Sean,
I did not speak to the teacher but I did have a long conversion with one of the students. I asked if they entered the IV part and he said no. I guess without a teacher who is supportive of it or a mentor to bring in the knowledge, it would be hard for the students to enter the IV portion.
It is very disheartening that the teacher would be so uniformed about the way the world of mechanical design is changing. Sure there may be some major players that are hold outs to the old 2D world but I doubt that will last through out these students long careers. Heck I started on a drafting board but I doubt there are any major players out there still holding on to that ink pin mentality!
Their robot design was very good and the student that I talked to told me that it was totally a product of the students concept. The mentors for that group had a different concept in mind so the team voted and the students approach won.
So the teacher thought the supplied IV parts we "cheating", that is just to funny!! It was a little odd that some of the supplied parts were just base solids telling me that they actually came from another software (I expected it with the SMC stuff).
Further down this thread someone stated that they thought that producing an IV model was a requirement for FIRST competitors, that is not true. The IV part is just one of many awards types that the students can try for. FIRST is setup so that even a team with no mentors, little funding, and not a lot of resources can compete in some way.
