[roboticsguy1988]

Team 1501's stand has always been student lead and built. The mentors are there for help / teaching, and advice.

A good example of this would be our Monocoque deisgn / construction. If it wasn't very Jerry Smyth taking us under his wing and showing us what it was all about, and the concepts of it, and then how to apply those, we would have never started that way. Now, Jerry is still there teaching the new students, but unlike the first year of 1501, there is now senior students teaching new students.

Students make decisions on there own. For example, we had several robot design conceptions. So a mentor jumped in and set why don't you use a voting system like this to vote on the designs and the strengths and weaknesses of it.

FIRST should always be about taking a students interests and letting them go with it and do what they like to do (with limitations of course), and if they don't know how to accomplish something there is always a mentor there to help.

Personally I like seeing students have fun and gain knowledge from other students or mentors that they will use for the rest of their lives. There just does not seem to be any point on being a member of a FIRST team if the mentors are going to build it or do all the work, because what does the student learn then.