Folks,
Subtract the sour-grapes tone that frustration allowed to creep into the original post, and I tend to agree with Mr/Ms Anonymous.
There are times when I walk through the pits and I see what
appear to be eager students who are missing out on the adrenaline-packed, think-under-pressure, live-or-die-by-your-wits, make-your-own-luck experience of being a pit crew, because the adults are "in the way".
Regardless of anything else, I personally feel disappointed when I
think that is happening; and there are many other mentors, that I know personally, who agree.
When mentors can guide/prep students in all the positive ways that have been mentioned in this thread,
AND can step aside (but still give advice and assistance) so that the students can be in charge of their own destinies during the tournaments; then I think the mentors have done well
AND have ensured the students did not miss out on the pit-crew part of the learning experience and inspiration. I feel that the same applies during the 6 week build season.
Even on teams in which the mentors outnumber the students, that doesn't have to mean that the students can not take the reins in the pits. Usually it is easy to tell who is in charge after a few minutes of watching who is handing tools to who, and watch who prioritizes how to spend the team's pit-time, and ....
The choice isn't between gleaming mentor-bots and disheveled student-bots. There is at least one more option: Well-mentored students who build and maintain their own gleaming (or at least not disheveled) bot. If a mentor is supposed to guide and advise, then students who have been guided and advised well-enough to be fully in charge of their own pit would seem to reflect well on a team's mentors...
This might be (is) an old topic; but that doesn't mean that it is no longer an important topic.
Blake - A mentor who has to force himself to step aside
