[Kims Robot]

My story has floated around several places for years. I was a founding member (much like you) of Aces High (Team 176) in CT. My stories are oddly still as vivid as yours, and I was a team leader & MVP all 3 years in HS. However, I knew we had a strong mentor base and a great set of kids following me, so I had no doubts the team would only get better - they actually won the National (yes then it actually was only US based) Championship the year after I left!

But I digress. I had many of the same feelings others have echoed, FIRST was so big in my life that I wasn't sure I was ready to leave it. So I made sure to look at colleges that had FIRST teams - WPI, Daniel Webster, MIT, etc. But I also applied to ones that didn't. And along came Clarkson with their "what can we do to get you to come here" - and my answer of "let me start a FIRST team"... that sealed the deal for both of us.

And I won't lie - I cried half the way to college. I was overwhelmed and excited, but I was scared to death of leaving my team, leaving my friends, leaving all of the comfort of the CT teams I knew and loved. So many friends were going to CT colleges and staying close to home. I was scared to be so far away. But I immersed myself in my new life, and in my back pocket, was my FIRST card - I could hold onto something I knew and use it to start something new. And I knew that in March, I would get to see all the teams & friends I knew again.

But enough of my story, I'll answer some of the great questions you posed.

What were some of the largest adjustments you had to make while undergoing this transition?
I'll admit, my transition was probably a bit unique. I was 300 miles from home, and over 150 miles from the closest FRC team. And I was the only person on my entire team who know what FIRST even was. In some ways this was great because it gave me a completely clean slate - I've said elsewhere that after 18 years and 3 teams, the Rookie Years are my favorite years. But it was tough - I had to come up with everything - all of the plans, all of the structure and all of the answers... yet I was only a year older than 1/3 of our students - and the same age as a couple of them!! I only had other college students and two teachers to help me mentor, so we all fumbled our way to a reasonably functioning robot. At times it was a struggle. I wanted to just be a college student. I needed to study, wanted to hang out with my ski team friends, but every moment I had had to be meticulously planned out and balanced so I could run the team and keep up with everything else. It was exhausting but at times exhilarating. That first year I had to fill a lot of roles - lead engineer, coach, programmer, strategist. I was used to filling a lot of roles from my high school team, but I was used to having a lot of mentors & other students with just as much experience to bounce ideas off of. It was a whole new world.

What lessons did you learn from your first year of mentoring?
- Learn when GOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH. I was a perfectionist in high school. I quickly learned that when juggling a million things, sometimes you have to give up some of that perfectionism and look at your (and the team's) overall goal to determine priorities.
- HAVE/GET A LIFE. As much as I say I struggled to fit it all in, the time management skills I gained by trying to have a life outside of FIRST were incredibly valuable, as was the opportunity to have a life outside of FIRST. I had completely separate friends, I was involved in a varsity sport, I had study groups, I was in the honors program. Do stuff OTHER than FIRST, even if it means sacrificing some of your time in FIRST.
- I DONT KNOW is an acceptable answer. Especially if you aren't working with the same team, the change from student to mentor can be more abrupt, and people can expect you to have the answers. Its ok to not know... but then everyone needs to work harder to figure out what the answer is (you included!).
- THIS ISNT YOUR HS TEAM. No matter how hard you try, even with a clean slate, you can never recreate what you had in your old team. You need to learn the new team structure, learn what this new team needs and adapt to it. You can't spend your entire time trying to make it "what you had" or you will just be running into a brick wall.
- FOCUS ON SCHOOL. Other's have said it, plenty have suggested a year off (which I agree, but am not a good example of). My grades slipped my sophomore year as I struggled to balance it all, and balance the growth of a second year team... and it was a fight for me to get my GPA back up to a 3.3 on graduation. I even ended up taking my senior year off from FIRST. Its ok to take time off - FIRST will be here when you get back

Have you tried mentoring through digital media (ex: Skype video chat, emails, etc.), and if so, how? How successful is this method?
I did this after leaving my 3rd team and moving out here to Boston. I returned every other weekend in build season (making the near 400mile drive out there), and obsessively keeping up with their blog, online wiki, webcasts, emails, etc. It can be done... but honestly, its super exhausting and sometimes incredibly frustrating and guilt-enducing. You want to be there to help, you may see mistakes happening or coming and you wonder if you were there if it would have been different. You wonder why certain decisions were made rather than others, and you constantly second guess things. But that team needs to be it's own team, those students & mentors need to learn their own ways of doing things. It can no longer be "your way".
Don't get me wrong, distance mentoring can be done, and it can be easier than ripping off the bandaid... but I would HIGHLY encourage you to pick one or the other. Turn to your old team for questions if you need it, but don't try and mentor/work with both. Its too much. Especially for your freshman year. And sometime change is good. Joining a new team will help you shift your focus, and maybe allow you to feel less guilty about focusing on college.

What is it like suddenly belonging to a new team? Did you carry over many of the things you learned from your high school/previous team?
I was lucky enough to start with a clean slate for each of the two teams I founded after my high school team. This meant I could take all of the lessons I learned (both teams do patron drives - just like my HS team, the most recent runs a preship scrimmage like my HS team, structures were updated versions, etc) and modify them to fit the new teams - to take the best of what they had and the best of the other teams I knew and make a new team. But in joining an existing team, I am sure that you have a lot more existing culture to deal with, and while you may be able to incorporate some of the "best" things you've learned, and certainly can use mentoring styles you know, you won't be able to go in and make this team like your old team. So bring what you know, but don't spend all your time trying to make it your old team.

Who or what was your inspiration to mentor after high school?
Three of my mentors in high school - our team leader Dave, the first engineer I worked with to build an amazing self powered goal blocking device - Tom, and a crazy electrical engineer - Rob. They were amazing mentors, and the reason that I became an engineer. They each shaped me into who I am as a mentor. I decided my dream was to inspire just one student the way I had been inspired, and if I could do that, I could carry on what they gave me.