[Wetzel]

The team I am with now, 1884, has in the past not had enough technical mentors. This year, they got extra funds to offer potential mentors a fellowship. It's a decent about of money, £250 for undergraduates and £500 for professional mentors. It's enough to cover my costs to take the bus to and from the meetings for the season. They are expecting a minimum of 40 hours during build season(lol), and there is an application process. I would be working with them anyways, but the fellowship attracted a PhD mechatronics student from Imperial College. Now that he has been around a few weeks, he has actually committed to more time and seems to be enjoying himself, in addition to being really helpful!

It is basically a stipend in an attempt to lure mentors, rather than people that want to goto more regionals trying to cover their expenses. I might be slightly biased about it, but I don't see a fellowship as a bad thing to offer. VCU offers a 3 course 400 level engineering elective course where you work with a FRC team for the build season. Not so different an incentive.

Wetzel