Max Age for FRC Participants?

[IKE]

Kaurich,
You are too old to drive a FIRST Robot. *

I think this is a great idea that has a lot of potential.

As others have pointed out, other than a few very specific rules, there is a choose your own adventure on design, build, programming, scouting with a lot of different systems that work for different people.

I will say that in general, some age separation between a primarily HS program and mentor program is beneficial from a sorting out social situation stuff. While not the majority, there are frequently issues related to having an under 21 age "mentor'. There are a lot of good examples as well of programs that make this work, and specific situations where problems have arose.
Some example "problems":
Young mentor transition from skilled student to mentor may want to do "too much" relative to the teams standard interaction.

Young mentor may have authority/respect issues.

Dating or Romantic Involvement Policy. I think before venturing into such an area, making sure you have good policy to cover your team as well as a strong understanding from individuals involved is paramount to avoiding difficult situations. Some folks are more flirtatious than others and when this is in a "mentor vs student" dealing it can become problematic. Once it is problematic, it can escalate to something pretty serious pretty quickly.

Travel/Sponsorship:
While youth is wasted on the young, in FRC knowledge can be wasted on those a bit older. Often those with the most enthusiasm, energy, and sometimes FRC specific knowledge are those that just graduated from HS and college. Unfortunately, they tend to not have a lot of vacation time or work/school schedule flexibility. They also tend to have less general $$ for paying for travel and hotels. Those that have more engineering experience and vacation accrual tend to have family commitments that can make participating difficult.
Using team funds to "sponsor" a non-HS student can get tricky for some teams. Expecting mentors to pay their way can be hard on a college or 1st year employee who is already using most of their vacation to go to a regional and possibly World Championship. Paying for 1 mentors room and board without paying for others can lead to internal leadership struggles/politics.
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Most of these can be mitigated with clear team policy, people willing to respect those policies, and/or cool heads when expectations are not met. As a leader, you can set standards and team policy and educate those involved. For the other two parts, you can only do your part by modeling good behavior and being as good a communicator as you can be.

*As a mentor when Mike was a student, I believe I can take a poke at him...