Mentors as Drive Coaches?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Will Andrews

It seems to me that when the mentors get involved with the drive team they take away from the students. If you're telling the students exactly what to do in the matches then what's the point of even having the students drive the robots? Why not just let the mentors take over? Having mentors coach might make your team more successful but since when is the focus of the competition on winning matches?

Different teams have different ideas on how best to accomplish the goals of FIRST. FIRST HQ has purposely remained quiet about which is a preferred way, and has left it up to individual teams to best determine how to run themselves.

Thus, there is no right way or wrong way, only different ways. What works for one team does not necessarily work best for another.

This topic (among several others) come up every year on Chief Delphi. Every year both sides present exactly the same arguments (if you search, every argument or opinion posted in this thread will have been posted multiple times already), and every year the thread either spirals out of control into a unproductive, name-calling flame war and is locked... or both sides agree that there are different and equally acceptable ways to run a team.