[Koko Ed]

When I joined the X-Cats two years ago to mentor the animation team Greg(who is now the animation mentor for Webster Sparx) and I both agreed how blessed we were to have four wonderful, enthusiatic and talented girls who took over the project from day one. They were practically climbing over each other to work on the computers. We both alos knew that there was no way that future teams would compare to them and we were right.
Our philosiphy on the X-Cats is the kids have to at least do one year working on the robot so they may do only one year on animation, so every year we get a whole new animation team and kids of varying degrees of talent,ambition and work ethic. 3D Studio Max is a bear of a program especially of you are new to it and the last two years I have found myself having to hustle just to finish the projects with all-nighters while attending college and working full-time.
One is I think I have poor communication skills as a mentor because planning still equates to a rush job in the end with less than desirable results. I need to make sure the kids know where the project stands better instead of just hunkering down after hours and going it alone. It definately makes me rethink strategies to take advantage of the kids I get. Every year I'll grow a little more from the mistakes I make. That's a good thing.