Quote:
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 repeating what's already been said, but frankly it's important enough to bear repeating. You've fallen into a typical high school mindset trap, the terrible, unfixable "Us vs. Them" mentality. That's not to say that this mindset doesn't exist in other arenas, just later in life most people figure out that it doesn't work. Neither side gets what they want. And both sides get a whole lot of needless headache.
First off,
both sides need to respect the other. By calling their parts "very quickly and poorly done." it would appear you don't harbor a whole lot of respect for them.
In the same token, if your mentors are running off creating "half baked" parts, without telling you, or explaining them to you, then it wouldn't appear that they are showing a terribly large amount of respect for you either.
You don't specifically mention what their backgrounds are, but if they are leading the team, I'm going to assume even if they don't have engineering degrees they at least have plenty of experience working on things of this nature, and that is worth just as much, if not more. If you sit down, and honestly think about, most likely you'll find that they do know than you do. I know mine do.
Even if you do look into your heart of hearts, and you still think you know more than they do, remember, without adults, your team is pretty much sunk. So start showing them some respect, or they just might leave. I don't think they want, and I hope that's not what you want either.
So, show them some respect. You might be surprised what you get in return. No one wants to deal with "know-it-all" teenagers. I've spent about a month over the past two school years shadowing engineers in industry and mechanics at shops. I've spent 5 years building FRC robots. And if you want to listen to adults, you'll find that they are ecstatic that you are
willing to listen and
want to learn.