At what point does it become unacceptable for a mentor to design/build the robot

[austinious]

Almost all of the time it depends on the student. I have a great pair of seniors who can build most anything. They presented me with a frame plan and a CAD drawing and I made some minor suggestions, and then they made it... alone.

The shooter group, on the other hand, has me do most hands on work, even when I insist they do it.

The other groups are a mixed bag, sometimes you need to stop an action in progress, like the first year member using one of my classroom desks to pound a gear onto a shaft... don't ask...

Other times, there just isn't time. Last year a support strut broke in between matches, as I watched the confusion and repair attempts, I KNEW I had to step in and take over, or all was lost. I felt bad afterwards, but the team congratulated me. To quote the outgoing leader, "sometimes experience trumps enthusiasm."

Ask yourself this, should I have let them fail to repair the strut and forfeit several matches? What purpose would that serve?

[Taylor]

This is a struggle - one that many old farts still have.
This is my eighth season in FRC, and it made me cringe when on the first Monday the students were saying, "I like Taylor's idea. Let's go with Taylor's idea."
The thing was, the way we chose to approach this game was decided by the team. The strategies we'll employ were decided by the team. And when I say 'team' I mean students - I only acted as a scribe on the chalkboard. "Taylor's idea" was simply a way to realize that strategy.
Since then, it has been refined and massaged and manipulated, mostly by students, into a workable solution.
I suppose my tl;dr is this: Ideas are ideas. They're not property. Once they're out, they're not owned by anybody. So if you feel your mentors are hijacking your team, make a concerted effort to stick your nose in, work shoulder-to-shoulder, make yourself a part of the process. If they deny you that, demand an explanation.

[Leor Buch]

Originally Posted by austinious

Ask yourself this, should I have let them fail to repair the strut and forfeit several matches? What purpose would that serve?

I think what you did was completely acceptable.
In my opinion alumni and mentors are a resource to be used in furthering the students learning and inspiration. this means to me that students should be free to ask any questions on the plausibility of their ideas. on the other hand I think the students benefit the most from being led to the solution rather than just being told.

in 2009 the students in my team chose an idea the mentor was opposed to. this was also the first year the robot was mostly designed before being constructed.
After a lot of argument our mentor he eventually came over to the student's side and ended up giving them vital assistance.
I guess I'm just agreeing with the majority that balance is what is most important. Just that mentors and alumni have more responsibility for how the team looks in the long term.

[Robogineer1649]

There is not necessarily an universal answer that answers for every team how much of the robot should be mentor built and how much of it should be student built.

That being said i will explain our mentor/student philosophy and i will state that i am a very large advocate for student built robots halfway because this is how our team does it and halfway because I believe if it is a student built robot the students will learn a lot more than just watching the mentors. Additionally the reason i want to become a mechanical engineer and a roboticist is that i was able to build a robot and actually see the entire design process and participate in it starting from stating my strategy all the way to making the bumpers at the end of the season and mounting the electronics.

Team 1649's policy is that mentors are only there to guide and teach the students and answer questions. They are also there to make sure someone doesn't cut there hand off or something else that doesn't grow back. So basically mentors are there to make sure we don't kill each other or ourselves and teach us how to build the robot. This being said the mentors are not in a glass box and all they do is answer questions and then sit back down. Normally the mentors are there and will answer any question you have but they also move around to the different projects we are working on and they will advocate safety or ask questions and suggest ways to do something better. Also the mentors will voice their opinions and tell us when where not doing something right or suggest a way to do it better but the students are still the ones building the actual robot. This is our team philosophy and our main mentor follows this team philosophy very closely with the only exceptions to this being a alumni mentor teaching us how to do CAD while cadding components for this year's robot.

The last thing i want to say is that this is our team philosophy and i just wanted to share it and it may work very well on our team but it may not work for other teams. Such as teams where the machining tools can only be used by mentors or chaperones.

[rsegrest]

Originally Posted by austinious

The other groups are a mixed bag, sometimes you need to stop an action in progress, like the first year member using one of my classroom desks to pound a gear onto a shaft... don't ask...

Off topic but...happened in my shop two days ago...just saying

Glad I'm not the only one yelling across the room 'bad idea in action...'

[darkember]

Speaking from my team's experience, the students are the ones who design, build, and test everything. What we as mentors try to do is help the students better understand why somethings work and others don't. We help them with learning the fundamentals of how things are created. As a former team member and now a mentor I feel like it is the students who should be doing the work and the mentor is there to guide them. If mentors were to take the aspect of robotics that students enjoy the most we would be missing the whole idea of FIRST, which is to inspire students in the fields of math and science through application

[runneals]

Kusha and others,
I agree with Libby. There is something interesting I have observed while participating in FLL and my time so far in FRC this year (this is my first year in FRC). I wish EVERYONE would have a professional mentor like my FLL mentor who is an engineer at a large agricultural company here in Iowa. He is one of the few that lead by posing questions for us students to answer. I envision FTC to be kind of the same way as FLL since everything is pretty much plug and play. But when it comes to FRC, this is a much more complicated challenge that teams are only given 6 weeks to solve. If you don't like how something is done, don't be afraid to speak up. I encourage you to try to get your team members to start leading instead of the mentors, and once you have team member ownership and leadership, the team can adjust along the scale as they see fit. Another option is to try to join a youth organization like 4-H where we actually encourage this kind of learning and youth-adult partnerships.

Hope this helps and good luck!
David

[Astrokid248]

I'm gonna say something that will probably be hilariously controversial, but here it goes:

As a student on a team that is supposed to build robots, you need to build a robot. Even on a team with 90% mentor-driven design and build, you as the student have a responsibility to try and learn from these guys. I feel like my time as a student in FRC was productive because I grabbed the bull by the horns and forced my way into the design and build process. Taking the initiative and actively showing the mentors of a team that you want to BUILD ROBOTS is the only way to move beyond simple inspiration. I have seen too many teams accused of being mentor-driven when the problem is actually students not participating. Sure, it would be ideal if the mentors could just teach and not actually do any hands on design/building, but let's face it: you'd have to extend the season by about 4 weeks to make that happen.

So, my opinion is, it is always acceptable for the mentors to work on the design and build of the robot, as long as they aren't actively pushing students away. It is always unacceptable as a student to just throw up your hands and not try to help out. This argument is a 2-way road, double-edged sword, etc., but just blaming the mentors helps nothing.