Team RUSH FRC27 Looking for Mentors

[FrankJ]

I hear that it is a great place to have a picnic if summer falls on a weekend.

[kaliken]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

3C-2) In fact they actually act as a sort of a buffer to most severe weather.

Unless you live in Buffalo, or other lake effect snow areas... then its quite a different story

[Tungrus]

FYI: Buffalo is not in MI

If you really love snow, MI upper peninsula is the place, especially around Houghton (home to Michigan Tech), which receives around 350" snow every year! In summer its like heaven!

[kwotremb]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

FYI: Buffalo is not in MI

If you really love snow, MI upper peninsula is the place, especially around Houghton (home to Michigan Tech), which receives around 350" snow every year! In summer its like heaven!

My freshman year up there (winter of 03/04) it snowed for 33 days straight. Plus I think its closer to 280 inches on average, unless you go further up the peninsula.

4) Only state east of the Mississippi where you can drive for 14 hours (at 60 mph) and still be in the same state.

[Ed Law]

Okay Michiganders, let's concentrate on the positives. We are trying to convince FRC mentors to move here, not scare them away with snow stories. Come on, I am sure there are more than 3 reasons. How about these

4) You got to play with or against teams (depending on your luck) like 33, 67 and 469 and many other good teams a lot.

5) MSC is insane, enough said. You don't have to travel to Michigan just to watch it. You can be part of it.

6) Just got this from FIRST in Michigan. This year 249 people volunteered at more than one competition event.

7) Just in case you need a day job to pay the bills so you can do what you really like, there are plenty of good paying engineering jobs in Michigan.

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Okay Michiganders, let's concentrate on the positives. We are trying to convince FRC mentors to move here, not scare them away with snow stories. Come on, I am sure there are more than 3 reasons. How about these

4) You got to play with or against teams (depending on your luck) like 33, 67 and 469 and many other good teams a lot.

5) MSC is insane, enough said. You don't have to travel to Michigan just to watch it. You can be part of it.

6) Just got this from FIRST in Michigan. This year 249 people volunteered at more than one competition event.

7) Just in case you need a day job to pay the bills so you can do what you really like, there are plenty of good paying engineering jobs in Michigan.

Not to mention that RUSH is a great team to work with! I had the privilege of being a mentor with RUSH for a few years before I was able to start my own team, and I had a great time while I was with them. I learned so much about what it means to be a FIRST Robotics team from them...so much of the success of my current team can be attributed to things I learned while working with RUSH.

[KeatonM]

Well, this thread got derailed quickly.

I think it's sad that a team like RUSH (my own team, while I was in high school) needs mentors. RUSH is an exceptional team with an exceptional group of students year after year, and I think anyone interested should at least give it a shot. RUSH has a very interesting outlook on FIRST and I think it benefits the students a lot.

I know my senior year a lot of the team was student-lead because of a lack of full time mentors. Yes, college students come back to help (I tried to as well) but it isn't always easy to find time between academic and family priorities.

Best of luck to RUSH. I'll be watching, even if I can't come and help.

[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by KeatonM

Well, this thread got derailed quickly.

Originally Posted by Ed Law

Kyle, I am not hijacking your thread. I am trying to keep it alive. I hope you find the mentors you need.

While yes, none of the discussion is really relevant to RUSH, it is helping keep it at the top of the portal, increasing the number of people who hopefully see it.



And while I'm interested, and located near by (Live in Flint, and work in Auburn Hills), I'm not sure I can offer enough time to be helpful. I'd love to get involved with RUSH and see how they function, but I'm not sure I'll be able to make that time commitment, especially when I have a hard time making the commitment with my existing team.

And while we're at it, I'm not sure I have the knowledge base they're looking for...

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how does a team like 27 RUSH, who just won the Chairman's Award at MSC, "need" 2-3 mentors? You guys were at Livonia with us and you had more adults wearing team shirts than my entire team!

If you guys need mentors, what chances does a team like mine have?

[Tungrus]

It's an ugly fact that many teams, especially the new ones desperately in need of mentors. I know Team 4384 is struggling to rope in a mechanical background mentor, I don't believe they have one.

You guys were at Livonia with us and you had more adults wearing team shirts than my entire team!

I hate to bring this up, but no means referring to Team RUSH, many a times for receiving awards all parents join the team, even if they have not stopped by workshop for an hour! Not blaming them, but just remind you that what you see may be too far from truth!

oops almost forgot this...
8) Michigan is great coz great leaders like Mr. Ed make it their home

[jlmcmchl]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how does a team like 27 RUSH, who just won the Chairman's Award at MSC, "need" 2-3 mentors? You guys were at Livonia with us and you had more adults wearing team shirts than my entire team!

If you guys need mentors, what chances does a team like mine have?

You don't quite have the same perspective as I do, and I understand that you may be frustrated by the idea that such a highly regarded team "needs" help. Rather than "needing" help, this year was the most frustrating year for many teams, but for us it was especially taxing. Overall, this year, by both Mrs. Hughes, our team captain, and our lead engineering mentor, it's been considered as tough a year for us as was 1998. Personally, I couldn't go into detail about that year, but that year was a very, very tough year for the mentors and students, in part that the build site was very cold, making build season absolutely miserable.

This year, with only a couple full-time mentors, our robot was left without us knowing if it would even move on stop build day. The first day of Northern Lights, we proved that we could move, and we put on our shooter, in a unique position right on top of where we were going to have a 30pt climb, and we had to seriously rebound to achieve the success we achieved at the following competitions. (We've even got a 5-hour time lapse of that first day of northern Lights in our pits here). We've had an unusually high amount of drama, which has been taxing on many of the members on the teams, taking away time from focusing on our larger goals.

Actually, 75% of our mentors are either alum or parents of alum and students. We're very lucky to have many of them, and they have really been integral to making this past year such a success. Unfortunately, at the same time, we've lost many mentors to time and jobs. Two years ago, we lost Anthony, one of our most important technical mentors, who left us for his job at NASA, down in Texas (who's now mentoring 118 with another alum).

Additionally, this year, the Programming SubTeam had to be very independent. Last year we had some help and were able to work from literally no knowledge of programming a robot and poorly created code, to a Eliminations worthy robot at the Championships. This year, we had no definite Programming mentor, but we were able to, with the knowledge of WPI's vision code from last year, develop code to track frisbees on the ground, seen here(It's running on our T-shirt cannon; our drive train wasn't finished until later in the season). It was quite a cool sight, our chassis following discs like a trail of breadcrumbs.

It was very similar, this year, when I wrote our Scouting App. Last year had some code worth looking at, but I had to learn, starting 4 weeks into build season(I had a high priority before then), all about Objective C, with only some knowledge of Java. And then I had to create a working model before Northern Lights, so that I could focus my sights elsewhere, and help with our Chairman's Presentation. Fortunately, we developed a backup system, so when the relatively untested iPad app failed us, our backup system stepped in and, with a gigantic effort by one of our students, we had effective scouting data which made me feel much better about the situation. Eventually, I was able to bring it up to a suitable, bug-free state that achieved the minimum we needed, and we'll be working to make it even better as summer comes around.

So, this year has been a year that truly fit two of our sayings: Never Give Up and Fail Faster, Learn More, Focus, And Execute. This year, we lost some very strong leadership in our seniors from last year, and we've lost mentorship that we once had. But we didn't give up, when we knew there were spots to be filled. This year's seniors had to step up for the team, as well as others, and we all did, and we made sure this year wasn't going to fall short of where we wanted to be. This year, we had failures. We lost mentorship, but we made up for it in leadership, and everyone learned. Through each competition, we slowly creeped up to the top, focusing and executing on smaller levels, whilst learning so much each and ever day. Champs came around, and it was go time. No time for sitting around, we gave it everything we had, and it didn't matter who Walt P. Havenstein gave the CCA to. It didn't matter that we made it to CMP eliminations for the 10th+ time in a row, and still have never made it out of our division. We achieved what we wanted to, and we're OK with that.

We're looking for mentorship not because we want to be the team that's the best to ever have existed, but rather to reach a point where we can help other teams as we have been doing, through our 6 part sustainability system, such as your team. Just because almost all of our parents wear RUSH shirts, means that we're very strongly supported by our community and our family. We integrate everyone we're connected to into our team, so we can be sustainable. Many of our parents stopped in during build season and contributed a lot towards the team, becoming part time, if not for all intents and purposes, full time mentors, when we've never asked them to.

Keep in mind that this is but my own perspective, and not representative of Team RUSH as a whole. My passion for the team knows no bounds, and this year has been the biggest learning experience I've ever had, of which I will be forever indebted to the rest of the team, students and mentors alike.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how does a team like 27 RUSH, who just won the Chairman's Award at MSC, "need" 2-3 mentors? You guys were at Livonia with us and you had more adults wearing team shirts than my entire team!

If you guys need mentors, what chances does a team like mine have?

You have a chance. You can start a "313 needs mentors" thread if you want to. There may be people willing to help.

[Chris Fultz]

Link to find a team for mentors who are looking -


http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-on

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by team4384

3C) And they don't spawn thunderstorms and severe weather

Except snow

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how does a team like 27 RUSH, who just won the Chairman's Award at MSC, "need" 2-3 mentors? You guys were at Livonia with us and you had more adults wearing team shirts than my entire team!

If you guys need mentors, what chances does a team like mine have?

This may come as a shock to you but many parents on 27 wear team shirts. As do many alumni. I know, even when I was on the team, we always seemed short a few technical mentors (and it was a much smaller team in my day).

Besides, are you really familiar enough with the team to make this claim?