I don't have any percentages, but the amount of student design, build and maintenance on our robots has increased dramatically since 2002. We also get a lot of help from mentors. Our lead engineering mentor (Woodie Flowers winner Dave Leenhouts) insists on a fairly complete design cycle: Brainstorming, testing ideas with prototypes, designing the parts using Autodesk, making the parts and assembling the robot. During this process there is a lot of interaction between students, engineers and machinists. That interaction is what I see as inspiring our students the most. Teaching students about interacting with adults before they graduate is one of the most surprising benefits of the FIRST program.
BTW Students have all but taken over the management of our team activities
