When do mentors go too far?

[White_Orpheus]

I think all too often a team is heavily mentor run for the wrong reasons. Are you taking too much initiative because you want to see your team perform well at competition, or because you honestly believe it is more beneficial to your students to watch you work on the bot?

As everyone is so quick to point out, FIRST is about inspiration and learning, not winning. Our robot was absolutely terrible last year. Far more than half of our matches were spent helplessly watching the bot sit in the starting position. Did I still learn a lot? Yes. If anything I was more inspired to learn more about engineering by watching a terrible bot than I would be watching one do well. In my opinion, it is far more beneficial to the students to be 100% responsible for every aspect of the team, with adults merely present to make sure discipline is enforced, and offer advice when asked.