[FRC Blog] Awards Section of FRC Administrative Manual Posted

[karomata]

[*]One mentor is now officially allowed in the presentation as an observer only. If a mentor does this, they are considered one of the three people in the room. Why does the mentor have to count as part of the three? It seems like it would benefit everyone if a mentor was allowed to observe without taking away the spot from student presenter.[*]

Not a huge fan of this. As a three time Chairman's presenter (One Regional Chairman's, one EI), I feel like it almost takes away part of the experience. It's completely understandable that the mentors want to be in the interview room because they put in a ton of work with the students when working on the Chairman's presentation and it's other aspects, however having gone through the process a few times, part of the experience is being independent towards the end of working through the presentation and getting the students to a level in which they are able to do it themselves. Also, if a mentor does come into the interview, they cannot provide any information, and can only observe. This accordingly means that it compromises the number of open positions for students if the team chooses to have a mentor in the room.

It's certainly and interesting change to the rules.

[Nikki Haux]

Originally Posted by karomata

[*]One mentor is now officially allowed in the presentation as an observer only. If a mentor does this, they are considered one of the three people in the room. Why does the mentor have to count as part of the three? It seems like it would benefit everyone if a mentor was allowed to observe without taking away the spot from student presenter.[*]

This accordingly means that it compromises the number of open positions for students if the team chooses to have a mentor in the room.

It's certainly and interesting change to the rules.

I definitely agree with your first point, that it would benefit teams to have the mentor observing.

This may not always be a negative thing, especially not for smaller or newer teams. If the team only has ~10 students, you may not be willing to have 1/3 of your team give a presentation, especially if you have a match soon to follow. Also if the team is newer, or has many new students, it may be more beneficial to have just 2 students present and a mentor there to give advice afterwards.

While I am unsure of the reasons for this change, I am interested to see what other teams decide to do.

[Chris Fultz]

The change is different from what you are thinking.

The rules, for as long as i can remember, have allowed 3 team members (students or adults) to present. As the rule was written, 3 mentors could present for a team if they desired. Personally, i have never seen a mentor on a presentation team, but i believe there are some teams that do that and it was clearly allowable.

This rule change makes it clear that one person on the presentation team can be a mentor, but they cannot present. The limit is still 3 team members.

For most teams, the rule change will have no effect.

From the 2013 FIRST Rules "Not more than three team members (students and/or adult mentors) from each team are allowed to present."