[moderated] Corporate Sponsorship

[David66]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

( I will tell you a secret if you keep it to yourself. Shhhhh- the whole robot contest thing is just a distraction - its only an excuse to get highschool students and engineers in the same room together - spending time together - taking bus trips together- in the end it hardly matters if the bot runs at all, the students end up being inspired anyway

because they get a glimpse

of what its like to be an engineer or scientist

and they like what they see!

dont tell anyone)

*Raieses hand politely*

I STRONGLY DISAGREE! You are looking at the situation as an adult...as most adults I have spoken with as a matter of fact. however, students are NOT inspired simply by being in the room with engineers and watching them work. As a matter of fact, simply watching has turned more students (that i am aware of) away from a degree in engineering that they initially intended to pursue.
Students want to interact, to truly learn and be a part. I know if I am not ineracting I am unhappy. Especially if a lack of interaction occurs at competitons

[Koko Ed]

I am so thankful that Xerox has not put that kind of pressure on us. They completely understand what the FIRST competition is about and that awards are nice but they should not be the only reason to justify being in the competition. Because when awards become the main focus you need to look no further to the corruption at Colorado to see what happens. That cannot be allowed to happen here!

[KenWittlief]

ok but now you have these engineers with 4 or 5 years of college education, and most with several years of experience

and highschool students from freshmen to seniors

and only 6 weeks together - its impossible for us to teach the students everything they would need to know to build a highly competitive machine all by themselves

on our team we start with the mentors doing almost everything, showing the students how its done, and usually by the end of 6 weeks we are walking around with our hands in our pockets and silly grins on our faces, cause the students have taken the whole project over

so I guess our team is in the middle - the mentors dont do all the work, and the students dont either - and when a crisis arises in the pits we are all there working together

thats our teams vision of FIRST - we dont build the best machines every year

but we do have two regional trophies sitting on a shelf, and a finalist trophy from this year (so far) - so we aint doing so bad either.

[David66]

what you're saying now i agree with. i am fully aware that there simply isnt enough time to teach them everything. it sounds like youre team has got it "right" as far as im concerned. However, i think Team0 has a problem with teams that have not found this balance and either have mentors doing everything or students doing everything. i think anything except being "in the middle" is not FIRST, and teams not in the middle should strive to get there