Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I've been mentoring the Killer Bees for about 5 solid years now (before that I was sort of a junior mentor and a student on the team). I have my degree in English, and my mentoring role can best be described by the nickname that my students call me: Mom. I also head up the Chairman's submission effort, and handle other marketing areas.

I love "my" engineers, and have a unique relationship with them, as I'm younger than they are (which has created a bit of a "little sister/big brother" relationship between us) and am one of the main NEMs on the team, but enjoy being a part of the design/robot process as well. I'm sure that other team's mentors have unique relationships with each other.

I'm curious:

What is the attitude of the Engineer/Mechanical mentors towards the Non-Engineering Mentors (NEMs) on their team?

Vice versa?

What is the student attitude towards the NEMs on your team? How does it differ from their attitude towards the Engineering/Mechanical mentors?

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I guess I can attempt to answer this one.

I feel that the NEM mentors on the team are really the big picture people. They might not have all of the technical answers, but they're the first people to consult with proposals about fundraising ideas, purchases, and other events. But, our NEM is also extremely interested in why we take a certain route, and although she is a NEM, she is very knowledgeable about the robot itself, and what it does.

The overall attitude towards the NEM is one of playfullness. We have fun, we mock our mentor for getting lost and stuff, but we all understand that when it's time to get serious, we focus and work with the mentor to get things done.

Our attitudes towards the mentors is one of overall respect, but I feel that there is not a bit of difference between how our attitudes towards the different mentors are. We're always looking for fun, and if the mentors are willing to have fun as well, it doesn't matter if it's a EM or a NEM, it's always a party.

- Sunny

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Without ours, we wouldn't eat dinner every night, we wouldn't have lunch at competitions, our fundraisers would be in shambles.... basically our team would fall apart.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

That is actually quite easy to answer.

Without them, the team is not a team.
They play as big a role in supporting the team, and inspiring the students, as any Engineer.

May I use you as an example? A degree in English? Seriously?
Words can't express how much your contributions adds to a team! Guiding them in the Chairman's submission effort is fantastic!! Any chance you could split your time with our team?? Please!!:)
You see, spell check was invented for Engineers like me. :yikes:

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

hahaha. Well, you can use me while I'm here in Cali until Monday....and then it's back to my own team in Michigan.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I often treat myself poorly ;)

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Whate the folks above said.

Basically, we cannot live without them.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Well, we don't have that many "non-engineer" mentors on our team, but the ones we do have are just as important as the engineering mentors. Everything we do that is outside of the robot, although most people won't do it, is just as important as the robot. You can get to Nationals by winning regionals (I won't go into the MI format), or winning matches, but you can also get there by winning awards, good scouting, ect. So, we value all our mentors equally as important.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

They are mentors. They are our leaders. They are our teachers. They are our friends.

As far as I am concerned they are no different than Engineering mentors they just teach us a different skill set. One which, imho, is much more important.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I can definitely agree with the above in that they're really the same. I think the main difference lies in which mentors a student interacts with more, rather than the teachings of those mentors. For example, many of the more electrically-inclined members of our team say "You're killing me!" the favorite phrase of our main electrical mentor. Similarly, other students pick up habits from their "preferred" mentors.

What I'm saying is, student-mentor relations are based on interaction, not the role of the mentors themselves. (Not so sure about mentor-mentor relations, but that's not really my question to answer)

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

You are a very funny man, Kres. And an honest one.

Jane

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I had a nice discussion with a former student who specialized in the non-engineering side of the team while she was with us. She's now mentoring for another team. Towards the end of the discussion, it was bluntly, but truthfully, stated, "you need a leader."

We have a few NEMs on the team this year, but they are very focused in specific roles. We have EMs that also take on non-engineering tasks...some with greater success than others.

When we had that non-engineering leader (I won't say NEM because at the time she wasn't a mentor), the team ran a lot smoother (more smoothly? No English degree here!).

In general though, other than having two separate rooms (not by choice) for robot work and for "other" work (computer based), there is no distinction made between EM and NEM on our team. Everyone is a team member. Everyone is a family member. Both serve distinct yet vital roles and one cannot function without the other.

Good thread!

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

We, unfortunately, have about a 50:1 member-to-pure NEM ratio. She does a fantastic job (good thing, because otherwise we'd starve), but that means a lot of us EMs (can I say that?) do NEM work as well, which can be even more exhausting. As for the relationships, we're a very close-nit team with a pretty good round-table management system. It's hard to draw the EM-NEM line when you're just watching people interact. Yes, EMs and NEMs have different perspectives, but I dare say a lot of that's up to our personalities rather than our positions. We have some--quite a few, actually--very "big picture" as well as technical EMs, and a few that stick more on the technical side.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Since FIRST does not dictate how a team is structured, many teams do not recognize NEMs or parents as "mentors" - only the technical people or engineers are considered mentors.

I have very strong opinions on this! :yikes: FRC teams are most often small businesses which need the business people, human resource people, marketing, etc. in order to be successful. So I'm surprised when I encounter teams which do not recognize all of the adults who work with students as equal "mentors." If a team has done sufficient teambuilding in the fall they will discover that there is no room for attitudes from any member of the team, adult or student.

If you're not familiar with NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) please visit our website to learn more: www.firstnemo.org.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

The beauty of FIRST is that there is a place for everyone. Not just every student, but every mentor as well. The only real reason there can be a niche for each and every student is because the mentors have come along to create those places. It doesn't matter what degree you hold or how much technical expertise you have when you're part of a team. Every contribution is valuable.

When it comes time to brainstorming, everyone on our team contributes. It's a wonderful way to get ideas. Oftentimes, when you have a team with members that have been there for awhile and have worked with the mentors for a couple of years, they will start thinking a bit of the same way. Sometimes, those not involved with the physical aspects of the robot can have the most interesting ideas. It's when you combine all of the best qualities of ideas that a team produces a fine robot.

Our team members treat our mentors equally. They all have value to us, and I can personally say I have learned something from each of them, engineering related or life related. :)

Another interesting thing about FIRST is that if you're around it long enough, you don't really need to have an engineering degree to understand how to design and build a robot. If you put someone that has been in FIRST ten years next to the brightest engineer from a sponsoring company and ask for ideas for a robot, I can almost guarantee that the person with the most FIRST experience will have the better and more feasible idea. FIRST is its own little wonderful world of robots and engineering and networking, where oftentimes experience outweighs technical expertise.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Be careful with this line of thinking. Any one can come up with an idea but often times it is the real engineers who get it to work. (Not taking anything away from non-engineers but belittling the work an engineer went through to get their title irks me)

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

The situation on my team is a slightly different from the norm since the majority of our mentors are college students who had done FIRST as high schoolers and are currently enrolled in engineering at the University of Michigan.

This considered, our mentor base is (and has been for the last two years) divided into the following: mentors and senior mentors. The mentors, who are generally first- or second-years on the team and may still be getting accustomed to the busy schedules of college, focus on technical aspects. The senior mentors, on the other hand, focus on both technical and non-technical aspects.

For us, the mentor structure has helped to show the students that they can get the best of more than one world. I have noticed that students who had been focused on the technical aspect of FIRST before are now doing things such as organizing service events, running demos, taking care of media, and giving tours to VIPs at events in addition to their designing and building.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I'd switch out the word, title, for degree or degrees. There has just been a post in this thread about college mentors who lead teams. They don't have their degrees and are not engineers but they are leading teams. That doesn't belittle anyone.

--
One attitude that I've encountered over many years of talking with NEMS and technical mentors is the food side of things. "If the NEMS didn't feed us, we'd starve", kind of thing. That is a 'volunteer' to me; that is not a NEM. Where it can become a NEM process is if the person mentors others in how to feed a team. Otherwise, it is a volunteer finding a way to feed a team.

There are so many aspects to the non-technical sides of the team that must be handled well to have sustainability and consistency. The work that is done by the NEMS is, indeed, valuable. It has been mentioned in this thread that there are technical mentors and engineers who have excellent skill sets in the non-engineering aspects of running the team and they apply those skill sets. This is good as long as a technical mentor is not taking away from the robot side of things to devote time to the organizational and business side of things or working with the awards sub-team. Too many times you see this and you see the mentors stretching themselves too thin. If it is out of necessity because there are not other mentors available then that is one thing. If it is because the technical mentors/engineers want to do the NEM work, that is another thing. If it is because the technical mentors/engineers want to control every aspect of the whole team - that is quite another. Recognizing the value of the work done by the NEMs and seeking NEMS to help the team is just as important as seeking out engineers and technical mentors to work with the team. Then, the real fun begins with everyone learning to work together. We can see the success of achieving this in many of our Hall Of Fame teams.

Jane

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Nope, it is a title. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineer A degree does not make you an engineer. My friend for example, is not an engineer, he is a person who holds a BS in Electrical Engineering.

In some places it is actually illegal to call yourself an Engineer without having met certain requirements. As one of those College Students helping to run a team (come by 397 and see how many people over the age of 24 are involved in our team) I have no problem admitting I am not an Engineer yet. I still hold that as a goal of mine. (Except CS majors cannot become PEs in the state of Michigan)

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

LOL!

I have lots of FIRST experience. Almost 10 years. I've worked with teams, hung out with some really cool VIPs, given countless presentations, helped run events, done thousands of hi fives, met lots and lots of incredible volunteers, and best of all, have interacted with thousands of students.

I know almost nothing about building a robot.

I leave that to the technical mentors.

What drew me into FIRST and kept me engaged was problem-solving, teamwork and partnerships.

But years ago Kathie and I (and another mentor named Cheryl) started talking about all the work we were doing on a team and it had nothing to do with building a robot. In one conversation we made up the word "non-engineering" mentor to describe what we were doing (it was a joke - never meant it to stick) and NEMO was launched. It's fun to see how this label has stuck in the FIRST world and to meet all the great mentors who play these important roles on the teams.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Note that I did not give any credit to non-engineers for making something work. I simply was talking about them still being able to contribute to the process despite their lack of expertise. I would never belittle anyone or their work.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

[IronicObservation]
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't drive a train, you aren't an engineer.
[/IronicObservation]

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I agree completely. I appreciate every thing that volunteers do, however it is important to draw this distinction. A Non-engineering mentor should work with the students interested in those fields teaching them about the business, logistics, and marketing (I am sure I am missing plenty that NEMs do) aspects of the team. By the same definition, an engineer who is not working to mentor the students is not a mentor he/she is a volunteer. It doesn't matter if you write a thousand lines of code for a robot, if you didn't teach and/or inspire the HS students as you did it then you are not a mentor.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I must meditate on this paragraph, and I must remember to use what it says in future discussions. It presents succinctly a way to resolve a vague uneasiness about team organization that's been nagging at me for a couple of years.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Thank you, Alan and James. It is a simple thought which reflects a simple truth.

One of the first threads that caught my attention when I was discovering Chief Delphi is this thread started by JVN. It discusses the value of mentoring and explores what that means.

It is a thread that I search for and study in times of frustration and struggle as a NEM in a world of people who don't often understand what NEMs are and the opportunities they are filled with. This includes the FIRST world.

Jane

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I'll give a little view of the other side of the equation:

The kids who don't understand how hard it is to run a team sometimes mock and don't respect the NEMs, they don't see the purpose of NEMs in a robotics team. It might be a matter of maturity too and respecting those who voluntarily give up their time for you.

Those of us who do know what it takes to run a team know that whenever anyone offers help, no matter what department that is, take it.

.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I know on our team at least, we have no shortage of mentors willing to help lead a prototype build or offer their opinion on some technical aspect of the robot. However, we have a massive shortage on people who are willing to lead some of the "less glamorous" aspects of the team. I would trade a technical mentor for a NEM any day of the week (for our team at least)

-Brando

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Good point. I said something very similar to this* about our (sadly) only current NEM. That phrasing actually undervalues what she does. She, along with a few other quasi-NEMS, actually runs much of our logistics and organization. (We do have some "pure" volunteers that actually just bring in food, transport kids, etc, not that they're less valuable.) This may not sound much like mentoring, and no, she isn't currently teaching anyone specifically on how to feed or even organize us--though that's more of a recruitment problem on our part. The teaching comes in with educating students on the importance of these acts. (Well, maybe the food is self-explanatory, especially for us.) Or as Akash put it, she's working to eliminate this:
Personally, I consider this mentoring--very good mentoring at that. And it's true, that may well be the most important part of what she does (though food is still way up there :P). Thanks for pointing that out, I'll try to explain it that way from now on.

*I don't know if you were referring to me, but you're right, it wasn't what I meant.

We seem to have a bit of the same problem. For us at least, I don't know if it's because they're less glamorous (I'd hope we're getting good at dispelling that) or simply because we're way better at recruiting technical mentors, but it is a big issue we're trying to correct. For the successful NEM teams out there, how do you get around this? Or is it more about happening into the right people? Or am I bringing this thread to OT?

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

From Merrian-Webster:

Main Entry: men·tor
Pronunciation: \ˈmen-ˌtȯr, -tər\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, from Greek Mentōr
Date: 1616
1 capitalized : a friend of Odysseus entrusted with the education of Odysseus' son Telemachus
2 a : a trusted counselor or guide b : tutor, coach

To me, a mentor is someone who interacts with the students on the team. Whether that interaction is showing them how to build a robot, how to submit an award, how to organize a dinner, how to act graciously towards others, or tutoring Odysseus's son, you are still mentoring.

Part of the NEM/EM dichotomy is expressed in the description of the WFA:

"The Woodie Flowers Award celebrates effective communication in the art and science of engineering and design. Dr. William Murphy founded this prestigious award in 1996 to recognize mentors who lead, inspire and empower using excellent communication skills."

I think they are trying to expand the award to NEMs, but still can't quite get away from the engineering mindset.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I’ve given a lot of thought to the role of the NEM on a FIRST team (especially a FRC team). I stepped into the role out of sheer necessity almost 10 years ago. I certainly wasn’t planning on it. At that time I could find few resources about the organizational and business side of running a team. There seemed to be some teams doing a pretty good job of it, but FRC had almost no information to share.

The Chief Delphi forums were a lifesaver.:)

Each year the Competition manual gets a little better at outlining some suggested “NEM” tasks, and most years FRC has also had a Handbook. http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...FRC%20team.pdf

We started NEMO as a support group, but also as a clearinghouse for some simple “how-to” papers, based on lessons learned from the people who were already doing the job. I’ve met many folks who could be great resources for FIRST - including an entrepreneur who has written a how-to practical guide for starting a business (we were judging partners at a Regional).

I spent 5 years passing suggestions and resources up to HQ, including helping with many drafts of the Handbook and the Mentor Resources Library, and I still feel the same way: if the mission really is to change the culture and not just build robots - a bit more attention needs to be paid to the organizational and business side of running a team.

Currently there are only two awards given out to recognize volunteers at the Regionals - the Volunteer of the Year (usually given out based on work on an event level) and the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award.

And most NEMs are not eligible for the WFFA.

It might be time for a culture change within the organization.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

In my opinion, I don't think many NEMS think about garnering any awards other than the ones that the teams work towards as a whole. I don't know if that is a sad thing or a beneficial thing - because most NEMS have bought into the benefits of the program as opposed to the drawbacks and just go about doing their job, usually behind the scenes. Being rewarded or awarded isn't even a blip on the screen. It could be that the reason is because many NEMS don't receive recognition in their own teams and community. It would be good to have a better understanding of what a non-engineering mentor is and what a volunteer is. One would think that it would be easy to discern, but teams get bogged down in that and the work of the NEMS gets lost or hidden. Because of that, the value is not recognized. The teams that understand the value of NEMs and their contributions to the team and community - are wise.

Jane

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Shaker doesn't have any engineers, so we LOVE our NEMs. :)

That's strictly true, but we have 2 teachers, one of which who teaches introduction to engineering, and a college student (I hear he's a huge idiot), so if those count as "Engineering Mentors" because they emulate the mentorship a real engineer does, then we don't have any NEMs.

I would say Shaker students respect all of its real mentors (I don't count) equally, even going so far as to insist on submitting a WFFA for our head mentor - whom is a chemistry teacher, not an engineer, and does a lot of "NEM tasks" on the team in addition to the cool robot stuff.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

In the words of Alex Slocum (and others), any time we generalize, we are wrong.

Categorizing is only helpful to a point. In this thread talking about NEM's and Engineering Mentors is only helpful to a point. Generalizing, at all, about an entire category is diffucult at best and destructive at worst.

Go visit 342 FRC teams and you'll see 342 different systems for doing business. Humans, in general, are involved with FRC teams because they see benefit in it for others and benefit for themselves. For some students/mentors/teams fitting into a category (such as "NEM" or "Engineering Mentor") works well and in other cases it does not.

Funny things can happen to an organization over time. Categories can help a team organize and improve efficiency and productivity. These categories, over time, can sometimes evolve into titles and position descriptions and, if such a team or group isn't careful, can have that lead to misunderstandings and turf issues.

Be sure to use categories, and units of measurement, and titles, and descriptions carefully ... never assuming/generalizing about a population. Like all tools, if these are misused, you'd be better off not having had them at all.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

As a Non- Engineering Student and now Mentor I've never had a problem with the Engineering Mentors. We've always respected one another and worked well together, some times it's hard to get them to communicate though...

It does seem that EMs notice NEMs the most when they're no longer working with the team, because all the little things they've done disappears when the mentor leaves.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I truly appreciate and whole-heartedly agree with this statement. :yikes: I am what would be considered an EM, that is I have a degree in engineering and work with the students to teach them and help them (as needed) in programming the robot. However, I find that some engineering mentors I have encountered forget that it is about mentoring and not doing... and that mentoring includes: getting to know the students, and helping them find their niche, and teaching them to respect everyone on the team, and recognize everyone's contribution, and so much more. Woodie has set a very good example for all of us on that count... we all need to look to his example and remember that that is our goal.


Amen to that statement... as an EM I truly believe that the NEM is very often the unsung hero. I wish we had more of them!

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

This is not true, and this opinion should not be propagated.

All mentors are eligible to win the WFFA.

However, since the award focuses on the efforts of technical communication and inspiration, the mentors who are recognized this way make some sort of impact with their technical mentoring. Even the first year that WFFA's were awarded, a young construction worker (Dave Ferreira) was recognized as a WFFA winner.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

That is correct, Andy, any adult on the team is eligible to be nominated.* However the award was not intended to recognize the areas that most NEMs are involved in, so a corresponding award for the non-technical side would be appreciated. Especially since teams often focus on non-technical topics pre- and post- build season and NEMs often work on the teams for longer periods of time.

*I believe the description was changed in 2005 or 2006 to remove the criteria that the mentor had to be an engineer or teacher. Prior to that time we were not eligible for the WFFA.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

I am a college student studying Mechanical Engineering and Business Management. I have been involved with FIRST for over 8 years in both the engineering and non-engineering concepts. I find that I am generally less respected then the mentors who only focus on the technical side.

I think a lot of the non-engineering tasks are pushed aside and are neglected unless someone steps up. The engineering stuff definitely takes precedence.

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

Andy,

I apologize if my post was poorly worded and thanks for your clarification.

The intent of my post was not to take anything away from all the very deserving mentors who are nominated and honored past, present and future with the WFFA.

Jenny

Re: Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts
 

To be fair, we all treat him poorly. ;)