[Mark McLeod]

Here are some potential sources for mentors that we've exploited.

-- Retirees: Advertise for mentors and present at community centers and other local retiree organizations. I've found mentors when we were out shoveling snow off of elderly people's driveways, such as, retired machinists who worked out of their basement or garage.

-- Regional Director's are often aware of local corporations that encourage employee mentoring and have pools of potential mentors. Your Director can put you in touch with the right people to talk to.

-- Sponsors, parents, family members, neighbors can get notices requesting mentors into their company newsletters, and get you contacts to do a presentation in the company cafeteria at lunchtime.

-- Advertise for general expertise rather than emphasizing robotics. Engineers will be experts in many fields not necessarily touching on robotics, but directly applicable none-the-less.

-- Recruit the non-engineers from your pool of parents to plan and execute your mentor searches. Locating mentors can be a full time job and always being open to track down leads is hard if you're in the middle of build and competition season.


Holding on to mentors once you locate potential ones is also important:

• Make them feel very welcome, have people waiting to guide them through your school to the robotic meeting room.
• Be busy with them while they are at your meeting, don't have them come and stand around with nothing to help with.
• Let them know what the game is all about, educate them on the FIRST design limitations.
• Have a good idea of their expertise and prepare lots questions that make them feel comfortably in their "zone."
• Follow up with a thank you letter and emails keeping them up-to-date on progress. Ask questions in their area of expertise.

NEMO has a paper on Recruiting and Retaining Mentors at: http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/recruiting_and_retaining_mentors.pdf