When do mentors go too far?

[Andrew Blair]

Our team, from its conception, has never had an engineer even come to one of our competitions. During build period, we have either built or started to build our idea, and our engineer, a Mr. Overfield, will then come in to tell us whether or not he feels that it will hold up under competition conditions. (We have proved him wrong several times, but he's a nice guy so we don't say anything). We take his council into account while finishing our bot, and thats the end of it mostly, as far as engineer input.

After attending several competitions, and seeing the engineer input many teams have, I realize that our team is missing out on some of what FIRST wants us to experience. We do not hear much professional advice, and therfore we have to build our robot entirely by ourselves. Sometimes this can be daunting, but in the end, and I do not intend to bash mentor run teams, I feel that a student built robot makes you learn more through trial and error. If you are constantly behind someone who knows all the answers, you tend not to learn as many answers yourself.

I do not know what having a constantly working robot and team would be like, as I have never had one, but I feel that lacking all the right answers and solutions and skills that a mentor has tends to show the true sides of people, and brings the leader out in them. If FIRST is not about building robots, but is to inspire, then student run teams do a good job of that. They always inspire, through trials and problems, and sometimes they barely build a robot. Thats seems pretty close to the definition of FIRST's objective.

Engineer teams out there, hold on to your engineers!!!! They teach a lot, I am sure of it. But students, make sure you learn, not just be inspired. The more you know now, the more you can know later. And just ask the mentors to move, I'm sure they will. It is your robot.