Quote:
Originally Posted by NLake
So I'm not just a nattering nabob of negativity, I'll include a suggestion: FIRST needs to do more to partner with local businesses that would be interested in supporting a robotics team, and have mentors that they can offer any team that is interested. In my case, in SF, then local businesses would include Google, Apple, and the other Silicon Valley heavy hitters; rather than leaving it up to overwhelmed instructors to find the right combination of an effective plea for aid and a sympathetic ear in the call center, FIRST could assist us by matching us with mentors in all of the pertinent fields, including the business side. Match us with people who are effective grant-writers, and then teach us (and our students) how to do it. This is a much better solution than the current one, where a masochistic attitude akin to that of Calvin's dad seems to be predominant. I can see the value of struggle, but I can also see an empirical difference between "struggle" and "repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall", which seems to be the current scenario for many teams that are still in their first few years.
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I would guess that FIRST hasn't implemented something like this for the same reason that you didn't indicate
how exactly it could be done. That reason being that it is incredibly hard to execute a plan like that where teams are able to be matched with "high quality" mentors. How do you vet out a "high quality" mentor? What do you do with all the "mediocre" mentors that come to FIRST wanting to help?
I would suggest that you work on one of the other bits of advice that FIRST often gives. Reach out to local teams / local mentors. Like 20, at least. The people with the skills you are looking for exists, and they are working on the successful teams around you. For instance, it took our team months of trying to figure out who to write grants before we found out that a mentor on an old team in our area is a teacher who is hugely successful grant writer. If I had bothered to write an email to NCFIRST, our regional director, or senior mentors I could have had the person's contact information in a matter of days.