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Re: When do mentors go too far?
We had the problem of menotrs takeing over the team in the past. Our team's mentors kind of took a lead role, they were involved with team 228 since 1999 and when we split off in 2003 they had a general idea on how to have a competitive robot. Funding and organization was our problem in 2003 and 2004 along with the fact the students were mostly new to FIRST and didn't understand we couldn't do every challenge the game threw at us (like last year had so much to do).
In 2004 we had the final pieces in place of our team as far as organization for students, added 2 more mentors for 2005 and really gave a big foundation.
Most of the new teams probably go through what our team did, maybe even longer than 2 years if their mentors and teams don't have a background in FIRST.
On our message boards on the website the second week of the year we reminded our team that we are a "high school" built team not a Timken or Hamilton Sundstrand (our mentor's companies) built team.
All but one of our mentors really backed off this year, the mentors did come up with the overall design of the robot useing what the students felt the robot needed and then stepped back and let the students go to work.
It's only to the benefit of teams to let students do the work after a team forms that foundation, if you look at Team MAX over the past two years when were "mentor built" compared to this year when it was "student built" the results are so much different at the compeition and the students have a much more fun time I think, especially because once we're out of qualifing and into elmination rounds the only people who touch that robot on the field area is the drive team and 2 student pit crew members.
Last edited by nobrakes8 : 04-04-2005 at 22:56.
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