[Beth Sweet]

Just as a side note before I start, I know a lot of machines do look like they were engineer built, but a lot of them were just built by fantastic students. I know 67 was that way when I was on it and people often confused it for being engineer built.

Onto what I really wanted to say. I have actually just recently had this conversation with a fellow mentor. While I believe (personally) that students should be the ones building their machines and doing everything, he pointed out that the initial purpose of this competition was not a science fair, it was for students to be inspired to be engineers, to place engineers on a sort of pedestal and make students want to do it themselves. Whether this objective is accomplished by the engineers building the robot or the students was not the point, so long as the students were inspired.

Personally, I feel that the best way to inspire students is to allow them to experience the entire process first hand. I also realize, however, that there are a lot of people unable to take that risk. Small machine shops can't take the liability risks of a child being injured. Can you imagine the lawsuit if a student got injured and sued a small machine shop? Not only would they go out of business with bad publicity, but they would be bankrupt from the suit. That's not a risk that many small businesses are willing to take. These days, people are just looking to make it rich on lawsuits and courts are more than willing to help them out it seems. While I'd rather things were different, they aren't and I understand why some teams are forced to have engineer built robots.

Moderators, feel free to delete this post if you feel that it's not appropriate, but I said what I feel needed to be said in the best way I could think of to say it. Thanks!