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Just wait until.....
Just wait until YOU have kids you have to mentor!!!!
Sorry, couldn't resist. Our team, 57 Houston, has had a lot of experience on the adult/student situation. We've only been around for 5 years but we've come to some conclusions.
Our first year our plan was to let the students design and build the robot and we would act as hands off advisors and only act when they had a problem... well, a certain group of students took control of the team and made themselves the team leaders. Bad idea...in the end, as mentors we had to take control of the team and direct the building. The temptation to be a BMOT (Big Man On Team) was too much for those students to resist and they were trying to oust other students that didn't agree with them.
Subsequent years have demonstrated how easily a team can go off track. We finally established with the students, that the final say is with the mentors but we encourage them as much as possible to express their ideas and still let students do the majority of the work with building.
I've been lucky and always had the best team to work with. I mentor the electronics team and while no student can match my 30+ years of experience, there are a few whose technical knowlege and skill make me feel pretty obsolete. That's great though! I like that! Co-incidently, they happen to be the students most willing to listen to other viewpoints, defend their position with sound arguements and swallow their pride when it's appropriate. (Someday I'm going to be able to say I mentored those kid BEFORE they walked on Mars!)
Anyway, mentors have a delicate balance of allowing students to be responsible and making sure the team completes it's objectives safely, sucessfully and on time. Ultimately, the responsibility to the team's sponsors lie with the mentors but more importantly, the last thing WE want to do is allow a team to fail just to make a point.
We try. We're not perfect... we're just mentors.
Best Wishes
Steve Alaniz
"Forget it, I already feel like my life is a comic strip." - Sally Forth
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