[Steve W]

I may be miss quoting but I believe that Dave Lavery said that FIRST is as good as it is because it is a program were students work side by side with engineers (mentors).

My thoughts, all teams are different. What works for our team won't necessarily work for yours. What works this year for your team may not work next year. I believe that with out engineers and mentors, working side by side with students, FIRST would not be successful. As a mentor I have learned a lot from students. I wish that I had a great program when I was younger that I could have learned from engineers.

I know that people say that you learn from your mistakes but even more valuable is learning from others successes. You see posted here on CD how great team 71, 111, 47, 45, 1114 are and how everyone would like to be as good. All of these teams have a good mentor/student relationships where they all work side by side as a team. It should never be us or them it should always be WE are working on the robot.

Talk out your issues and see how the team can grow. Posting here about internal team issues only brings division on the team.