Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

I don't have a problem with mentors helping students. You could bring every NASA engineer as far as I'm concerned. My problem is with NASA or other large corporations supplying the manufacturing time and materials for some of these robots. I wrote a letter last year to First expressing my thoughts about these $1,000,000 robots. If the rules were changed so that all materials and manufacturing time were included in the cost of the robot, that would level the playing field for all teams. Time to eliminate the free ride from major sponsors.

You want to create a rule preventing sponsors from donating material and manufacturing to a not for profit program? The partnership between sponsors and FIRST/teams is the lifeblood of this program. Cutting down and/or eliminating their involvement is quickest way to turn a world class program into an old school science fair.