[Brian C]

With team 1468 our goal is to have the robot about %85-%90 student with the mentors assisting the other %10-%15 of the time. This is primarily due to the VERY limited resources available to the team so sometimes you need to be creative in what and how you do some things. This is where experience comes into play and where the mentors can pass along some skills.

The old adage of "I do you watch, We do it together, You do I watch" is what mentoring is all about.

One other thing on a personal note. While I agree that I dislike seeing only engineeers and mentors work on a robot while the students sit in the stands. I also dislike teams wearing the "%100 student built" chip on their shoulder. Both are extremes and shoould be avoided.

IMHO the right answer is a blend so that everyone learns from the experience. After being involved with FIRST sionce 1999 there is not a year that goes by that I don't learn something from the team and I hope that they can learn from me. It's truly a trade of experiences.