[EricH]

Originally Posted by cmonkey99

We're having some problems on our team as Mentor vs. Student powers lately.

It seems that about 5 of us will start working on the robot with our previously decided design and one of our mentors will come back from the shop with the part already built but in a completely different design and most of the time very quickly and poorly done.

Then about half the time we're able to convince them to change the part back and the other half of the time they "convince" us with their supreme knowledge( )that their idea or part is better.

Now I thought the purpose of the mentors was to suggest things sometimes and help us out when we needed it. Not to change our design and make half-baked parts.

Its gotten to the point where I almost feel like dropping out of the club and focusing on MESA and other things.

Not to mention the fact that there are only about half the students doing much work, the other half just sit around and shoot the breeze.

I was wondering if any of you have faced similar situations or have any suggestions.

Keep in mind we're a fairly small team with about 4-7 students and 2-3 mentors at each build meeting

Thanks for any help

I'm going to start by echoing what others have said: you need to talk about this as a team. Not a team of students, but a team. This includes everyone.

You have decided on a design. Good. One or more mentors are building parts for another design. Not good. Part of this team meeting should be to bring everyone up to speed on "this is the design we chose as a team, stick to it." If there are changes, make them publicly, without just building them.

The mentors are there for several reasons, and their role can be made clear in a team handbook. On some teams, they are only there to make sure no one gets hurt. On others, they work alongside the students to produce a design and then build from it. On all, they should teach the students--and be willing to learn themselves.

About the non-participating students: Get them involved. There should be more than enough work for everyone. As said before, tell them they "volunteered" for something. They did: they made it obvious that they had nothing to do. Now they have something to do. If they don't want to work on the robot, they can work on awards (Woodie Flowers and Chairman's come to mind). If they just plain don't want to work, give them the option to leave the team.

Two further things: a team handbook may help you in the future. This will have team rules and what to expect in it. It will also help define the mentor-student roles.

The other thing has to do with the design/building of the robot. This story is highly applicable to FIRST, especially the list at the end.