engineer bots

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Jay TenBrink

As far as who should be building the robot, I frequently use the analogy of teaching someone to cook.
1) If the students were told to sit outside the kitchen and just watch the cook, the end product would be great to eat, but most students wouldn’t learn much.
2) If the students were sent to the kitchen to experiment freely with no direction, they might have fun for a bit, but the results would not be very good to eat.
3) If the students were right there side by side with the cook in the kitchen learning step by step and getting their hands dirty, the product would be pretty good and the students would have learned how to cook. Jay

I think this a great analogy. I would prefer to have students working along side me as we learn and master the art of robot electrical together. I learn from students and they learn from me. By our second regional or by nationals, they are able to perform every task needed except some weird problem that may pop up. Some years there is more student involvement and sometimes it goes the other way. Our students free us up so that we can help other teams at the events we attend. Our motto has been "If you come to play, we will assist in any way we can to make that happen." I am sure this is true of any of the teams in question, we are bound to help when we can.

And to add my twist to Ken's "build a man a fire"...Build a student a robot and it will keep him/her busy for a few days in the spring. Teach a student how to build(design, wire, program) a robot and they will stay away from home, use some really strange language and wear funny clothes the whole year long.