[rachelholladay]

We (here at 1912) kind of have this idea of what it means to really mentor a team and we wanted to see if we had the right general idea. (hence the posting of this question by Wendy Holladay)

Instance 1: We meet a rookie team at kickoff. They come to our Jumpstart Build, which is one-day event on the Saturday after kickoff where new teams came with a kit of parts and leave with a driving chassis. We get maybe one email or phone call from the team during build season, but other than that they ask for little assistance. We play with them at competition, see how much the kitbot from Jumpstart has changed (or some cases, how much it hasn't). Would we like to say we helped them out? Yes. Would we say we mentored them? No, not really. This scenario has been the case with many teams over the past few years.

Instance 2: (based on real team) Our regional director puts us in contact with a rookie team in the fall and they come to our build space so that we can show them the basics of robotics, give an introduction, answer questions, etc. They also attended our Beta Test presentation to learn more about the controls system specifically. We see them again at kickoff and at Jumpstart, where they stay a little but longer then most teams. They call us a few times during the build season for questions, so we keep in touch. We help them a lot during competition to get all their stuff together to compete. Would we say that we mentored them? Yes, perhaps?