When I was on the Fairport team last year, we tried to show the students how to do everything. During the first few weeks we found we had to start all the tasks ourselves (the mentors) until the students could see how it was done. Then one by one we handed the tasks off, stepped in only when someone was stuck, and then only to get things going again.
I found this message I posted last year. I think it sums up my opinion on this matter perfectly:
Quote:
Success!!!
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tonight was our second last official team meeting. About an hour after we got there I didnt really have anything to do, so I was walking around our different work areas
the sparkies were working on the C programming for auton mode, and experimenting with an old gyro sensor hooked to my oscilloscope
the gearheads were attaching the chainguard to our roller and putting the collection net on, and a group of others were working on the arm assembly
one of the parents was working with a student, attaching a fisherprice motor to our commerical vacuum pump
and a handfull of students were making buttons.
I ran into another mentor, Dr Hensel and he had the same silly grin I had.
We could have both gone home and nobody would have missed us - and there are only 3 of us engineers on the team.
Our students have successfully taken over just about everything.
I ended up spending a half hour helping to make buttons.
I think our mission is accomplished. Everything else that happens after today is frosting on the cake! :^)
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