Mentors
 

How do I convince my team that we need mentors ?? We had one come yesterday while building our EduBot (just to check our design and everything) and some of my team thought that it was pointless .. I realise that the EduBot is fairly simple to build but at the Canadian Kickoff there is an optional challenge for the teams to compete in to give us a slight idea of what the actual season is going to be like.

However yesterday a couple of the team members were complaining saying that we dont need a mentor and that we will do fine without them and things like that which make absolutely no sense. They have also said (in reference to the normal build season) that we only need mentors as guides and we can do everythign ourselves. I found this to be THE dumbest thing i have heard in a long time (and ive heard some pretty dumb stuff) because i know that we need mentors to help us.

we are a rookie team this year and i am the only on it who has ever been part of a FIRST competition. so i realize that they have a lot to learn about gracious professionalism and everything that comes with gracious professionalism, but to say that we dont need mentors, imo thats just plain stupid ...

so my question to you is this ... How did you convince your team that you need mentors and do you have any tips for me on how to do it ??

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,

The best possible thing you can do to convince your team of the importance of having mentors is through this very forum. Throughout my years I have seen hundreds of rookie teams come into FIRST thinking that the competition was going to be a breeze, only to get caught up with major problems because they underestimated the challenge of the design and build process. Your team also needs to understand that though the EduBot is an excelent tool for learning the programing language and getting the basics of autonomous control down, it is the basics of robot design which are the main downfalls of rookie teams. Most rookie teams who have major problems are those teams who mismanaged time, or underestimated the difficulty of building a quality drive train. This is where mentors come in. If you look at the top contending teams each year, they are in most cases, stacked with engineers or teachers with extensive knowledge of engineering and the effort it takes to squeeze out something on a short deadline. I hope your team reads this post and the other posts on this board and realizes that engineers and other mentors are not part of FIRST to take over teams, they are there to enhance the experience of the students involved in the program through passing experience learned over the many years of performing tasks as difficult as this one.

Good Luck!
-Andy Grady

convince your team they don't know everything
 

I think the biggest reason your team is convinced they don't need any mentors is because the students are believe that they already know everything and don't need help. It's a common feeling for high schoolers. They're stubborn & rebellious. They're old enough to think for themselves and they want to prove it to the world.

They need to understand that their experience can be greatly improved by having a knowledgeable mentor on the team. The mentor will help keep them on task & make sure the project gets done, will point out obvious problems or mistakes that would otherwise delay or destroy the project, will give real world examples of what works or why a certain concept is important, will force the students to design complete solutions before building instead of the typical student method of a half-baked solution with layers of bandaids on top, will make students think about engineering instead of simply thinking about fabrication. Hopefully that's a good list of what mentors bring to the team.

If that's not enough, ask them how far they'd get in baseball if they didn't have coaches to teach them how to properly throw the ball or swing the bat. Or how much math they'd know if they didn't have someone to walk them through difficult exercises. They may get a basic understanding of baseball or math, but they gain more knowledge & skills when they have proper coaches & teachers. The same is true with designing, engineering, and building robots.

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,
#1 reason for mentors, KNOWLEDGE!!!!! As intellegent as I'm sure that your teammates are, they are going to get a serious slap in the face once build season comes and they need to build a robot from scratch. Without mentors, your team will be completely lost. I guarantee you that.

As for trying to convince them of this, I would say that you're definately in a tricky spot. You do have a couple of things going for you though. You said that you had a potential mentor with you the other day. My advice is to talk to those people that would consider mentoring your group, explain the situation to them, and see if they also have any ideas. Ask them to please understand the situation, and if they would be willing to hang on just a little bit longer until the team starts the build season and realizes how much they need the mentors. The only other thing is to talk to your team, and see if a team that's close to yours would be willing to have a, well, confrence with yours. A vetren team that would be willing to talk to your team and kind of tell them what the entire thing is like, and maybe put in a plug for mentors may convince them as well. I'm not sure where you're at, but if you need it, we're in south-east Michigan, and would be more than willing to help if you need it. Hope that helped!

Re: Mentors
 

Shyra,

Mike and Andy have some great thoughts. I'll add a few.

It may be painful for you (and for the rest of us) being the only one on the team with any FIRST experience, but the team members need to "see the need" in order for them to buy in and fully undestand. First, identify if it is indeed the whole team who wants no mentors. Provide mentors for those who want them. Those who are adamant about not needing mentors - I'd be sure they got the responsibility they claim to be ready for. Those "other" duties would include things like Consent/Release forms from all team members for regionals, shipping arrangements, travel, bill of materials/tracking cost, monitoring rules updates, etc.

Perhaps some will need to make it all the way to a regional for your team to see others teams and fully understand the type of collaboration necessary. In the end the whole experience will be one everyone can learn from. Good luck and let us know how we may be able to help.

Re: Mentors
 

Can opened. Worms everywhere.

Re: Mentors
 

Sorry. I was being a bit brusque. I was trying to say that their is a vast amount of information to be learned from robotics. It can be compared to learning calculus for the first time. Looking at the text-book and trying to deceiper the information can make a person feel really dumb. It becomes easier if you have someone to teach you about it along the way. I hate it when people look a gifthorse in the mouth and when they instantly assume they know everything. Unless they have built a robot before then they could use all the help they can get. Btw I have no idea what it means to open a can of worms.

Re: Mentors
 

An Engineer's ego is a delicate thing. If you know how to stroke it, there shall be no problems. It's more of a maturity issue at the moment if anything. Plus the Babybot didn't require much mentor help. Things will be different once the Botfather design begins.

Re: Mentors
 

Well, I've got one major suggestion...

Show them some of the incredible FIRST robots from past years. Show them Wildstang and Chief swerving all over the field. Show them Beatty walking through all opposition in 2002. Show them the Technokats and their massive tanktread drive systems. Show them 60 and 308 lifting the goals in 2002.

Ask them... "Would we be able to do this without a mentor? Don't you think our chances of success are better if we have REAL ENGINEERING help? Don't you guys want to LEARN?"

See what they think.

John
www.firstrobotics.net is your best friend.

Re: Mentors
 

thanks everyone for taking the time to help my team with this ... means a lot to me. personally i think bursting their egos would get the idea across the best, but that wouldnt work because it would cause problems within the team that can be avoided. i think that the autonomous idea on the edubot is a good idea and i will have us try that asap ... i have shown videos of old games from last year .. but i think that showing them the 2002 bots might be a good idea because from what i have heard they had some pretty spectacular designs ...

the mentor that we had the other day was just helping us for that day because he has to go back to university soon which is 4 hours away ( or something like that ) and in all actuality he was doing me a favour because i know him outside of robotics ... so having him to help us during the build season is not a possibility

thank you to everyone once again for replying and for the ideas .. i would greatly appreciate it if you kept them coming and i will give all of these a try .. thanks once again

-- shyra

Re: Mentors
 

Oh and the BabyBot is the BetaBot while the Botfather is the Real Bot, mmkay?

Re: Mentors
 

True, and you just insulted about 2-300 of them.

The engineers who just read your jab of a post are people who designed your cell phones, created components on your car, designed the robot rovers about to land on mars, or the production lines that made your shampoo. These people are not only folks that are mentoring FIRST teams you will be competing with during the upcoming year, but they also may be looking to hire people within the next 5 years. I suggest not ticking them off.

Andy B.

Re: Mentors
 

Good thing most of us are thick skinned.

Painful as it may be, you may need to let the team take the direction the majority of the team wants to go. It could very well be that you can build a successful robot without mentors involved. It could be that about week two the entire team will say "DUH!" and then begin a scramble to find willing and able adults to help. Either way, it needs to be the team deciding. Either way, the team WILL learn and grow from the decision.

If you bring someone in on your own, it will be difficult / impossible for them to help lead the team because the others will have already decided that you mento is not needed. That would not be good for you, the team or the person you bring in. It would be a rare individual who could step in and be successful in this situation.

The goal of FIRST is to increase knowledge and generate an interest in engineering and technology. One of those ways is thru the mentoring relationship - hopefully you team-mates will see that value and ask for the guidance. Asking for help isn't a sign of failure, but a recognition that others have knowledge and are willing to share it to enhance the experience.

Good Luck.

***

I got this from a college professor (Fluid dynamics):

There are three kinds of knowledge -

1) What you know
2) What you know you don't know
3) What you don't know you don't know

For most of us, group 3 is the largest category.

Re: Mentors
 

Just another thought for you Shyra...

Sometimes it is a good idea to bring in outside influences with experience to talk to your team about what they should expect. Your team may have an easier time grasping the concept of what is to come when it comes from someone they don't see every day. There are plenty of people on this board with alot of experience. I'm sure you could find someone in your area who would be willing to help you out.

Though Chris is right in the fact that if the team decides on no mentor, its going to be difficult to get them convinced of your way, I also think its very important for you to at least try. Year, after year, after year, I see rookies falling into the same pitfalls. If you can convince your team to get a little professional help, it will give you a one up on many of the other young teams out there. Its worth a shot!

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

Re: Mentors
 

Perhaps you could bring in a prospective mentor just to give the students a mini lesson on something they will undoubtedly encounter and possibly struggle with over the six week period (i.e. drive trains). Once they see just how complex things can be and get just a taste of the kind of knowledge they can obtain from experienced professionals they just might change their minds about the virtues of having mentors.

Maybe the students are under the impression that mentor is synonymous with teacher. They may think that a mentor will just be one more person to lecture at them while they are trying to have fun. What they must realize is that a FIRST mentor is so much more. Granted they are there partly to teach but mostly to inspire. So few people get an opportunity like this that it is a shame to see any possible part of the experience not taken advantage of.