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Originally Posted by kevinw
Personally, I believe engineering is not simply about applying this concept, and building that design. Engineering fundamentally comes down to problem solving, and if the students can't get excited and inspired by the problem solving process because someone has spoon fed them a solution, then nobody wins.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
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The problem with your analogy is that a large portion of these students (at least the ones I work with) don't know what a fish is, that fish are good to eat, how to recognize a fish when they see one, and how to catch one if they know all of the above. This isn't about a student trying to choose between a V-belt and a timing belt, it's about them not even knowing that such things as belts exist. This is very common to rookie team members and to rookie teams. Assuming that rookie mentors are all MIT-trained NASA engineers who custom fabricate motorcycles in their spare time is a bad idea, too. We helped a mentor for a small team last year who barely knew which end of a screwdriver to hold. The girls at his school wanted a team, so he did his best, and several PNW teams helped them finish their robot (on Thursday of the tournament).
I will continue to answer any question about technology, approaches, strategy, or "how are you going to do this" that anyone on CD asks in good faith and that I think I can meaningfully address. I think it is how I can best advance the goals of FIRST.