[OScubed]

Preface: this is my opinion. Others have a different opinion (re the FAHA thread).

On our team our adult mentors stay where they belong - on the sidelines. As you rightly pointed out - this is a student experience. You learn both from success and failure (sometimes more from failure than success) and you can't fail if no one gives you the opportunity to do so, and you will savor the success so much more if you know it was YOUR effort and YOU bore the risk of failure. We always have a post-action breakdown and look at successes/room for improvement, but in the end the students make the decision and they are the ones that bear the responsibility.

By placing an adult mentor in the coaching role on the field you are depriving a student of the experience. Our best and most dedicated team members have come into their own in a leadership role through being coaches.


There are many things that a good mentor program can do to prepare the on-field coaching team (should be one person and a backup). Leadership training, practice, and teambuilding are all important parts of building an excellent on-field staff and a coach/drive team that works in unison. Bringing junior members of the team onto the field in backup roles prepares them to be coaches over the next few years.

If you need help contact us at www.penfieldrobotics.com and we'll work with your mentors to setup a leadership boot camp and give them the process we use to coach our coaches.

They don't allow mentors to come into the room during chairman's presentations. Why is this any different?

It doesn't mean our mentors don't WANT to be on the field. But we are where we belong - biting our nails in the stands. This is a picture of our lead mentor when we won the Chairman's at Chesapeake - sitting where she was most of the day when not in the pits. In the stands: