Corporations Build Robots

[ebarker]

It is time for the periodic all-mentor versus all-student debate.

The all-mentor is obviously not a desirable situation.

But is an all-student situation desirable ?

In normal practice there should be a continuous cascade of knowledge spilling over to the less experienced team members and and continuous upward flow of members gaining experience. Almost like a continuous fractional distillation column.

In FIRST parlance it is the "cascade of mentorship". More experienced members (mentors, highly experienced students) raising up junior members. FRC teams to FLL teams, etc.

Maybe if this collaborative team experience doesn't exist in the steady state then either mentors are not giving up knowledge and challenging the students enough, OR the students are not learning as fast as they could with some good mentorship.

For thousands of years people learned their trades in an apprentice to journeyman to master craftsman educational progression. Where did the idea come from to abandon that method to throwing a KOP on the floor in front of a group of inexperienced students (or mentors) and expect that to be optimal?

Kudos to all those that have struggled to get the robot designed and built without any help. Just think how much more you could have learned if there had been a good healthy collaborative partnership with mentors and experienced students.

The student versus mentor debate tends to miss the point. It is more helpful to describe the model for teams to strive to achieve. The "continuous cascade" principle is probably a pretty good description.

I like the "continuous fractional distillation" idea. Raw students in, pure engineers out.

[EricH]

I'm going to say that if the students are inspired, I'm fine. Now, how they are inspired differs from team to team. I'm going to make some generalizations here. These may not be accurate; they might describe your team exactly. I'm just presenting a broad spectrum of possible team structures and adding my personal opinion to each.

Situation A: Mentors hide everything, students just see finished product, no explanation or anything. I don't know about this. I'd say, probably not a good idea in terms of inspiration. Not having been on a team like this, though, I can't say for sure. (This is the situation asked about by the original poster.)

Situation B: Mentors do all the work, but explain what they are doing to the students. I'd say, OK, great. Are the students inspired? Likely. Even more likely if they have some input, but I'll take what I can get. Again, I haven't been on a team like this.

Situation C: "Ideal" situation: 50-50 or similar split. Mentors mentor students, and students eventually take more of the initiative, moving to Situation D. Students are inspired a lot. I have been on a team like this.

Situation D: Logical continuation of Situation C. Students take a lot of responsibility for the robot, but mentors are there mainly to help the students stay within reason. The other "ideal" situation. I haven't been on a team like this either.

Situation E: No mentors. I'd say, Go find a mentor who can help organize. Try to get to Situation D from the other side. As I understand FIRST's intention, some sort of engineering mentor should be involved. No, it isn't required. Yes, it is recommended. I don't think I have seen or been on a team like this yet, though some have "borrowed" a mentor from another team (but who cares where the mentors come from, as long as they are there).

Again, as long as the students are inspired, I don't really care. If a Situation E team wallops a Situation A team and is inspired by that, so be it. The same goes for the other way around.

Let's get back to preparing for Kickoff and the ensuing six weeks. Use the system that works for your team.

Spoiler for Semi-rant:

I feel a need to respond to this post:

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

I think bigger was a wrong choice of words on my part. I should have said teams i consider a little "shady". I refuse to name any names because i know i would cause MAJOR problems. [. . .]

P.S. Finals+No Sleep=Poor Choice of Words

"Shady" is still a poor choice of words. Maybe "teams I think are mentor-built" would have been better, though not by much. Think before you post; if it's likely to open a can of worms, then don't post. (It's also not exactly a good idea to post while tired. I once "snapped" doing that to refute an accusation. My own fault, and definitely not a good idea.) A better option would have been to edit or delete your previous post, if possible.