we had three main drivers this year. when i was the main driver (not the one flipping switches and such), i prefered to have one of our college mentors (Michael Krass, you all know him
) be the mentor, cause he actually knew the game, and could quickly add up the score and tell me where to be. unfortunatly, one of the teacher/mentors had this thing about being in the spotlight, and just
had to be the mentor, so Michael couldn't be mentor. this rather annoyed me, cause he knew how to build a robot, but he had no idea about how the game played. so, when he was mentor, i had to do everything myself, not just driving, but also figuring out the score. all drivers know how much concentration goes into driving, so i was working overtime in those matches. very very annoying.
i think in the end, the best drive team is as follows...
Driver 1 - Who ever can control the robot
Driver 2 - Someone who knows the game, can listen to instructions, and most important, can get along with the main driver
Human Player - Someone tall, and preferably knows the game
Mentor - Someone who knows the entire game, gets along with everyone, but most importantly, is very friendly with Driver 1, and during the heat of 'battle', can remain as calm, or even calmer, than everyone else. the mentor's biggest role is to basically yell at the driver, because the driver can get a little overwhelmed at times
after reading that, it doesn't really matter how old the mentor is, just how well they work with the main driver. if that link is there in the drive team, you can't get any better. if the mentor has problems with the driver, or the other way around, you need to stop everything else, resolve those problems, or pick a new mentor. just make sure the mentor knows the game though
.