[Chris Hibner]

I promised that I would stay out of this one, but I just couldn't do it. This thread comes up at least twice a year and it is the same arguments all of the time. In that spirit, I'm going to make this same post that I've already made a half dozen times. Here it goes...

There is nothing wrong with having engineers take over certain aspects of the robot, or even entire robots. Here is why:

This program is meant to INSPIRE students to go to college for engineering. One of the best ways to do that is to create something in front of them that is incredibly cool yet way over their head. If the students say, "that is SO COOL", and "I wish I could do that", then the program is a success. If enough students wish they could do something that cool, then act on it (by going to college), then this program is a success.

That being said, everyone is different. Some students need the hands-on experience to be inspired. Some are more inspired if they are in awe of what they see and can't possibly imagine that a college education can teach them to do that.

I like to do a little of both. Let the students get their hands on the robot and gradually teach them and make them more able to do more on their own. While that is going on, I like to have the engineers doing something that has a big WOW factor that is later explained to the students how it was engineered, and what school subjects are used and how they were applied (hopefully inspiring them to find school fun and useful).

The end point is that a lot of inspiration can be had on both ends of the spectrum. I don't ever want to see the highly engineered robots go away; after all, that's what makes all of the people in the stands say "WOW - I wish I could've done THAT!" To me, there's a lot of inspiration in that.