[Jon Stratis]

Going back to my teams rookie year... None of the mentors had FIRST experience. All had applicable majors and jobs that provides a lot of general experience in mechanical, electrical, or computer engineering.

For myself, I had a 1 semester class experience a few years prior with robotics - a class called "autonomous robotics" and nicknamed "Lego Lab". Basically, we built and programmed Lego robots using MIT Handyboards and a collection of provided motors and sensors. There was a whole game set up for us to play (drive around an arena picking up plastic Easter eggs, determine if they are normal, brightly colored or painted black, and deposit them in either your "nest" or your opponents, indicated by two bright lights, polarized in opposite directions), a competition structure and all that. Very fun, in a way kind of like the FIRST competitions.

Another mentor also had some directly applicable experience, having done some sort of running robotic dog for his master's the year prior.

So, that's a little relevant experience from 2 mentors out of the 9 we had our rookie year. Every mentor we've pulled into the team since then hasn't had any directly relevant experience.