[eneubec1]

hauki,
1st.... THANKYOU for volunteering to help. Many of these students don't appreciate the value of having a engineering mentor. Just ask the teams that don't have any engineering mentors and still compete.

This is a perspective from a 3yr old team. It has taken our mentors and students 3 yrs to mature to the point where they have mutual respect for each other. The students really want to learn and do, but they typically struggle with visualizing concepts and deadlines. Adult volunteer's tend to want to "ensure they don't fail", and when they see this, jump in a bit "too much". Refrain from doing this and help them visualize the problem.
Also understand what you as a professional engineer can conceptually understand may take a student 10times as long. Be patient. What would take a mentor 10 minutes to do, take a student much longer until they have gained that experience. They will not gain the experience by watching. Make sure they are hands on "engaging".

We help them realize challenges with their design, and prototyping is very helpful to do this. We have started using legos mindstorm legos this year for "mocks ups" instead of "drawing things". (It was a huge success. in 20 minutes THEY found 3 design problems)

We also have a weekly "mentor only" meeting on monday for an hour. We bring up all sorts of things at this mentor meeting. But the reason for this is to bring the mentors together to manage risk to our team goals, have common mentor goals, and ensure the kids are still having fun.

Hope this helps.