What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?

[Garret]

I bet that the majority of people who didn't answer students are involved with a team that already has good students.

I will still say, that a student can only be as good as what they have been taught. (Most) Students cannot design, build, program, and test a robot just using what they are taught in school.

My team has been lucky enough this year to have a 4 mentors who show up to most meetings. At these meetings we average about 20-30 students, in the past we averaged 10-15. Those students are all dedicated and hardworking, but they do not always know what the next step is, or how to make a certain part, or how to wire this or that. Our Mentors provide our students with the tools (knowledge) necessary for them to implement their ideas into the robot, without them this would just be about "building" rather than actual engineering.

I understand how a team cannot exist without students, but just existing does not always mean true success for a team. For a team to have the greatest impact possible on its students it needs to have those dedicated/experienced mentors to to give those dedicated students the ability to turn their own dedication into a finished product.

This is just my opinion though.