Message to mentor_4281

[GeeTwo]

I'm truly sorry that your very reasonable reach out to the CD community was incorrectly interpreted as "making fun". The tone of your OP was clearly "I have a problem; does anyone have any suggestions that allow me to continue to inspire my team member?"

I have been a federal employee for over 25 years, and for most of those, an "occasional" supervisor of other employees, including all of 2014 and 2015. The underlying concept of this matter for government service is the idea of "reasonable accommodation". That is, you find a way to make things work. It may not be the accommodation that the employee (team member) asked for, but "something that works".

Unless your team member is uncommonly gifted, blindness will exclude membership on the drive team, and operating most shop machinery. The bottom line is that team members (both students and mentors) should be checked out on the equipment they operate. If your blind team member cannot safely operate a band saw, don't let him/her use it. On the other hand, if he/she can, but perhaps needs a "spotter" to notice unusual situations, make that happen.

I have worked over the years with a couple of blind coders, and even a blind acoustic modeler (which is normally dependent on visualizations). Sometimes people can accomplish amazing things despite handicaps, sometimes not. I encourage you to find a way to make your blind member a productive poof, because that will probably be the key to him/her becoming a productive innovator of the coming generation -- and that's what FIRST is for.