[ChrisH]

There is another aspect nobody has addressed. How does returning as a mentor affect the college student's professional development?

College should be about exploring new territory. While it is nice to stay with the comfortable and well known, you do not learn nearly as much. You get comfortable and then eventually you get stuck in your comfy chair and can't get out.

I recommend that FIRST students who want to go into technical carreers put their time into one of the OTHER numerous college level engineering competitions. Mini-Baja, SAE Aero, Concrete Canoe, SAE Formula One, Bridge Building, Underwater UAVs, Airborne UAVs, various sizes of robots, tricycle races, I really don't care which you pick. Getting involved with one of them will expose you to a whole new world of requirements and problems.

For example, FIRST robots have a pretty benign environment. Think about the things you could learn about dealing with vibration by participating in SAE Aero, with it's small internal combustion engine vibrating at several thousand rpm? or Mini Baja, or SAE Formula One all of whom will have similar issues.

I vividly remember staring in shock at the hole in the steering mechanism where a bolt used to be on the Mini Baja I built in college. Of course it fell out on the backside of the endurance course and while I found the bolt (damaged), the nut was long gone and there were no spares in the vehicle. We really put some effort into learning about how to secure nuts after that. (castle nuts and safety wire anyone?)

At the same time you bring to these teams a level of experience in participating in an engineering prioject that many of your fellow students will not achieve for a couple of years. You know how to set requirements and analyze the rules to figure out how to win the game. My year in Mini-Baja we never did figure out there WAS a game. We thought it was a race. Silly us!

You also have a precious comodity that most of your team mates and a good percentage of your competitors won't. A bunch of people with demonstrated competence in a wide variety of fields who are willing to advise you at no cost. It is called Chief Delphi.

So go out and start thinking outside of the KOP. If you are really involved in your team, you won't have time for FIRST. But when you come back, you will have a broader experience base to draw from and will be able to contribute more to whatever project you are working on.

Who wants to eat ice cream all the time? sometimes pie is nice too.

ChrisH