[Bharat Nain]

I know I will be analyzed and called-on for this post but I am going to post it anyway. Instead of arguing any points, I will simply provide my experience on team 25 where mentors are involved in running the team. I do understand your point about mentors taking too much control on some teams and not letting the students work. I have seen it happen and every team has their issues. However, it is part of the challenge to overcome such obstacles and learn to find a balance. Not everyone will be happy but someone has to be the bigger person and step down or up as needed.

Our high school does not have a metal workshop or any machining capabilities. We have tried to find ways to get machinery but it has been unsuccessful as of yet. Therefore, we worked hard to find a sponsor long time ago and attract other tradesmen into our team. We actually had to work to get these people interested and it was no free lunch. At our sponsors place, the students are not allowed to touch any machinery due to liability issues. Therefore, all the machining is done by the tradesmen who take their precious and valuable time usually outside of their normal working day. This is not particularly fun for them and if the students could do it without them, I am sure they would gladly let them. They also have a family and other things to take care off.

When I was a student, there were times I was at the shop and there was nothing for me to do except observe the tradesmen cut parts or weld something. At this moment, I never felt as if I was being deprived of any important experience. If anything, I was inspired and delighted to work with them. The important thing to me was not working on the robot (to an extent). Being around people with a strong engineering background provides many other benefits. By talking to them, I learned about the reasons why they did certain things and how they did it. They would also teach me why they aspire to certain qualities. For example, the wiring on our robot is extremely strict. We spend the extra bucks to buy good quality stuff that will never fail on us. You might think that we do this only for competition. However, these tradesmen do the same for every single project of theirs. The important thing here is to learn the fact that they care about doing high quality work and producing a high quality product. If I was on a student only team, I would use whatever was most popular. I am not criticizing or judging any student only teams, but rather I am trying to point out that I learned something about the thought process that involves making a high quality product in the real world. The most important thing I learned being around BMS tradesmen is their thought process behind everything. This is what really matters and this is what really got me to stick to robotics. It is an honor and a privilege to work with these guys. The learning experience is second to none and I would not trade it for being on any other FIRST team in the whole world.

This is not to say that students do not work on the robot. If you ask students of our build crew this year, they will tell you that they can put together our base together in less than 1 hour if the parts are cut. This is because they have done it so many times during the build season that they really do know what they are doing. Is this important to me? No, not the slightest bit. I have no doubt in my mind that if they simply hung around our engineering mentors, they would learn a lot. The BMS tradesmen have always been very particular about providing our students with the best possible experience. Year after year, they try to give the students work that they would enjoy. When I returned as an alumni, they would not let me do the things I used to enjoy. Instead, they would make sure I teach what I learned to some of the upcoming members.

Our standards to work on the robot are also very high. We try to let as many students as possible get their hands in the grease but if they do not qualify, they are not allowed. Why? Because quality matters and this is a part of the real world training. The students know they have to earn and work their way up. When we build the robot, our objective is to build the very best and the students know this. Therefore, they know they have to work for it. And they very well do.

The guidance provided by our mentors is probably one of the most invaluable thing out there. For example, at the beginning of build season when all the ideas are taken into account, it is up to the tradesmen to decide on the best design. Sometimes, we start of testing multiple things. If we were simply students doing this,, we would probably end up testing too many ideas that would never work. This is a good learning experience but I'd rather hear it from someone with experience that an idea would not work as opposed to have to go through the pain of figuring it out. Our team always likes to remain competitive like many others and some years it is our game and other years it is not.

In short, we work extremely hard with our tradesmen to build a good robot and remain competitive. So why is this important? If you are the team next to us jealous that our robot looks like it was bought out of a catalog, then you are completely mistaken. The students were involved. The awards we win every year and not for the purpose of boasting to the rest of the world about how great we are. Because of these awards, we are able to gain a ton of support from our school, board of education, town, and now the state. We are also able to get the word out to many media sources and corporate sponsors. So why is this good? Because we are established enough to handle all of this. Few short years ago we established RPM (Raider Parent Mentors) who are in charge of NEMO kind of stuff. When are have the success to make an impact, RPM is ready and armed to use the potential force and turn it into kinetic force. I am not going to go in depth on this but to paraphrase, this is how our team gets the word of FIRST out. 10 years ago, no one would have had a clue that a robotics team existed in our town. Today, 2008, a huge portion of the community has heard about us from one source or another and they are mighty proud of it. Winning has only helped our cause and we have used it wisely. I am not saying this to boast but rather to illustrate an important point. Mentors are an important portion of our team. Without them, it would be INCREDIBLY hard to keep this going year after year. This is what Dave was talking about at kickoff. This is a part of changing our culture and mentors are the ones who are making something happen for us. Because of an established mentor group, our team can provide the very best experience for all our students. They are not spoon fed but they are extremely well directed. It only helps us to keep the inspiration flowing year after year after year. More students want to join our team every year and it is getting hard to handle. This would not be possible without mentor intervention.

So back to the original point, I do understand what you are saying about too much mentor intervention. I hope you understand that this is a tiny issue when you look at the big picture. There is always a way to work things out and the important thing is to improve the quality of the experience for the students, mentors and the community. This is about making an impact. This is not about winning an award or two. If your team has not won an award, do things that would make your team happy. Do things that would make your team productive enough to make an impact. Don't worry about the teams who did horrible or did too good or have a catalogued robot every single year. If you want a better robot, work for it. There are tons of resources and even a student run team can use examples from past years. The important question is - is your team willing to work together hard enough to build that robot? The important skill is not building the robot itself because I strongly assure you that it can be learned. There are too many examples in FIRST to prove that. The important issue is the team organization, working together, ethics, morale, impact, etc etc.

With this, I will end. I hope you can think beyond these petty issues and look at the bigger picture. They are way more important things you can do with your time and energy than argue in this thread. If you want a competitive robot, find a way to build one. If you want a sponsor, work hard to find one. There are always answers. It might take some time and things will not always be pleasant. They have never been for us either. However, you will only be happy when you have done your absolute best. Good luck and keep the big picture in mind.