Quote:
Originally Posted by Martian86
Before I say anything further, I'd like to point out that I am very grateful that our team has mentors that are willing to spend so much time with the team. That being said...
This year our team had a serious problem with some of the mentors taking over operations from students, being somewhat condescending/patronizing toward us, and not reading the manual. The mentors in question have been with the team the same amount of time as the senior members of the team, give or take a year or two. We (the students) are capable of most of the design, build, wiring, controls, programming, etc, aspects of the robot; at the very least, we're just as capable as the mentors since many of the parts are specialized for FRC, especially the control system. I'll go over a few of the highlights of the problem for this season.
1. In general, our mentors take it as a personal offense if we do not use their designs, and they push for their own designs on the robot even after we've proven that they either don't work at all or don't work as well as another design.
2. At one point during the build season, I had a thirty minute argument with a mentor over height restrictions. I read the manual and he did not. I showed/read him G22 and G23 several times, as did other members of the team, but it still took half an hour to convince him of what was printed in the manual.
3. At another point, two mentors were arguing over something in the design (specifics aren't important) and leaving students out of the discussion completely. I ended up telling them, in the most respectful way I could, that they needed to explain to the students what they were discussing and then take a break from the robot for a couple of hours. I'll admit this must have been entertaining to watch, a 17 year old girl telling two grown men to go on a time out, but it should not have been necessary.
4. Finally, the last weekend before Stop Build Day: We had mentors speaking to us as if we did not know what we were doing, changing things on the robot without telling us, and insisting that we needed a catching mechanism when senior members of the team had already decided that it would be impractical for our team to try to do everything. We would try to explain why we did things a certain way, how something worked, or what we had already tried (while troubleshooting), and mentors would interrupt and talk over us. I had multiple team members tell me that they were ready to go home early and just let the mentors fix the robot themselves.
Has anyone else ever had similar problems with mentors? Any advice for dealing with this in the future that I can use at competition and/or pass on to next year's captain?
Once again, I really do appreciate all the time and energy the mentors put into the team. I just wish they would direct more of this time and energy toward collaboration instead of domination.
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Sweet jimmy crickets , I wish we had that problem . Could you spare some of those mentors ? Let me explain my strange response. My son and I build robots for a hobby and I own a machine shop where we build robotic telescopes . There was a flyer begging for mentors that caught my eye from the university that
I once studied robotic design at. We ended up mentoring a team of FRC students that were many miles away in a very dangerous part of town.
These students rarely showed up and when they did it was a eye opening
experience for my son who has lived a privileged life in a upper class area . He could see we were in the middle of a gang infested school . We mentored the
team for two years . It was a fruitless effort on our part except for the new
found respect that my son has for what he use to take for granted . He witnessed the theft of team tools by adult mentors , money slated for the robot team embezzled by the vice principal of the school. I had to take away my box cutter
knife that one lady that threatened another team member over a discussion over who was the father of her baby vs the new pregnancy of another team mate.
Me and my son built the last two years robot for the team under adverse condition it became a struggle and that is why we started a new team at my sons High school .
I guess what i am trying to say is be thankful for what you have .
It sounds like you handled the situation well but remember the mentors are trying to help you put your best foot forward. Be patient with them , and
remember you have a great advantage its your team and the team votes
whether or not to go with a design or not.
