The bottomline is that we're fulfilling FIRST's ideals of inspiring youths to consider careers in science and technology and changing today's outlook in these fields. It doesn't matter if a robot is built and designed 100% by engineers and is the best on the field, or bulit and designed 100% by students and is the worst on the field, or even a combination of the two, as long as the students are inspired.
I've heard this one being reiterated in the FIRST community too many times now and I'm sure inspiration is happening in every FIRST team out there, but has anyone ever considered to take it a step further? I sure have. Instead of letting FIRST simply encourage youths to take on jobs of science and technology, why don't you make it a personal or team goal to produce the leaders of tomorrow? If not the leaders, at least the geniuses of tomorrow. Besides, FIRST isn't only about inspiration, FIRST is also about providing opportunities of enrichment. I'm the taking this opportunity, generously provided by FIRST (and my mentors and teammates, of course), to rise to the top.
Every team is unique, thus, the solution will always be dependant on the team.*sigh* I've heard this one too many times as well. Not that I'm trying to offend anyone, but this sort of thinking doesn't get us very far. What we need are details. "A good balance of...this-that-this" really isn't good enough either I'm afraid. To find a better answer, let us remind ourselves the question at hand.
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Originally Posted by Andy Baker
Dare I ask... Which "team" is better? What defines "better"?
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Keeping in mind that FIRST is out there for the kids, I will firmly say that the student run team is better. Let's be unrealistic for a second. The perfect team would definitely be student run, but will still have mentors supporting and acting as a security blanket in case the students make a big mistake, which they won't if they have earned the responsibility of managing a small business that we would usually call a FIRST robotics team. Mentors will have to be deprived of involvement, but in replacement of that fun is an abundant warm fuzzy feeling. Of course, for this team to be perfect, they would have to be a successful one in competition, therefore having bright and capable students not only in managing team, but also engineering a competitive robot. The perfect team will also be capable of winning every FRC award available and spread the word of FIRST as if it was the plague. Just perfect.
Now, to stop daydreaming. It'll be a while before the perfect team comes along (I won't shoot down the possibility), but the more your team is similar to this one, the closer you will be to achieving this dream.
Unfortunately, what we usually see today are excellent engineer-built robots or not-so-great student-built robots. Between these two types of robots (not considering the existence of excellent student-built robots), not-so-great student-built robots still make the "better" team for FIRST's sake. These are the students that will more likely the geniuses of tomorrow. But we have to remember that engineer-built teams are still
good teams for inspiring the students.
Just because a robot is 100% student-built, doesn't mean mentors and engineers still can't help. We must remember that mentors should only be teaching. If mentors keep to teaching students the design process and how to use a machine and etc., and ensure the students are productive, all that is needed from the students is a creative mind and a willingness to work to have an excellent competitive robot.
I am not leaving out the fact that some teams cannot be easily student run or have a student built robot if the students aren't willing, that some students may be too independant to ask for mentor support, that mentors can't help but join the fun and other facts, I am simply directly answering the debate question.