Quote:
Originally Posted by BurtGummer
Third. Mentor involvement. Some of the teams I see have robots that you just KNOW that high school students didn't build, because when you go to the pits, you see a mentor fixing it, not a student. If your students are not capable of building a high caliber robot, then don't. Build a kitbot. They'll get more experience out of building that than some other complex robot. When awards were given out at the individual divisions, I saw several teams with parents/mentors getting handed the awards, with the students following behind them.
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While I agree that there may be "mentor-only made" (MOM?) bots out there, keep in mind that mentors working with kids in the pits may actually be an instructional moment. It may be something simple too, allowing the kids to do other things. Of course, sometimes we do need to remind a mentor that they are not the student too, I had to do it myself twice on Saturday. I will always disagree that the design and concept and all construction should be student-driven, because the "I" in FIRST does stand for "Inspiration". Our team has grown by leaps and bounds because of inspiring ideas from our mentors.