[KenWittlief]

keep in mind, no where in the rules does it presently state engineers are only allowed to mentor students during a six week period.

Mentors can work with students all year if they have the time and resources. During the fall you can build base-model practice bots from the left over parts from last years kits, do experiments with the edu bot, learn to use machine tools, cad programming, C programming, learn about the engineering design cycle, data-driven analysis to analyse the game and your bots performance, learn about PID control loops, Power, energy, force - how physics applies to robotics...

then at the kickoff meeting you hit the pavement running

there have been so many excellent FIRST robots over the last 14 years, how can anyone say that 6 weeks is not enough time?

one could easily point at any aspect of FIRST and say "this is a waste of time, money and resources" - travelling expenses, hotel rooms, uniforms, the animation, building the crate or a practice playfield.... from one persons point of view other things are not important, but they might be a very important part of FIRST to someone else.