Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
Forget the build cycle, the practice bots, etc.
The level of dedication required to sustain a successful technical career and a successful team as a mentor will continue to rise, eventually beyond a tipping point, for a team that wants to make it into Eliminations or better at Championships. The technical job market, where nerds compete to have meaningful impact on the projects at work for which they're passionate, is far more competitive than even IRI. A wife & house on top of that is hard enough, but add kids into the mix and it'd get tougher still.
Mentors are the keystone to the level of competitiveness in FRC -- and any student on a highly competitive team is better for it in the long run. Some geographic areas lack one type of mentor or another (for example, my area is light on the mechanical side but is overflowing with software & business). One solution is to get more mentors involved -- but how, on a sustainable basis? Another is to partner teams up who are heavy on one, yet light on another, but that's another topic for another thread (and something we're trying for 2014).
The posts quoted after me in this thread showcase an interesting few points, and I waited to respond to Adam until a few more people came in. My original statement wasn't to start an argument, but really to start a discussion on how 341 and other very successful teams are able to motivate their team to excellence for 4 months of out of the year. Is there a core of mentors who can come in when needed? Is there 'that 1 guy who loves the robot more than life'? Are the kids told 'the mentors are here, and so you shall be as well"? We've tried a variety of things on my team, with mixed results. I'd love to hear what works for a given team's circumstances.
I think that the specific discussion regarding removal of the 6-week cap is far bigger than ChiefDelphi. There are many voices which aren't represented on these forums. The 9-person team I talked to last night (1 technical mentor) doesn't have anyone who even reads CD, for example.
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Jesse,
I agree with your statement here. Yes, comitting time was much easier 10 years ago (when I was a lowly engineer) than now. I've made plenty of decisions or non decisions that may or may not have adversly affected my career. These are all conscious decisions to continue with this program instead of making advancement in other areas (although there are plenty of other factors that went into the decisions). Once my kids were born, it became even harder, to commit additional time. One of the reasons we work the schedule we do, is because there is no way to commit any additional time.
This season was terrible for burn-out. Trying to get a climber developed and build put such a strain on all aspects of our robot that many of us were ready to walk away after this season. But, after seeing it all come together and having a great experience at MSC / Championships...I don't think (hope) we will lose any mentors.
To keep the team working for the entire 4 months of the year, we have a couple "really" dedicated mentors that are around all the time to help get stuff done. They really are the backbone of our entire operation. The rest of us provide the knowledge base for what we are going to do and how to do it, but they are the ones that really get it done. There's no way I could invest any additional time than I already do...but, I still think it would be easier to spread that time out over the entire season, than trying to cram it into 6 weeks.
Our core group of mentors is not getting any younger. So to help counter act this, we are looking into opening up our mentor base to former students that we feel would be able to develop into mentors. In addition to any former FIRST students that hire into the GM proving grounds that would be interested in helping out.
I agree... CD is a very small minority of the total teams in FIRST. Nothing is going to decided here, but it is a fun discussion!
