[DonRotolo]

My opinions:

The roles of student and mentor are very different. A mentor who was very recently a student may not be able to fill the mentor role, instead falling back to the student role.

The students do things. A mentor doesn't, instead guiding the students and serving as a reference or teacher for tasks unfamiliar to the student.

A mentor who picks up tools and works on the robot, while a student is watching, is taking on the student's role. Instead, the mentor should show the student what to so, then supervise them (at varying levels, usually reducing as time goes on) to ensure the job is done safely and correctly.

Yes, sometimes a mentor must pick up the tools. This should be the exception however. Also, a mentor sometimes has to let the student fail, as failure is a powerful learning experience. As I have said before, that's darn hard to do as a mentor.

If the person can be a Mentor, let them. But if they are just another Student, they should not be allowed to participate.*

Don

* Take this to the extreme: Team 9999 consists of one High School student and 35 "mentors" - is that in the spirit of FIRST?

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