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Originally Posted by Commanchetruck
Our robot is 98% built by students. We built it in a classroom at our school with an everyday toolbox, a saws-all and some drills. Yet we still came in 23 at the Granite State Regional. I personally hate it when adults try to help. The idea is for students to build the robot. If im around and i see a parent or mentor with a tool i ask what needs to be done and i take the tool away and do it. I dont want to become one of those teams where all the work is done by professional engineers and the whole robot is made with a water jet cutter. We all know teams like that are out there.
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On the contrary FIRST has never stated that they don't want mentors building the robot. In fact Dean has given many speeches the other way, the objective is to inspire, and obviously these teams that have mostly mentor built robots often time have the largest teams and win the most chairmans. The reason is because FIRST is there to inspire you to be a little bit geeky. That sometimes being a nerd is OK and to strive to be professionals like Andy Baker or JVN or DLavery or Woodie Flowers or Dean Kamen is completely OK.
These mentors are there so that you can strive to do well and perform professionally, and heck to hopefully teach you as much as they can along the way. Its definitely OK to learn proper methods of doing things along the way, and who better to teach you than a person who does it for a living. There are teams out there who have there bots water jet and cnced and what not just search " How we cut. " But even without professionals that will always exist there are schools with full machine shops and students who know how to use them. There are many teams who come up with very professional pieces of work that don't have much to work with and not much engineering influence. However, I'd rather have a job done right than by a student any day. If the student can do the job right than by all means I let them do it, but if he can't then you must do it properly otherwise no one gains anything from this situation.
The fact of the matter is if we spend to much time complaining about our situations, then we've achieved nothing. If we work hard learn as much as we can and inspire as many as we can, then you've lost nothing. The measure of a successful man ( or team ) is not where he's gotten to, but where he's come from to get there. If you measure yourself by how much you were able to accomplish then you can never be unsuccessful.