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FIRST’s goal is not education; it is not an advanced shop class. If your school embraces the education part, more power to you, but it’s not FIRST’s focus. Building a robot is an assembly line manufacturing job.
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This is the one concept in all of the threads on this topic that really bothers me. And I know it is something Dean Kamen has said.
I don't care if some teams have all engineer built robots. Or if teams have all student designed robots. But for all the teams which are from a high school or schools, it is imperative that this be an educational experience. It may not be FIRST's focus but is the mission of schools. And in my view it is almost criminally wasteful to miss the opportunities for learning that present themselves when students get to work with professionals.
Furthermore, without "the education part" you are not going to do a good job inspiring. It just won't happen. Students need to be participants and not spectators if you really want to inspire them. This is not just opinion, it is well established and well tested theory in education and psychology. Participation does not have to mean students do all or even most of the work. It means that students are involved in the process and that they feel involved in the process. Building a second robot exactly like the first one may be an assembly line manufacturing job, but designing and building the first robot is not.
OK, I am editing this because the post came out a bit (WAY) stronger than I wanted to. I really am trying to convince people not to waste the chance to educate and not chastise. And I certainly am not casting aspersions on how teams involve students as participants. As I said in my first post in this thread, there are many ways to get students involved and thankfully many of these get demonstrated by FIRST teams every year.