Re: Mentoring Opportunities in Minneapolis
 

For teams looking for regular mentors (eg those who need an electrical or programming mentor), I would try going outside of this thread.

GO FIRST members will help as much as we can, but keep in mind that we are still college students. We can help occasionally and we will do what we can to match teams up with mentors, but we ourselves will not be able to come and mentor teams daily.

Also keep in mind that GO FIRST is a very new organization, so we are still finding our place in the FIRST world. If you guys have suggestions for us, those would be great too! Mentor matching sounds like a good service idea though.

Re: Mentoring Opportunities in Minneapolis
 

Somewhat off topic, but it has been mentioned (in passing). Regionals can always use help. Duluth is starting a regional this year according to the schedule. It is the week before UM-TC spring break. I am sure some local teams will be going up there and I would guess you could get a ride up there with them if needed.

Re: Mentoring Opportunities in Minneapolis
 

Here's a little more information about the group:

GO FIRST is an alumni organization at the University of Minnesota. It was created to help support the growth of FIRST in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. A requirement for all members it to volunteer in some way at the MN regionals, either though VIMS, helping robotics teams, or coordinating scouting alliances. After volunteering at the MN regionals students decide their own level of involvement based on school schedules and the extra time they can commit to a team.

Other things we do include providing pre-ship inspections and presentation tips at the Pre-Ship regional in MN, presenting on a number of different topics at MN Splash, and coordinating trips to other regionals or off-season events that we volunteer at.

Since school started at the University last week we're still organizing the group and figuring out how many active students we have this year. Currently we have a large variety of majors ranging from Electrical, Mechanical, Biomedical Engineering, Communications, Marketing, Management, Multimedia, and Programming. Our first big meeting is Monday September 20th, for those teams who posted here I'm going to contact you via PMs to get more information about your team & what kind of talents/mentors you would find useful.

MN teams, keep posting if you're looking for help!!!!

Re: Mentoring Opportunities in Minneapolis
 

(Edit: Earlier in the thread, Trent basically said what I am going to say)

If you don't mind a ride to Eden Prairie, Team 2502 would love to have a new mentor. Someone with previous FIRST experience... All our mentors are pretty new to FIRST and none of them have been alumns in the experience so they offer unique perspectives but also don't understand some things, we feel.

We are also one of 2011 Control System Beta testers and more mentors would be great.*

* I didn't break the NDA right? Nothing proprietary there...

Re: Mentoring Opportunities in Minneapolis
 

Alright i'm part of GO FIRST now, so to those looking for a little help in the twin cities area we will facilitate the best we can.

Skill set: I was my teams programmer for the last 2 years, so i know C++ and am up to date on the CRIO, webcam, and all the other fun stuff that has blinky lights. This year I was a drive coach and we placed 2nd at the milwaukee regional and made it to the finals in our division at nationals, so i'm pretty experienced with making game strategies. I was also team captain, so ive dealt with a decent amount of team organizing

Schedule: It looks like I'll be in wisconsin from the kickoff through the end of january, so i'll hopefully be mentoring my old team during that time. I should be able to make both the minneapolis and milwaukee regionals.

Some Goals: I'd like to find a team thats just getting started and open up a few lines of communication with my old team back in hartland, that way we can share some designs and get a little coopertition rockin

Even if I or another member of GO FIRST cant be physically with your team, i'm hoping that we can exchange emails and help whatever way we can, let me know if you want it