[Alexander McGee]

I belong to one of these so-called "Student-Run" Teams. I am a mentor.

The reason that people get bent out of shape about this is that they thing the Engineers do all the work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't (there are some really talented students in this program people). Regardless, some teams opt to have little or no adult involvement. As Andy stated, these teams generally do not "perform" well at the regional.

I think that the real problem here is everyone's definition of "performance". So what if the robot doesn't match up to the other ones? So what if there is something that was designed/built/engineered better than yours? Does this not inspire our students? Does it not make them want to do better the next year?

I think the real measure of a team is the number of students that it produces into the "Engineering field", and the number of scholarships that those students win. Who really remembers who won x-award at x-regional in 200x? What do these things really matter?

Some teams are set up differently than others. As long as there is still inspiration, to each his own.