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Originally Posted by Niffer
This stuff is great guys, along with this question I'd like to ask another one too
How much control should a mentor have on a team?
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Enough to keep the kids from hurting themselves, the team (and its affiliated entities), and others. This is a non-trivial amount.
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Like lets say you team runs in a group structure system, meaning you have a student group leader for strategy,build,imagery,etc and then other students as team members for that group
Lets say your group makes a decision and a mentor comes in and shuts down that idea because they don't think its going to work. When you ask that leader why they say "Its not going to work its a waste of time" (we'll assume also of course that the group of students came up with a good idea and not an idea to,say make the robot fly =p).
Now do you think thats fair?
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As tempted as I am to avoid the question (as FIRST is not fair), I will say that a
good mentor will elaborate on why something is a waste of resources (time, material, money, etc.). This is not always obvious to the kids.
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Should a mentor be able to do that?
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Absolutely, provided that the mentor explains his or her reasoning. Shooting down an idea is one thing; curtness is another.
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What should a mentor be able to do, not to do?
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In my opinion, the mentor ideally should handle the things that the kids can not or should not do. If they can do things better than the kids, then teach the kids and work with them until they're just as capable--then let them handle it.
[edit]As a caveat, this would be my
ideal situation. I found myself doing more as much or more work on 1618's robot this year compared to any of my years on 1293, for a variety of reasons. I'm hoping to be far more relaxed in 2008.[/edit]