[jgannon]

I don't know that I've actually written this down before, but I figure this is as good a time as any. I just came to realize this sometime last year, and it has helped me come to peace with a lot of things.

There is no mandate as to who is supposed to be building these robots. If you have any question about this, you should review Dave Lavery's comments from the 2008 kickoff. Because of this, there have arisen two competing philosophies with respect to how we are supposed to meet the overarching goal of Inspiration. One school of thought is that students get excited about engineering by doing it, and thus saying, "wow, I want to do this when I grow up". The other is that students get excited about engineering by watching real engineers at work and saying, "wow, I want to do that when I grow up".

I feel pretty strongly about which method works better, but I've accepted that other people have different opinions, and that there may be benefits either way. So long as the students are actually being inspired, then these teams should be applauded for their efforts.