[wireties]

Like most of the things that come up in this competition, this mentor/student role is a real-world engineering problem. Most companies have groups of energetic young engineers and older engineers who have been around a few years. Striking a good balance between the energy and innovation of the younger girls/guys and the wisdom of the older guys/girls is critical to building a good team. So the 'problems' discussed in this thread are not specific to FIRST or to the student/mentor relationship but rather to generic team building and team dynamics.

Having said that, there is one big problem with my analogy. Even young professional engineers have endured the academics to earn the title. That is not so with high school students. On our team, the students make the decisions but the mentors provide guidance, making them aware of decision criteria etc. The mentors provide guidance about process (safety, using correct tooling, quality assurance, documentation, do the math first!!) during the build phase.

I disagree with the "letting them fail" philosophy. To begin with, there is only 6 weeks and precious little time for repeated failures. And this is not a good real world example. Engineers are paid to deliver on time and within budget, not to fail. I encourage students to listen when a mentor says that something will not work.

Let me put this into perspective. Our team has a great set of dedicated mentors and teachers. I added up the cost of this group the other day, if the team paid the mentors (at their employers normal rates) it would cost nearly $2,000 per hour! So the mentors are a VALUABLE resource, to not use them wisely is kinda silly. But the focus should be on the students.

HTH