Remote Mentors
 

I will be starting a rookie team this year. We are currently recruiting a great group of mentors, but only one of them is experienced (me :P). In order to give students the best possible experiencing I am considering pairing our mentors with remote "shadow" mentors, who could teach the new recruits how their skills can be applied to FIRST (i.e. A remote CAD mentor teaches our CAD mentor what elements of CAD are the most important to teach the kids), and give the fresh mentors a feeling for what they are getting into. I would love some feedback on this idea, so feel free to post your thoughts.

~ Alex

Re: Remote Mentors
 

694 has some alums and old mentors who still offer advice via our email group. They're great for general advice or extra brainstorming power. I think what you're suggesting is a pretty good idea, and should help set your team up nicely. However, you should still have on-site mentors with enough experience to act without your shadow mentors.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

Email is great but not real-time. If your remote mentors are available during build time, have them join in virtually using video conferencing via computer. Skype comes to mind, but there are many solutions that are free. You need a web cam at least on the shop end, so they can see what's happening, but these can be had very inexpensively.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

If you want to do something a little more elaborate and allow for some movement you can do a tele-presence robot. It's a great summer project and if you have a spare net book its fairly easy to implement.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

Teamviewer is a great, free remote software tool. Especially useful for remote programming mentoring and some troubleshooting

http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

Re: Remote Mentors
 

Sounds like a great idea. Feel free to contact me for support for things mechanical related. I also can provide some good insight on CAD and overall team structure.

And by I, I really mean myself and the other group of mentors I work with on a normal almost daily basis year round.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

Thanks! I will most definitely contact you.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

This year Team 610 mentored a rookie team (3541). We set up a webcam in out Robotics Lab and we got Skype onto the computers. Team 3541 was able to view us work whenever they wanted and if they wanted to ask a question, they were able to ask.

Another suggestion would be to have the senior on-site mentor or team leaders in contact with the remote mentors, giving them a description of what is occurring on your team (possibly email CAD files, etc...). The mentors could then add input into what they think are good ideas and which are not so good.

Re: Remote Mentors
 

i was talking to another team member about just this today! our team is really heavy on seniors, especially in leadership positions. lets just say next year 1089 is going to be radically different, and the leadership will be fresh, but inexperienced. I floated around an idea that some of the seniors on the team could use skype to communicate with people on the team next year if they need help with something.

it would be beneficial for the new leadership to know that there is experience very close by. i like this idea, we're going to see how it plays out. good luck with your plans, i really hope they work out for you!

Re: Remote Mentors
 

This happens a lot already. In terms of mentoring other mentors, I think the easiest is just setting up phone & email correspondence between people that can help eachother out. When I was running 1511, I helped several other rookie team leaders this way, they ranged from mentors a few towns away, to mentors in CT and even further sometimes. They had my email address (and I was generally available within the hour), and my cell phone number. I was able to walk them through a lot and answer tons of questions that way and it was very simple.

I agree that if you are virtually mentoring an entire team, more fancy things like video chat, skype, etc can be beneficial. You can show design drawings, parts, etc... but really there is a lot that can be done by email. These past two years since I moved away from 1511, I have remote mentored them in several ways. The most common is just answering emails from various different mentors & the team leader. I even had one of the mechanical guys during build season have me check his motor calculations!! I also spent plenty of time on the phone with some of the lead mentors... talking over everything from initial strategy kickoff weekend to how to run certain meetings, deal with integration issues, etc. But I admit, it was great to be "in" on their early strategy and design sessions via their livestream video & chat. I even helped with some strategy & design suggestions that way!

But I think your idea of pairing up some of your inexperienced mentors virtually with experienced ones can be very beneficial. It gives them someone else to ask and talk over things with, as I'm certain you will be very very busy :) The number one thing to remember is that half the time, the new mentors may not know what questions to ask, or when to ask them. Seek out experienced mentors that are willing to poke and prod a little, or maybe set up every-other-day checkins to start.

Good luck!