Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[ZackAlfakir]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

Who cares who truthfully does the work? Are the students inspired? Are they motivated to be just like their mentors?

If yes, mission accomplished. It doesn't matter who builds the robot. What matters is what the students get out of it. You don't have to turn a wrench or write software to be inspired to do so.

-Nick

This is the exact opposite of our programming team. We not only have Mentors teaching students, but we have experienced students teaching students. The kids that are in our programming team are much greatly inspired and even all of the freshman have been able to make a significant contribution to the code without any prior experience!

The goal is not to have a working robot, it is to have the STUDENTS build a working robot and a Mentor is one of the tools that they use to get to that goal.