Percentage of Work Done by Students.

[Cuog]

It also depends upon the dynamics f the students on your team, if they can build the robot themselves with a little guidance from mentors then they should do that. If the team doesn't have amny students with mechanical and electrical know-how then it is better if the mentors get more involved in teaching the students what to do and what would be the best way to do it.

When it comes to the actually building of the robot i beleive that the mentors should take a "hands-off" approach as much as possible and allow the students to learn through experience, but if there are time/capability reasons then the mentor/engineer should take on the building task.

[Uberbots]

Well first ill start out by saying that we had 2 robots.
the first one was built 75% mentors, 25% students, but 90% student idea. THe robot stank when we took it to the scrimmage, as it was topheavy and had indigestion (the loaded balls never reached the shooter).

so our second robot was about 40% mentors and 60% students, but 100% student idea (at the time of shipping). The robot obviously performed alot better (after we had fixed a major shooter problem) and won us the regionals.

I think that the mantors are the ones who take the responsibilty in the pits because the robots have to be fixed fast in rder to be ready for the next match. If we had students fixing our bot, i dont beleive we would be ready for the next 2 matches. the mentors are there when effeiciency of build is needed, as far as design of the bot goes its the students job.

[Libby K]

hah. our team was 100% students.

we, as rookies, had problems with engineers and funding.

so we just did it all (as per my signature)

Its fairly and equally designed out and worked on by everyone on our team (meaning students and mentors). The students on my team do alot of work on it. Even from one year being on electrical subteam and mechanical subteam, i remember alot of the tools i learned and used (which is really good from me hehe), and still alot of the electrical based things. Its really good when students do alot of the majority of the work, but while getting alot of help by engineers or mentors. They learn something new every day that they work and put their effort into. Its really exciting.

-Court-

[thatphotochick]

all the work on the robot is about 90-95% done by students...some parts done more or less by the engineers. most of the engineers and mentors simply guide the students, and students have a say in everything. everything else..like animation, CAD, marketing, logistical work, even most programming..is done 100% by students, or at least close enough.

[geowasp]

while I also believe, like most of you, that students should be as independent as possible, and try to design and build, design, and program most of the robot ourselves, but there gets to a point in some seasons where the mentors have to step in and say "alright, it's a week to the ship date, and we need to do this, this , and this". They are there to make sure we don't screw up, and to make sure we have a feasible bot at the competition. It is all about the level of "guiding". Our bot is mostly built and assemblied by the students, but unfortunately, we are not experienced enough to independently write our own code and machine certain parts (can be partially attributed to the lack of facilities), but the mentors are there so that we will be able to do that somewhere down the road. I mean certain stumbling blocks are always gonna be there every season, and the mentors should let us, the students, attempt to solve it by ourselves; but if its a week from the ship date, and the robot is still 4 different half-working parts, there just isn't time for this sort of "learning process". I guess what i'm trying to say is-- at the end of each season, sometimes, just trying our very best to create the robot by ourselves (the students) is all that we can do.