Need Help Finding My Place

[horoponhorr]

I live in a small town in Michigan called Houghton. I have a really small HS, with a graduating class of around ~400 students, and there happens to be a robotics team here. You would think that it would be one of those small, low budget teams struggling to build a working gearbox every year.

However, also in the town is a large and highly concentrated engineering university called Michigan Tech. Students come from all over the country to attend this school, and, as a result, my team has almost unlimited amounts of mentors.

I joined in 2006, and sort of drifted through the first "Aim High" competition without much knowledge about what I was supposed to do. However, after I went to the competition, I realized what FIRST was about, prepared for the next build season, and found my place in the team.

Or did I?

This is currently my second year. I have suddenly run into a serious conflict between how the team is run and how I believe the team should be run. Essentially, Team 857 is a college class, for college credit, and the mentors treat it as a class. Unfortunately, the amount of skilled and knowledgeable mentors contrasts largely with the amount of HS students who barely know how to use an Allen wrench. As a result, despite stresses from the leaders of the team that this is a student run team, the mentors do everything. Many of the students just kind of stand around and wait for something to file or bolt together.

I am an engineer. I have been working with electronics, gears, mechanisms, taking things apart, etc. since I was 5 years old. I want to make a difference on my team. But I can only do a limited role most of the time. I get to CAD something here, file something there, and have no understanding of how to actually design a robot because the mentors did that themselves. The most I can do is ask questions, but being told what is happening is not the same as making it happen. And most of the students on my team seem like they like the idea of robotics, but they don't want to design and build anything themselves, and don't really get incredibly involved.

I feel so alone. I really like FIRST, and want a strong and supportive team bond with people who care as much as I do. I want to feel the satisfaction of known that I was a part of the machine that is actually running and doing amazing things. But I feel suppressed, and, despite many talks with my parents and the head mentor, I still that feel part of me is pushing against an unrelenting wall.