Wow, this thread could hurt a couple of peoples feelings. That said, here it goes...
We are designed and built by students, our mentors make sure we dont impale one another with 3/8 leadscrew while "Testing" out our pneumatic launcher, and give us advice... thats about it. I personally don't believe that students should get shunned off while the mentors do the work... but they are getting a different experiencefrom FIRST. While we actually go through with our limited knowledge in mechanics and build a robot, they can see how it is done by professionals, and how they themselves would be doing it if they did choose to go into an engineering feild.
A common argument (and my personal belief) about this is that it's unfair to the student teams because the AREN'T professionals that are paid to do this,
But FIRST doesn't think so, and because of that I'm okay with it
Sorry for the abrupt ending, I HAVE to go eat something
-Cody C