[KathieK]

I think many teams are thinking along the same lines! After many many e-mails and private messages on Chief Delphi, sharing thoughts on the non-technical side of mentoring a FIRST team, Jenny Beatty of Team 007, Cheryl Miller of Team 294 and I founded the FIRST NEMO organization.

FIRST NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) is a support group and information exchange for those non-engineering mentors who help with all the behind the scene glue that holds the teams together. Travel (hotels, endless meals), parent involvement, fundraising, business plans, dealing with the FIRST logistics. All the "unfun" stuff, as one of the students labeled it. We hope to seek out all the NEMOs who don't realize they are part of a large community.

We want to make it easier for rookies, so they don't have to reinvent stuff that others already have learned, sometimes the hard way. We want to help FIRST get constructive comments from a group of NEMOs. We have met many NEMOs over the past 3 years. We have a lot to learn from each other. We have started a forum on Chief Delphi to exchange information and hope to host workshops at the FIRST Regional events next year.

If you are a college or adult mentor interested in joining NEMO contact Red Head Jokes (Cheryl, Beach Cities Robotics, Team 294), KathieK (Kathie, RAGE, Team 173) or Robomom007 (Jenny, Parkville Robotics, Team 007) by private message or email to sign up. Please include in your message your name, Team number, Chief Delphi screen name, who you are (i.e. college mentor, adult mentor, parent, etc.) and any skills or background you bring to the team (i.e. science teacher, programmer, travel coordinator, chef extraordinaire etc.)

Together we can make our jobs a lot easier! Join FIRST NEMO today!