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Posted by Joe Ross.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot 2000, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL & J&F Machine.

Posted on 10/2/2000 2:31 AM MST


In Reply to: The Alumni Situation posted by Erin on 10/1/2000 9:52 PM MST:



Erin,

I am a former student who helped out my team this year. The first year I was on the team, it was also the team's first year, and I basically stayed on the side and learned as much as I could about the electrical and control systems. The next year we basically started over and I did virtually all the electrical system by myself. The next year (when I was a senior) we were more organized and had 1 professinal engineer helping with the controls and 2 helping with the electrical. I basically stepped back and did very little wiring or coding, but instead acted as the system integrator making sure that the electrical and control system teams were working together.

All this leads to what I did this last year. I stayed around for college and knew that I wanted to stay involoved. Very early in the year, I went to the team leaders and expressed an interest in coming back with the team as an engineer. Because of my previous track record, the team leaders didn't have any problem with me becoming an engineer. I basically did the same thing that I did before because no one expressed an interest in working with both the programming and the electrical systems.

To answer you question, if I had been a 'normal' student without any special knowledge, then I wouldn't have been welcome back as a surrogate student. But, because I had something valuable to add, they didn't have any problem with me taking an active role.

I was treated the same as any other engineer. My trip to the regional competitiong in San Jose was paid, just like for every other engineer and student. I did not go to Florida because it interfered to much with my college schedule. They would have paid my way because I was valuable to both control and electrical teams.

In other words, most students would not be welcome back in their former roles. I was an exception because I could contribute as much as a professional engineer.

: Hey all.
: I just wanted to find out how any teams have active alumni who are active on the team and how many have college students who still function on the team. How do these people pay for themselves (trips, etc.)? How do they go about staying with your team dispite not being a high school student? What does your sponsor/teachers/engineers think about them and their situation? Should they be excluded? Are they just as welcome on your team as they were the year before, etc.?
: Please, respond.

: -erin