First off, some people around here might point out that this subject has been beaten to the ground - which it has. See these threads for reference:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/se...earchid=580322
(^the search I did to find these threads^)
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...tudent+ built
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...tudent+ built
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...tudent+ built
Having said that, the students on our team do 100% of the end-design work, but the engineers/mentors help us a lot. what we students do would not be possible without our mentors. We also outsource a lot of our machining. Listening to mentors is a good thing, and outsourcing parts makes for a pretty robot.