Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

I have been part of Team 876 since I was a freshman in high school, now that I am done with being a student in the program I decided to mentor. Since I go to a nearby college it was no problem for me to log a fair number of hours working after school.
I was really involved as a senior in highschool, participating on chairmans, driveteam, lead programmer, and other small things. I tried to cut back as much as I could as a mentor, I attempted to leave as much driveteam comments to the drivecoach, Lead programmer is taken over by a student (he did fine, I provided examples and such). The main issue seems to be with scouting.

When I noticed that nobody had started any scouting prep by the end of week 1, I started investigating tablet solutions, at the end of week 2 (and with older mentor's approval) we had some cheap android tablets. There was still very little interaction from the students (even tough I offered). The scouting app I picked was WildRank (we had had issues with bluetooth the year before, the USB sync looked promising). There are very few accomplished programmers on 876 (kind of an elite group), So I took it upon myself to modify and tweak the app to my liking, (at the end of the season paper scouting had only come up once or twice).
The first event we scouted was mostly a disaster, this was almost all on me. The second event went very well, the data was complete, informative, and provided for some great picks for our planned strategy.
However, our team has historically used paper, after our second event there was a lot of talk of switching to paper for worlds. There is so much data to collect and analyze for worlds (with hundreds or individual robot appearances in matches and data on each of those matches). I was informed by some other (more senior) mentors that I may be stepping on the students toes at this point. The way I have the electronic scouting system at this point it is more powerful than ever. I am working on migrating the electronic scouting system into a few, very capable, student's hands. Regardless, paper is the way Team 876 will go at worlds unless I can convince the team otherwise.

So my question: As a mentor am I overstepping my bounds with the development of the scouting system? Should I let my team set themselves up for potential failure with paper (and no good way to tabulate the data like is available with the electronic)? Any other advice for a 1st/2nd year mentor?
From my viewpoint I was just filling a hole in Team 876 this year. I am not asking for anyone to tell me if I was/am in the wrong or right, but rather what is the appropriate course of action when I may have been a little too involved.

Thanks for reading/replying.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Coming from someone whose team switched from 95% paper scouting to 95% electronic scouting last year, I would say you're right when you say your team would be setting themselves up for failure through the use of paper scouting at St. Louis.

If so few students seem to be interested in seriously developing your scouting subteam, using paper in St. Louis will most likely result in lack of cohesive data and, as you stated, no good way to tabulate the data.

I think if you show your team why paper scouting may have been good in the past, but not so applicable this year (especially if your electronic system is as good as you say it is), you may be able to convince them to utilize the electronic system in St. Louis.

Showing them how easy it is to sort through and compile data collected electronically compared to data collected through paper scouting may also prove to them why electronic is better for your team.

As for overstepping your boundaries, I wouldn't say you'd be doing that by trying to convince them to use electronic scouting. You're trying to help the team in a manner that you know will work, and from what you say, it doesn't sound like you're shooting down any of the students' ideas to overhaul your scouting process either.

Getting the system into those students' hands before presenting your case for using tablets in St. Louis would also greatly increase your chance of convincing the senior mentors on your team. It would show how you really aren't trying to discourage any students from scouting, rather setting them up to improve tenfold compared to their previous method.

Even though you said there's very few accomplished programmers on your team, you could see if they'd be willing to help modify WildRank or help take on the task of creating your own system, ground up.

Conclusively, I say try your hardest to get electronic scouting implemented for St. Louis and get students involved with the system before appealing to any senior mentors regarding the issue.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

^ Thanks, one more thing I should clarify. It's not the senior mentors that have the issue with the electronic, it's a small (heavily influential) group of juniors and seniors.

Thanks again.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Then I would say it's even more important to get a group involved with the system prior to suggesting its use at St. Louis. The group of juniors and seniors might be more open to the idea if, for lack of a better term, their own kind were already involved.

Good luck to you. The difference between paper and electronic scouting in St. Louis can be huge depending on how you utilize the data, and judging from your post, it sounds like your team could benefit greatly if you were able to use tablet scouting.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Briefly:

1) I think that once any student on a FIRST team graduates, they should NOT be a mentor for the same team they were just on. I won't get into whether a college freshman should be a mentor or not (I think it depends on many factors). The transition from a student to a mentor is significant, but many (likely even most) of the teammates who knew you as a student will continue to see and treat you as such, even after you graduate. Unless you go away for a while, and then come back.

2) The role of a mentor is to provide guidance. Most teams that I have seen work through some level of consensus. It sounds like you saw a void, and you stepped in to fill that void, which is good. Now you need to convince a sufficient number of the rest of the team that it was a void that needed to be filled, and that your solution is the best option of those available.

Often this is easier for adults to do than students, because many people give more weight to the opinion of adults. Similarly, it is likely easier for someone who has been with the group for a while than for someone who is new to the group.


So my advice is:
- find a new team, where the people on the team will first meet and get to know you as a mentor, not as a student
- expect that in your first year, you will have to spend some time building up your reputation as a knowledgeable experienced contributor
- look for areas that you can step in and help out, and then do so
- after everyone who was a student on your team while you were a student on that team has graduated, consider going back to help out there, if you want

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

My team (and many others) still use paper scouting at regionals and at worlds without any major hiccups. The biggest thing you need to do is have an excel program ready to receive the data after each match. Depending on what type of scouting is needed for that year we usually have 6 scouts plus one person entering in the data. The paper is then put into accordion files. The downside to using paper is having to go back through the cards if you think data was entered incorrectly and the plus side is having the ability to go back through the cards if you want to look closer at a teams notes or if you think the data was entered incorrectly. I would be careful using your new scouting system without first testing it at an event. You would rather sift through a thousand scouting cards than have no data at all.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

When I say historically I mean historically, for us paper means just that; ONLY paper. At this point the tablet system (which worked flawlessly at Central Illinois) is better than an untested excel system(despite excel systems being relatively easy to set up). Does anyone have success with pure paper scouting in the past few years?

Thanks for the replies,
Skye

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Its a hard translation from student to mentor... if you were on the drive team, now if you go to a regional with your team, your going to be watching what you were doing and get a sense of loss. Also it becomes very difficult when it comes to out of state regionals and even championships... I was lucky that when my team went up to Troy, I was on spring break. If they went to championships, I wouldn't be able to afford it and lose the days at school. Its a difficult change, but remember, if you do go back and mentor, this is for the kids, so make sure your not getting too involved.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Keep in mind what it is that FRC is for. It's not for winning. It's not for building a freaking awesome robot. Not about being the best strategist or even being prepared for the game.

It's about getting students interested in engineering, science, media and business. Teaching them how what they learn in school can actually matter.

It is very hard for a lot of mentors (myself included) to not jump in and do things their way because it's faster, easier and better. I still spend lots of time outside of the team researching and doing calculations for ideas to share with the students. There are times when I get shot down for what I consider bad reasons, and early on I'll be honest it pissed me off.

I had to forcibly separate myself from the competition. Now I'm more focused on the students and getting them to think critically and work out problems. If they ask for it, I'll tell them how I might solve a particular problem or ideas/concepts they never had a chance to learn yet.

If they make a bad decision on how something should work, I let them try it and find out the hard way why it won't work. It often causes extra work for them and myself, but in the end they can learn and own it rather than be the underlings. What's awesome is that a few times the "stupid" idea they had actually worked and it blew my mind cause I didn't see it till it was done!

Right now I have a lot less stress and a ton less pride holding me back. We don't compete until next week and even if we fall dead last, I can honestly say now that I am very proud of what the team was able to do this year. I'm also excited for the season to be over so we can start preparing for next year.

I suggest not pushing the scouting system. Present it and give examples of why it will be better and leave it at that. If a few students want to try it then great, you'll have a great case study to show how it really is better. If they want paper, let them use paper and try not to take it personal. As you gain experience you'll have lots of other cool stuff to share with them.

I don't have any qualms about mentors doing any of the work. Sometimes it's necessary. What bugs me is when I see a mentor drilling holes with a student holding the other end and playing on their phone.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Back to the first question:
And the answer is: it depends. FIRST is quite vague on how involved mentors should be. Whether this development is out of bounds depends on whether the student members are up to doing this themselves, their level of intiative, the number of students available (generally more acceptable on a small team), and a variety of other factors. The biggest factors are the team's dynamics, policies, and traditions. If the team you're working with is more about building the students up through high expectations and empowerment, it may well be out of bounds. If the mentors on your team do significant portions of the design, fabrication, or programming, it is probably in bounds.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Only paper?! Oh boy, now that would be difficult. I say go with what you have tested.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Every team dynamic is different. You need to do what fits best for your team... and I would start by listening to the more experienced mentors on your own team. It's hard to make the transition from student to mentor, especially when it happens immediately. It's easy to be sucked back into the "student" role, as you have a bunch of friends on the team, and most of the students are probably closer in age to you than the other mentors.

Using my own team as an example, nothing gets done without student involvement. As a mentor group, we pushed the team to explore tablet scouting options this year. They embraced it in concept, but were slow to adopt and figure out how to make it work. As a mentor, I stepped in and helped them figure out the basics, by taking an off the shelf system developed by another local team and setting it up as an example. The metrics that were present on it were completely non-sensical, but having that example in place the students could see how it would operate at the event, I could walk them through the setup procedure, and then they could develop the actual metrics and set it up for themselves.

One of the hardest parts of being a mentor, in my opinion, is knowing when to step back. You may look at an issue, know how to solve it, and know that you could get it done quickly and easily... but also know that you need to hand it off to a student, coach them through it, and that it'll take 3 times as long and may not end up being what you had envisioned.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Coming right out of winning our first RCA and graduating, this is the hardest advice for me as an alumnus to hear. There's so much potential in the team right now that I feel like I can help come to fruition in the form of wide culture change in our state. The idea of dropping the team while there's so much to accomplish hurts.

At the same time, I don't know if I can be an effective mentor to a group that was so recently my team and my committee (I was the head of outreach). I've let a full year go by without a lot of advising, but now I definitely want to come back.

So I was wondering if there was any advice for getting around the original advice. How do you make your friends respect you as an authority figure to some extent and focus on guidance rather than providing the solutions?

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

I started mentoring my high school team the year after I graduated. While it may not work for some teams, I think it went without any major problems. I found that instead of working solely with my existing friends, who were seniors on the team at the time, working with the younger students who you may not know as well was a great way to start my mentorship. I ended up heading the electrical team and had two freshmen who I taught, and by the time state champs and worlds came around, they had the skills to keep their robot rolling when I couldn't be there.

It's hard to stop yourself from jumping in and finishing the robot yourself, but for me, it's incredibly rewarding when those younger students go through a season and really start to see themselves as a vital part to the team, and can voice their opinions to the veteran students and mentors.

As for not mentoring a team that you were a student on, I disagree. Some of the most helpful and passionate mentors I know have been with teams since their conception when they were in high school, and that drive continues to push their teams to do the best that they can. Of course, every team has their own dynamic, but I truly think that having those young college mentors help strengthen teams.

Re: Advice for transition from student to mentor, too involved?
 

Hey Skye, long time no see. We have a similar problem with our scouting. Our "lead" of scouting wants us to switch to paper or our old version of WildRank because we had a few issues with our new version at Central Illinois. We convinced them to let us keep using the new version by explaining how much harder and redundant it would be to remake what we have already done instead of making a few simple changes.

As for the mentor situation I believe it is helpful to have recently graduated students come back to help the team, so that the team can transition easier, but it is important that the help is limited so that when and if you are fully gone they can function without you. So no I do not believe you are over stepping your bounds by helping with the app. Scouting is not as essential as building a robot, so if you leave and they do not know how to update the app they can always fallback on paper. So they will not be screwed over. However if it was the same case with the robot software, if you were to leave the team they would have some problems.

So yes younger mentors have their place on a team but they need to make sure they are passing on their knowledge not just doing the work especially if it is directly involved with the robot.