[mathking]

I strongly believed there is no one right way to run a team. There are things that I think do work well and don't work well, but those good practices can be combined effectively in lots of different ways. We are a school based team, as the only one of the founding mentors left, I view my job as pretty much the same as a coach. We have two other teachers who are also mentors. We also have five (currently) working adult mentors and somewhere between four and ten college student mentors at any one time. We split things up based on need. Two of our adult mentors work largely with the programming team. Which is fine because it lets me be more big picture in my orientation. One of the others works with the electrical systems. The other two jump in on projects as needed. Our college students generally are part of one of the component teams. All of the mentors work on the "mentor as coach" model. We are trying to help the students become better engineers, better problem solvers and better teammates. The important thing for mentors, in my view, is that all of the mentors have an understanding of the team culture. Making sure they do is one of my most important jobs.

For us, probably the most important thing about the mentor role is that every kid on the team has at least one mentor they really connect with. Someone they respect and feel safe talking to. Someone whose opinion they respect. The mentors are there to guide and inspire. That means making connections. Not every mentor is going to click with every kid. But every kid should click with some adult on the team.