[sciguy125]

I see the merits of both sides:

student designed - mentor built
This is really the best way to learn. I can show you how to program, but until you actually do it on your own, you'll never really know how. I can show you how a gear box works, but actually designing one gives you a completely different level of understanding.

With that said, I cite my experience with calculus. Until I took calculus based physics, I never truely understood the power of calculus. Sitting in math class, I understood what I was being told. I could see how it was useful. I understood how to use it in the real world. Until I actually used it in the real world (I consider physics to be as close to the real world as most classes get), I never really appreciated it. I was sitting in class one day and had this epiphany when I suddenly realized that the math magically predicts things in reality. I can't really explain the feeling, but trust me, it was something special.

Driving this back home, designing something is different than just building it. If you but together a gear box, you'll see bearings in a lot of places. Depending on your level, you probably also understand their need. When you design it however, you'll punch your hole and put a shaft. Again, depending on your level, you'll probably realize that having a spinning shaft resting in a bare hole is bad. You'll put the bearing and have just solved a problem that will probably help you solve others.

mentor designed - student built
This gives students hands on experience with building things. In one of the other posts on this mentor/student topic, someone brought up the point that this opportunity won't come around in college. College will teach you how to be a good engineer, not how to be a good machinist. One of my professors, it being an electronics lab, off-handedly mentioned that most engineers have bad lab skills. He was refering to the fact that, apparently, a lot of engineers don't know how to efficiently/effectively use the tools they have. One of our team's moderators made a similar comment. If they don't learn these skills in FIRST, where will they? College will teach them some, but apparently, not all. I have a feeling that it's possible to get through college without ever having picked up a wrench. My lab has soldering irons, but we never use them, so I have a feeling that they're just for decoration. FIRST is the best opportunity to teach these kinds of skills.


So, what's so important about these distinctions? When you tell someone to do something new, it'll be a learning process. If they have to design, they'll learn to design. If they have to build, they'll learn to build. So the question is, what do you want to teach them. Personally, I feel that they should learn both. You'll get this by having students design and build the robot themselves. I'm not saying that we should eliminate mentors, just let the students do the work and know that they have help when needed.

Why do they need both? The same reason that I had to take 24 units worth of classes that weren't engineering, math, science, or writing: to be well rounded. An engineer that doesn't know how to assemble something is as worthless as a knife that come in packaging that takes a knife to open. Designing the perfect product is one thing. Designing something that can be manufactured and assembled is another. Simmilarly, a machinist or other assembly type person is just as worthless if they don't know engineering. "I'm out of this bolt, but I need this now, so I'll put this one in, not knowing what will happen."

But, seeing as my ideal choice isn't available, I'll go with student designed - mentor built. This will be more helpful when it counts the most. Getting some experience and knowing the process is a great help in college. For some reason, my classmates find it strange that I know so much while they struggle. The difference is that they have chosen a major because they want to learn it but I've chosen mine because it's what I do. I didn't walk out in the middle of a midterm to change my major because I hate the material (yes, someone did this). I started college knowing what I wanted to go into Electrical Engineering. Actually, not only did I want to do it, I already was.

As Ken has been preaching in several threads, engineering is about designing, not building. FIRST gives high school students a taste of engineering. Whether it shows them that they like it or hate it, it's an opportunity to try it and see how they feel about it. If they find that they don't like design work, then they don't have to become an engineer. If they do like it, they know exactly where they are headed.