it at all. They give us a place to work, materials, access to engineers, money, and oppertunities for a job at GM in the future.

I think that the fact that we don't have a school sponser has a lot to do with this. We draw students from over 20 schools. Therefore, we dont owe anything to a single school.

I completely agree with this perspective. In fact, so doesn't Dean Kamen. I believe he addressed this very issue at the Kickoff of 2001. The point he made is that it doesn't matter how the team is organized. Some teams have no engineers, some teams have a dozen. Some teams work at a sponsor's location, some teams work in a parent's basement, and some teams work at the high school. Some teams have many sponsors and a single high school, and some teams have no high schools and a sponsor (and have students from a dozen high schools from all over the place).

Everybody is different... ERR all teams are different!

What is a team? A team is the students. It is not the sponsor, but it is also not the high school. While it is true that the majority of the teams operate at the high school and many are funded by the high schools, others have nothing at all to do with a particular high school.

So, as to who "owns" the team... it's a case-by-case issue. I like to think nobody owns a team, and that it just exists as a partnership. But the numbers and names are sticky issues. But really, it's a small unimportant segment of a large picture.

- Patrick