So obviously you are for mentor run teams but i think some of your statements are a little askew.
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Originally Posted by funstuff
The mentors should be the people who ensure that things are getting done, but are not doing said things.
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Okay its sounds to me like your talking about a team where mentors tell students how to build a robot which is contradicted by saying the students design the robot. What type of things should mentors insure in your opinion?
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Originally Posted by funstuff
The students who design and build the robot should, by all means go to their mentors with their problems, as the mentors are the ones with college degrees in engineering and physics.
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Uhh im not sure i agree with this fully. Speaking strictly from actual experience being a engineer gives a mentor no advantage over a student when it come to building robotics. As mentioned in other threads robotics is rarely covered in college. In fact i know a mentor who has designed xray systems for submarine inspection yet has no clue when it came to our robots specific abilities. He was knowledgable about electrics but in plenty of cases it just didn't carry over.
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Originally Posted by funstuff
There must always be a balance, and, as posted above, a sense of respect between the adults and the students. Both sides need to understand that most of the time, students have minds and ideas with an abundance of creativity, just like most of the time, mentors have minds and ideas with an good deal of knowledge and experience. These two entities can not, despite many beliefs, survive without one another. The best way to survive is to thrive, and to do so by working with one another, rather than against one another, that is truely success, whether or not the competition is won.
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I think that the knowledge of the students is underplayed in this part. Frankly
your last sentence is completely contradictory to the next section.
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Originally Posted by funstuff
As a team, we have realized that only under extremely lucky conditions will we ever win a championship, being primarily student built robot. I think no one is devestated by this fact because there is so much more to FIRST than winning. We realize that many times, the teams whose robots win or are almost perfect are not built by students, by any length of the imagination.
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THIS is what i have a problem with. I think this is hardly true for reasons mentioned before and because a student with experience can design amazing pieces. Two great examples are Tytus and Arefin (the first to come to mind. hope you guys don't mind) who both did great work while in college. Even Engineers with knowledge in a specific area can have trouble because they can design a otherwise amazing system but find that unless they have experience in robotics that their system just isn't practical (inappropriately weighted systems and a lack of understanding of parts limits is a primary problem) Again mentor run teams are not bad but its the generalizations that get to me. I know I'm a hypocrite in making this post and if any of you figure out why don't bother posting.