[Conor Ryan]

I've been on both sides of the tracks and heres my opinion on technical mentors.

Saying No to assistance that a technical mentor can provide is saying no to help. I'm trying not to make any religious connection but its saying no to a good Samaritan. Who is making them help you?

Well anyway I'm strongly in the opinion of never saying no to help, because in the end everyone benefits. You can ask any engineer thats assisted a team, they learn from the student too, so why say no to their education too.

FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, any I'm starting to believe that in order to be inspired, the closer you work with the mentors on your team the more inspired you would become. I wouldn't have the understanding I have today of mechanics and many other principals if it weren't for technical mentors that have been assisting me for over 4 years now, yes I've been lucky enough to of had mentors in middle school too. And I'm a living fact that mentors work.
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However lets look at the advantages of a student built robot and compare?

Student Built
Pros:
-If something breaks you can fix it, you built it, you can repair it
-Team Pride
-Feeling that You've contributed something signifigant to the team
-Learned how to use the kit and potentially other items
Cons:
-Not the greatest track record (reliability issues are most common, I'm a design scout I have pictures and stacks of reports on it)
-Didn't get the optimal Engineering experince that could of happened

Student and Engineer Built
Pros:
-If something breaks, you can fix it. Why can't you?
-Team Pride
-Worked Side by side with real life engineers and got a better grasp of the engineering experince
-Generally the best track record available
-Contribution to the team
Cons:
-You didn't make every single part yourself (But is that really a disadvantage?)


edit:This is definetly not complete, so don't get angry