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Originally Posted by Don1498
so regarding my thread,
I would like to say that lets have a small competetion where Great teams getting thier robot build by engineers or half buildt by them(Once they give the ideas out, its easy to Build it). SO lets have a competetion where there is only student ideas and only engineers or mentors helping them build it. then we will see what are the new results. I can bet 100 % no one in top 10s now wont be in top 10s in that competetion.
think about it
Don
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If i understand you correctly you are assuming that all good robots are done entirely by mentors? I have to disagree on that point. I would say that students play a major role on those teams, on all teams really. I've spoken with students from successful teams, teams that are consistently in the eliminations and winning awards. Yes they have more resources than a team that is 5 students and a history teacher but resources don't mean anything. Engineers are nice to have but they are just another resource a team has. And in truth, I think that students come up with better ideas. I know on 397 the mentor's couldn't figure out a good way of knocking the ball down. Our students did, not only did they come up with the idea, they designed it. And you know what, I saw a few teams come by our pits to copy it. The way we do our launcher was made as an offhand comment by a non-technical person.
Basically what I am saying is that engineers are trained to think one way. Students aren't. I would like to suggest you watch
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/66 for more on that. If I had my way I would have include EVERY single student I could on the team, not just those interested in the sciences.
Here is a quick story that was always told to me on RUSH, it is called the Polar Bear story:
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In Alaska they have a problem with ice on the power lines, a group was formed and told to come up with 3 ideas for fixing it. Well they thought it over and came up with 2 ideas that were feasible but , try as they might, they could not come up with a third. So they were presenting it and they said their first two. The board asked what the third was. Well, thinking on the spot they said they were going to have Polar Bears knock the ice off. The board was intrigued, they wanted to know how they were going to get the bears up there. Well the solution was with fish on the top of the poles. Well then how was THAT going to get there? The solution, a helicopter would fly by and set it there. The executive stopped them there, wouldn't the air from the helicopter knock the ice off?
Guess which idea they went with?
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Point, creative ideas are usually really good. And students can do those every bit as well as an engineer. So stop assuming that students can't build a robot. You are doing them a disservice.
Sorry, I've never been good at counting change, can't tell .02 from .20
