Graduating, no team - Advice Please

[LeelandS]

Hey Chief Delphi Community!

I am graduating from the FRC Team I've been a part of for the past four years, ending my seven year run with FIRST (as a student) (FLL + FRC). My team recently added a rule that students graduating must wait at least one year before returning as college mentors.

Here's my problem: I want to stay involved with the FRC program. I basically fell in love with the strategy side of FRC competition, and I'm really going to miss doing that. I haven't decided if I'm going to mentor with another team for a year, or not, but I'm looking for advice for how I could stay involved with the program if I don't go directly to another team.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! This is something I'm giving a lot of though to.

Thank you!
-Leeland

[gblake]

Originally Posted by SparxProgrammer

Hey Chief Delphi Community!

I am graduating from the FRC Team I've been a part of for the past four years, ending my seven year run with FIRST (as a student) (FLL + FRC). My team recently added a rule that students graduating must wait at least one year before returning as college mentors.

Here's my problem: I want to stay involved with the FRC program. I basically fell in love with the strategy side of FRC competition, and I'm really going to miss doing that. I haven't decided if I'm going to mentor with another team for a year, or not, but I'm looking for advice for how I could stay involved with the program if I don't go directly to another team.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! This is something I'm giving a lot of though to.

Thank you!
-Leeland

Become involved with the strategy mentoring aspects of another STEM program.

The REC Foundation runs a college level VRC competition (the VRCC).

Start an FTC or VRC team (with modest goals so that your schoolwork doesn't suffer) near your college campus. Be its primary mentor.

Supply strategy advice to all teams through well-written whitepapers and/or simulation results you post here on CD.

Lots of options - Just pick a winner.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by SparxProgrammer

Hey Chief Delphi Community!

I am graduating from the FRC Team I've been a part of for the past four years, ending my seven year run with FIRST (as a student) (FLL + FRC). My team recently added a rule that students graduating must wait at least one year before returning as college mentors.

Here's my problem: I want to stay involved with the FRC program. I basically fell in love with the strategy side of FRC competition, and I'm really going to miss doing that. I haven't decided if I'm going to mentor with another team for a year, or not, but I'm looking for advice for how I could stay involved with the program if I don't go directly to another team.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! This is something I'm giving a lot of though to.

Thank you!
-Leeland

Volunteer.

[GCentola]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Volunteer.

at the Ruckus! and FLR!

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by GCentola

at the Ruckus! and FLR!

Yup. Apply for a passport and do GTR and Waterloo, I heard there is gonna be one in Montreal next year too. Pittsbugh always needs volunteers as does Buckeye. There's no such thing as too many volunteers. there's always something that needs to be done.

[IKE]

Another +1 for event volunteering is that the time commitment is much more reasonable for a freshmen in college (still learning college time management skills). Basically you could do it as a long weekend possibly over a spring break (keep you out of trouble). The concentrated few days of effort is overall lower impact to your studies than 6+ weeks of long evenings and nights.

This will also help you appreciate/understand what the volunteers do for an event. This is something that will become increasingly important as more and more competitions keep sprouting up.

==========================================
If you are set on doing design strategy, you could host a strategy conference. The trick with this would be you need to be a good strategy facilitator versus good strategist yourself. Learning how to promote idea generation and maintaining the right amount of focus (not too much nor too little).

If it is competition strategy... That would be pretty tough to do without being part of a team.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by IKE

Another +1 for event volunteering is that the time commitment is much more reasonable for a freshmen in college (still learning college time management skills). Basically you could do it as a long weekend possibly over a spring break (keep you out of trouble). The concentrated few days of effort is overall lower impact to your studies than 6+ weeks of long evenings and nights.

This will also help you appreciate/understand what the volunteers do for an event. This is something that will become increasingly important as more and more competitions keep sprouting up.

Especially with the eminent coming of districts. The biggest problem I see facing them is a shortage of volunteers if the locals drop the ball and just figure others will pick up the slack. All hands of deck! Everyone is needed to do their part!

[GCentola]

Ed,on the topic ov volunteering, I was talking with Dan Capizzi this weekend, and he suggested I join the Ruckus Planning Comittee. How would I go about doing that?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by GCentola

Ed,on the topic ov volunteering, I was talking with Dan Capizzi this weekend, and he suggested I join the Ruckus Planning Comittee. How would I go about doing that?

Contact Larry Lewis of team 1511. He's the leader of the Planning Committee.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by SparxProgrammer

I am graduating from the FRC Team I've been a part of for the past four years, ending my seven year run with FIRST (as a student) (FLL + FRC). My team recently added a rule that students graduating must wait at least one year before returning as college mentors.

Believe it or not, this is a great rule. Being a mentor for the same team you were a student on a few minutes ago is really, really strange and rarely ends well.

Here's my problem: I want to stay involved with the FRC program. I basically fell in love with the strategy side of FRC competition, and I'm really going to miss doing that. I haven't decided if I'm going to mentor with another team for a year, or not, but I'm looking for advice for how I could stay involved with the program if I don't go directly to another team.

Strategy is awesome, but as you'll probably learn, a lot of teams already have a strategy crew and it's a little harder (but not impossible) to walk in and do strategy for a new team.

My recommendation is to find a new team and ask if you can just help out in whatever capacity you can, understanding that your strategy help might not be needed. You might pick up other skills along the way! When I joined 2791, I did not know very much at all, but now I at least know enough to fake it.

[Molten]

If you enjoy strategy there is no reason you couldn't just help with that. Find a team that is lacking in that category. All teams have something they aren't good at and there might be a team in your area that could use your help. Finding a team by its weakness is kind of a sensitive thing though. You certainly don't want to call them up and suggest they are poor strategists. Contacting teams in the area and offering to help with strategy would be a good way of meeting a team. Be sure to tell them what you are good at and what your not good at. It might lead to them being more open about their weaknesses. It would be a good way to meet teams and learn about the ways they could use you. Helping with strategy would be a great start with mentoring. It doesn't require as much time throughout the season as other parts of the process. Also, it is possible to help long distance through email if your not really able to be on location all the time. Just be sure to focus on teaching strategy rather then doing strategy. That is one part of mentoring that is really easy to forget starting out.

Jason