When do mentors go too far?

[Joe Matt]

I want to throw something out to everyone, mentors don't necessarily go to far when they do everything themselves, sometimes that is needed. What everyone should watch out for is when mentors start rigging the team to where they control everything in a student run team. The students have no say, but this is hidden as the "mentors" throw the students out into sea, have them drown, then show that this is a student run team because there is student failure, along with student "success". They forget to mention the students have no say in that success nor do the students have any choice or input into their failure too. The extreme differences in ideas of how to run a team disguises what is actually going on. I've seen this happen in a team, it's not pretty at ALL.

What we should be looking for are mentors who MENTOR. WOW! RADICAL CONCEPT! Mentors who show the students what to do, let them do work, have them follow them, but still give them enough rope to hang themselves are true mentors. Mentors who call all the shots, use the students as pawns, and hide behind the students aren't mentors, they are control freaks, cowards, and insecure people who must use a robotics team to achieve their personal ego boost, with or without the kids. Doing all the work and not mentoring the kids is just lazy.