New Head Coach to existing team

[DBortnick]

Hey everyone,

I am taking over as head coach for Team 1850: Mechanicats out of Chicago, IL. As a bit of background: I've been a mentor for the team for the past three seasons. Before three years ago, I had no engineering or robotics experience. I am a high school mathematics teacher and the program is run out of our high school.

This year, I anticipate a few issues:
1) Getting the two new mentors (both other teachers) up to speed. Both of them have prior engineering experience but not specifically with Robots or with FIRST.
2) Me getting on top of all of the paperwork and documentation that is required.
3) Losing a large part of our engineering quick fix (yes, there is a common solution for that problem and here it is) ability when our previous head coach moved to the west coast.
4) Training a large group of new students.
5) Moving the returning students into leadership and more independent positions.

I am struggling to get together an idea of how to tackle all of these large issues before kickoff in January. We currently have weekly meetings for approximately 1-2hours each. I've spent a lot of time on ChiefDelphi looking up resources for rookie teams (wow, that thread started in 2004.) I'd appreciate any help or resources you can point me to. Are there any major pitfalls I need to avoid in taking over as head coach?

-Daniel Bortnick
ACE Technical Charter High School
Team 1850 Chicago IL