[newton418]

The team I am on (418, Purple Haze, LASA Robotics) is a team made up of students, one teacher (who is our coach), one mentor, one welder and a parents association. The parents association handles the money, provides transportation and leads the “frou crew,” which puts up flags and shiny things in the stands. Our teacher occupies himself with the paper work, making sure we have materials, dealing with the school and of course teaching his classes. Our mentor focuses on another, smaller, competition we compete in which overlaps with the FIRST build season. He also attends competitions because he enjoys the FIRST organization. Our welder does exactly that, welds aluminum pieces for our team because we don't have the facilities for aluminum welding. Besides this the kids do everything. We design the robot, we build the robot, we modify the robot, we test the robot, we model the robot and we’ve even been known to sleep with the robot.

Personally, I love this approach. Being a small team (we had 19 members go to competition) we rely on each and every student to work on the robot. As a result, when I was a freshman I was expected to design and machine parts which would go on the robot. In doing so I have learned much more than in any class I’ve taken. Additionally, I think the single biggest compliment I’ve ever received is the look on the Cheesy Poofs’ coach last year at nationals after our coach informed him we had no professional help.

I don’t mean to preach that having adult help is bad, nor do I mean to suggest that one way is better than the other but I do have to say, winning a round against a robot built with the help of professional engineers feels great.