[moderated] Corporate Sponsorship

[westfalia]

I do get a feeling that everyone in this discussion is on the build crew on whatever team that they are on- but I may be wrong about that. But my opinion is plain and simple in the matter:

i think everyone's got the idea but i can tell you this: i saw both sides of the matter. I was spoonfed and handed a robot for two years... and the next two, i built it myself (with mentor help, of course). which two years made me want to get into engineering? that's quite obvious!

[Not2B]

I like this post..... makes me "see the light".

Our corp. sponsor makes NO requirements on how well we do. None what-so-ever. In fact, as a mentor, I have been reminded several times by managers that the robot performance DOESN'T MATTER as long as we increase the number of students exposed to engineering each year. And I have to agree.

By the way, going back to the first post, our team's mission statement says that while students are learning from mentors, the students better be reminding the mentors how to have fun. I think we do a darn good job of that on most days.

Now I just have to figure out how to deal with an estimated 90+ kids next year. Yikes!!!!!!

[sirbleedsalot]

I am on a team that has no enginers, just a metal shop teacher and a auto shop teacher. We have not done the best in years past, however this year we managed to get picked by 650 in St. Louis for the finals. Our team has built our robot compleatly, down to the last weld, therefore everyone has learned almost everything needed to build a functional robot. However we have almost completly ignored the computer end of it(we only had one person that even looked at the code much less learn it in detail). And by watching the members you can tell that if they are not doing something they don't feel important and will leave. I will end my ramblings with this, enginers can, and should expose the students to new things, but someone should make it a point to make should that everyone has something important to do, and not just busy work.

[Steve W]

I love the somewhere in the middle theory. Does it happen? Not likely.

This is my second year on a veteran team. We have 1 mentor that has been around for ever. The rest of us are either new or alumni. We started out designing trying to get student input. They just sat there with 1 or 2 suggestions during the whole process. We then started build. This time 1 or 2 sets of hands joined in. We progressed very slowly to the point of can we finish on time. At this point 2 mentors and 1 grade 9 student worked to completion. I was discouraged to say the least. Two students did work with 2 mentors and did all of the programming. By what I hear the students did more programming than the mentors with the mentors assisting when necessary. This was really encouraging.

Along comes ship and now competitions. The robot has problems and things break. I am not around and wonder what's happening. I get to the pits to see no mentor working on the bot, just students. At Championship I am asked to go to the pits when I have finished announcing at lunch time. I am told that a pulley system I built had been damaged and needed repair. When I arrived I find that the students have fixed 85 % of problem and I had little to do.

Now comes my point. Allthe while we were building I was explaining what we were doing and why. The students stood back and watched alot. When it came down to crunch in the pits, the students rose to the challenge, used what they learned and made me beam like a proud father. At the end of build we wanted to call the robot "Mentorbot". The students however showed that what they learned they could put into practice and the robot became theirs. even though we will lose some kids next year, I am looking forward to more student participation. If it doesn't happen and we have to finish like we did this year I will know that if we continue to explain and show, they will learn. That's what I believe FIRST is about.

If and when any of our students read this, I will deny saying nice about you and will claim that 1 of you logged on with my password and wrote this.
Signed , Proud Mentor