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Unread 29-08-2010, 22:23
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Billfred Billfred is offline
...and you can't! teach! that!
FRC #5402 (Iron Kings); no team (AndyMark)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: The Land of the Kokomese, IN
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Re: Doing FIRST in College

I'll mostly agree with John, but I'll pick at one of his points in particular:

Quote:
Too many robotics students go off to school already planning to join up with their local FIRST team (or even worse -- stay a member of their HS team). How can you "find yourself" if you just keep doing the same old stuff...
If you are bent on working with an FRC team, I highly recommend not working with the team you worked with in high school. I did; it's hard (if not impossible) to be a mentor to kids that were your classmates a few months prior.

And just for those who haven't experienced working with a different team...

Spoiler for Surprise:
It will most likely be a different experience from your high school team! Seriously, the experiences of working across 1293, 1618, 2815, and (tangentially) 1398 have all been different and yielded different lessons to learn, both from the technical and non-technical sides.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechkrunch
As for mentoring a team I am going to give it a shot. The last three years I was one of the leaders of my team and this past year attended about 33 of the 36 meeting we had. I noticed that most of our mentors weren't there everyday, most of them attending 3 maybe 4 meeting a week and half of those were on the weekends. I think that will work for me because I will still have time to study.

One question that I haven't seen brought up in any of the other thread: Since the season take place in the spring, during most students 2nd semester of college, shouldn't they have time to adjust to college during the fall so they can do FIRST in the spring?
If you can keep your priorities in order (family, school, robots), I wish you the best of luck. The second semester aspect is what helped me get a feel for staying on with 1293 that year; we weren't that active in the fall, so making a meeting every week or two was pretty easy to me. Year-round teams may have different issues.
__________________
William "Billfred" Leverette - Gamecock/Jessica Boucher victim/Marketing & Sales Specialist at AndyMark

2004-2006: FRC 1293 (D5 Robotics) - Student, Mentor, Coach
2007-2009: FRC 1618 (Capital Robotics) - Mentor, Coach
2009-2013: FRC 2815 (Los Pollos Locos) - Mentor, Coach - Palmetto '09, Peachtree '11, Palmetto '11, Palmetto '12
2010: FRC 1398 (Keenan Robo-Raiders) - Mentor - Palmetto '10
2014-2016: FRC 4901 (Garnet Squadron) - Co-Founder and Head Bot Coach - Orlando '14, SCRIW '16
2017-: FRC 5402 (Iron Kings) - Mentor

94 events (more than will fit in a ChiefDelphi signature), 14 seasons, over 61,000 miles, and still on a mission from Bob.

Rule #1: Do not die. Rule #2: Be respectful. Rule #3: Be safe. Rule #4: Follow the handbook.

Last edited by Billfred : 29-08-2010 at 22:26.
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