[WynS]

We are always actively recruiting mentors. A lot of them are parents with students on the team, some are alumni (parents and students), and some are people we recruit from just talking to them about how great this program is.

One thing that we've learned is that you need to work as hard retaining mentors as you do students. Adults tend to have other things that they do in addition to work so if they show up and can't figure out what to do, they don't come back. We try to set expectations up front just like we do with students. You need to be willing to show up for a while and observe, get to know the students, and figure out where you can help. This may take a few meetings but if they keep coming back, they will eventually figure out how to work with the students and feel like they are making a contribution.

As we grow, we are beginning to have the bandwidth to do more things than just building a robot. There are opportunities on a team for people to help mentor students in areas like awards, project management and other team skills. A lot of people think if they are not engineers that they can't help. I am an engineer by training but most of what I do to help the team is team management.

I also agree about getting couples and families involved. My husband and two of my sons are also mentors and this is something that we do together.

I think that one of the best ways you can foster mentors is to work on building relationships. Once mentors start to connect with students and other mentors, they keep coming back. I also find that having more mentors encouraging and checking in on students, makes the students more successful and allows them to accomplish much more.

Good luck on this.