FIRST and Wikipedia

[Robert Thacker-]

Hey, this was on Wikipedia when I typed in FIRST robotics. This is only one section of the article. What do you guys think about it?

Criticism:
Engineer centered-teams are often criticized by more student-focused teams as having an unfair advantage. Some say that since students do not get to participate as fully in the design and construction phase as they would on a student-focused team, then the students might not fully understand all that is involved, and enter engineering with a false impression of what is involved. Further, it may encourage other teams to lessen their own emphasis on student involvement, and instead shift their focus to recruiting skilled engineers to help them win.

Some people think that, in general, student centric teams perform slightly worse in competition than those with the backing of a strong mentor corps, as the teams often have designs that are less competitive than ones where the mentors played a larger role. Especially in their rookie year, teams tend to make design and construction mistakes that reduce their ability to play that year's game. Critics of the fully student-centred paradigm say that students may become discouraged and believe that they aren't cut out to be engineers, thus reducing the inspirational role of the competition. Further, students may not be exposed to a full spectrum of engineering tools or processes.