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 |
To me, this does not sound like an issue of robot design or who's building what.
What it sounds like to me is that the team (both mentors and students) have not defined their roles within the team, and this is a far more critical issue than robot design. It's even more critical now that you are in the middle of the build season.
When 1824 was formed, the 2 teacher/mentors decided that the team would follow the student designed / student built model. This gave us a proper division of labor within the team. When I came on board, last year, I had the same philosophy.
Whether the robot is student designed and built or mentor designed and built ... or anything in between ... the roles of each individual has to be defined.