[DonRotolo]

I shared my opinion in the second thread mentioned by Andy Baker, and I'll repeat it here: While student designed & built is my favorite, virtually all of the goals of FIRST are achieved with student designed/mentor built.

As an engineer in the design world, I work on paper, then hand it off to a technician to actually fabricate my design. Not that isn't fun to fabricate, but they pay me far too much to operate a saw and lathe.

But, I am just as good with the saw and lathe as the master technician. Just not quite as fast. That makes me a better designer, a better engineer, and ultimately a more valuable employee.

Student designed & built offers more value to the students, but student designed and mentor (or commercially) built is nearly as good. If that's what it takes to field a team, do it.

Don

PS: I wonder if we can start a Mentor-Designed & Built class of competition in FIRST? Maybe the kids wouldn't get much from it, but boyoboy would us mentors have a blast!