[Adam Freeman]

MENTORS! Everyone has mentioned lots of valid things in this thread so far, but all of them come when your team gets more and more mentors involved.

Not mentors to design the robot. Not mentors to build the robot. But, overall mentor involvement enables teams to develop sponsors, find resources, prototype more parts, develop better strategy, work with more students, etc....

The one non-random pattern to all the "powerhouse" teams is that they have lots of mentors involved in their team.

On our team we have 15-20 mentors/year. This allows our us to have different sub-groups that focus only on their area (ie; mechanical fab, design, electrical, programming, machining, chairmans, animation, etc..). When we are developing our strategy and initial designs, we are not worried about getting the animation completed or updating the website....that is handled by someone else. We try to grab as many potential mentors as we can....Students parents that are engineers, Former FIRST students, Teachers, etc..

Another powerful thing mentors bring is experience. Yes, real world engineering experience...but more importantly in FRC, the best experience is actual FRC robot design experience. Knowledge of the motors, electronics, gearboxes...where they can be used, how strong or rigid something needs to be. Great students can influence a team for a little bit, but mentors help keep a team strong over a long period of time...which is what is needed to become a "powerhouse" team.

Just like Karthik has been saying for year in his Effective FIRST Strategies seminar at Champs. Step #1 - Develop a simple plan that fits within your teams capabilities. Step #2 - Execute that plan as well as you can. Step #3 - Show those capabilities to potential mentors / sponsors. Ask if they are willing to help improve your team by donating mentoring time. Step #4 - Utilitze new mentor/resources to improve your team. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. Over time the performance of you team (be it on or off the field) will improve. Continue to iterate and improve until you are performing at the highest levels, sutain that level over a period of time and you too can be a powerhouse team.

Now, I am not saying just any one will do. They have to be able to fit your team and the goals laid out for it. They need to be able to provide some tangible benefit to the team. Mentors are the most valuable resource in FIRST. When you find a "good" mentor, they will be able to provide something much more than a bunch of tools, machines, or money would be able to.

Mentors = More Time, Experience, Opportunity, Resources, Students...Better Organization, Strategy, Ideas, etc.. It's really unlimited what coud come out of getting the right mentors involved with your team.