When do mentors go too far?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by plutonium83

I had the same thought when I was at the Greater Toronto Regional and the Finger Lakes Regional. At GTR, I saw three collaborators that where all designed by a GM engineer. To my knowledge the students had no involvement with the development process.

Well, this is interesting. A direct accusation against 1114, 1503 and 1680. I, like Karthik, can speak directly to the fact that this allegation is incorrect.

For the record, I assisted (in my spare time during a co-op term at GM St. Catharines) with the development of the pre-season prototype robot that would evolve into their competition design. (It did not include the tower and arm found on the competition robots.) The basic design was arrived at through brainstorming and discussion of various ideas, eventually resulting in a concept by first-year McMaster University student (and 1114 alumnus) Tyler Holtzman being chosen for development. (It was his idea to enclose the running gear in an aluminum box beam.) Though GM engineers Derek Bessette and Matthew Vint were quite involved (in their spare time) in the design and construction process of the prototype, so too were the shop teachers at Simcoe and Westlane (Greg Phillips and Ted Clark), and more to the point, so were a multitude of students at both schools, who fabricated parts and suggested modifications to the design.

To say that "the students had no involvement with the development process" is patently false. To further claim that an engineer was solely responsible for the design only compounds the fallacy, and takes credit away from those who were involved.