When do mentors go too far?

[naskie18]

Originally Posted by MattB703

As others have pointed out, part of the reason I do this is because it IS fun. I enjoy it. I also enjoy Autocross racing. I could be spending this time making my car faster.

Nice Formula, btw Still running the 2.8L?


It has been my experience, in being on a FIRST team and in mentoring a FIRST team, that the kids on the team seem to get more out of it when they get to build and design the robot. Maybe that was just the group of kids we had this year, though, this being the rookie year of the team I helped to found and mentor. While we mentors took care of most of the planning of the meetings and getting registration done and organized and planning many of the fundraisers and such, the students got to design and build the robot how they wanted, and it was really cool to not only see them do that, but to see them when we were in our first match at our regional and it all worked. That was really cool. It has also been very cool for us seeing the students get more involved in running the team, when they won the Rookie All Star award and qualified for Nationals, they did some serious brainstorming to try and come up with ways to raise the money so that they could go.

Originally I was sure that the best FIRST team was one that the students got to design and build the robot. Now, I'm not so sure that there is a best format for a FIRST team. Students designing and building it seems to work well for some teams, and engineers desiging and building it seems to work well for others.

In high school, I was on a team where the robot was, for the most part, designed and built for us. And while I would've liked to have had a more active role in it, I had a lot of fun and it pbviously impacted me a great deal, as I decided to help to start and mentor a FIRST team. Yes, this team is being run differently than the one I was on in high school. But it seems we're having the same effect on the students, inspiring them to learn and to have fun while doing it. As long as that continues, I see no reason to complain about doing it either way. As Sean said, when it stops being fun, then there's a real problem to address. But until then, I'll be right here continuing to mentor and participate in FIRST.