pic: 100% Student Built

[Joe Matt]

Good job, I know how hard it is not the get mentors to just build it all, but remember, it's a collaboration between students and mentors that is what FIRST is about. For every Sparky since the beginning, students have done most of the work, while the mentors have guided us and acted like bumpers in a game of bumper bowling. You can go everywhere within them, but they keep you from failing. Our ONLY time we ever have only mentors working on something is when we weld (no student welding masters here) or we send something to the shop for building. All of our CAD that tells shops what to do is 100% student made.

To sum it up, it's the working between students and mentors that is key to FIRST, and if you go too much on either side, you loose the focus of what FIRST is about, INSPIRATION and RECOGNITION of what scientists and engineers do at work, not inspiration and recognition of how to build a robot.