[Ellery]

I guess I have to jump on this thread band wagon like everyone else even though it's a few months late but I guess I should at least voice my opinion.

First of all, everyone should just take deep breath and relax since some people seem to be too adamant about their views on this issue. Remember that most of us mentors here are volunteers and we're participating in this to help give back to our community while having FUN doing it! (If I didn't have fun or enjoy meeting all the FIRST participants do you think I'd be spending more time on this program than work and my family put togther?) Every team has their own way of making their team work due to different environments and resources. There is no one right way. Balance is the key based on what's available.

Second, Keep in mind the main point of FIRST and it's motto "to inspire" and "partner with professionals". As long as your team even achieves to inspire a single person into a technological field or not that's great! NOT you say! what the hell am I talking about? Well I for one believe life is one big decision making process and if I can inspire someone to become an engineer Awesome but if that person realizes that this is not for him/her that's great too. I want to give the students at least the choice prior to college to make that decision instead of wasting time and $$$ and then find out it was not for them and switch majors completely or not even go to college. FIRST is just another program to give students more experience to allow them to make the right decisions for themselves.

As for "partnerships", I can care less if it's with engineers from a high tech company or your local machine shop. They are professionals none-the-less. I would have killed to get this opportunity when I was in HS but I had to wait till I got to college to really find out, and I'm glad I actually love what I do as a mechanical engineer. It's another reason why internships in many careers are available. If I didn't intern at the Federal State Supreme court one summer for a judge I wouldn't have known how boring it really was to me. But at least I worked within the legal system and professionals to gain the experiece to make up my mind.

As far as who designs and builds the robot I say as long as the whole team is involved in the process it doesn't really matter. Our team motto includes that we are a "back to basics team". Out of the 14 years of doing this (7 years personally) we've always focused on "Fit Form & function" and the FIRST objective. As a team you have to choose what path you want to take based on the ever changing resources to reach your goals.

If all our students are able to take every responsibility from every mentor on the team and prove to be the driving force I'd welcome it whole heartedly. I wouldn't mind just showing up to meetings and just answering questions with my feet up on the table but that is not the case pending the type of students and their personalilties. We actively recruit students who we believe would receive the most benefit from this program. For example if someone is already set on a particular career path then they will not be ultimately benefited by this program.

Oh well I could babble on and on about this and the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything but I realized I've become too overly engrossed in this thread which I really shouldn't be.

Ellery