[EricH]

I have some points to bring up, and I'm not quite sure you'll like them.

1) If there is a sensitive issue on a team, we do have an "anonymous" forum. I'm not sure this doesn't belong in there, I'm not sure it does. I'm just saying. (You may need to use it eventually...)

2) Both of you are right. The mentor is right because it's not about winning. It is about a group taking a project that they all agreed on and worked on to competition and learning along the way. He's also right--to a point-- that in industry, you do things the best way.

However, you are more right. In industry, you do things the best way that is available. Friction stir welding may be the best way to do X, but most shops don't have the equipment, meaning that it's not the best way until you get the equipment (which is kind of expensive). And, after a design is approved, you don't change it unless of necessity most dire.

3) The team, not the leader, chose the design. He's miffed, and develops his own design. This is not good! Most teams, when a design is chosen by the team, lock the design. It's not open to change, unless something really needs to change. You, as a team, need to talk to this mentor and tell him that he's acting like a child. (Not in so many words, of course, but that is what he is acting like from your description.) In other words, take the blow to your personal pride and live with the group's decision.

4) Your other option is to force his hand. Get working versions of both NOW. I mean ASAP. Test them against each other on a certain day, say Saturday (Sunday at the latest), no exceptions or excuses. If one doesn't show up, the other wins by default. Winner take all. After build season is NOT the time to make a major change!

5) You ask about what other teams do with parallel designs. Here's what my old team does: We don't cut metal until we know what we're doing. If two designs serve the same function, we try to have space for both. At some reasonable time, we test all competing designs. The best one for our purposes wins out. We throw all other ideas into mental hoppers--if a design might not work, a "tiger team" figures out a backup plan.

I do know that at a couple of points, designs were tested late in the season against each other with no ill effects--one due to allowance being made already, the other due to being reasonably interchangeable on short notice.

To sum up, if you're going to revisit your decision, do it now. If not, tell him flat out. Everyone has to make sacrifices, including him. If that includes giving up his design, so be it.