[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

I know they are also piloting a new grant model where they pair rookies with an established veteran, and the veteran gets a grant based on their support of the rookie. This goes from the fall (planning) into the Spring (assisting with purchasing/design/logistics/etc), and is renewable for a 2nd year. I think this type of activity, that focuses on veteran mentorship of rookies is definitely a step towards sustainability.

Steven... from what I've gathered this new mentoring program is starting with a small amount of teams and is called TARP... I'm not sure what the acronym stands for.

The mentoring team receives a substantial $$ sum at the _end_ of each of the 2 seasons it mentors the rookie team. I know the $$ amount paid but I'm not sure it's being shared publicly yet by FiT so I'll let them publish it when they're ready.

I think this TARP approach is a good start but may not be ambitious enough and limiting to how many rookie teams can benefit if it's one rookie at a time for each veteran team. Reality is how many Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams are there in Texas and you don't want Tier 3 and Tier 4 teams mentoring rookies IMO.

I hope they expand this TARP funding so that Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams can take on multiple numbers (at same time) of rookies _AND_ lower performing/at-risk veterans--Tier 4 (I call them wookiees--rookies and wookiees get it? LOL).

Rookies = teams with students/mentors with zero or very little FRC experience.
Wookiees = veteran teams that are lower-perfoming and/or at-risk of sustaining -- Tier 4.

The goal is to get rookies/wookiees to at least Tier 3 - Plausible to be picked for Saturday Elims.

PARR (Project Alamo Robotics Rising) https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...highlight=PARR -- last season during the entire build season we had multiple numbers of rookies/wookiees at our shop every week--some weekends we had up to 5 teams including 3481. It ALL worked out really well for those teams that traveled to our shop. Every team that came will tell you their needle was moved up-up on their performance in competition and it greatly affected their desire to keep going and going for future seasons.

I've witnessed/experienced it--consistent group mentoring does work in helping produce sustaining teams if the lead team is at least a Tier 2 performer.

--Michael