Getting Mentors out of Comfort zone

[Boltman]

My first question would be have you won at all or recently?

Winning breeds success... without winning ... stale will likely set in. This is hard..its hard and losing stinks.

So how have you done..has the team been successful?

I find it intoxicating... but we are just second year... so from my perspective that winning is sort of what it takes as sort of a "payoff' . Because its a ton of work my brains completely fried as Mentor strategist/scout and being all FRC expert for past five weeks and six before that! But its so highly rewarding when the team does amazing things (and you get recognized by others) beating legacy teams. We have not really tasted "defeat" yet. Both our years are by any metric...unabashedly successful. So for us as mentors in different disciplines its very exciting still. Because we do good (by design) and can dominate as a team of kids and mentors each year.

WE are going to institute a year round program... build each year to keep the kids involved in bettering themselves.... we as a group desperately want to succeed as a new team and show our part of the county what it takes!

We don't want to be seen as a "also-ran" second year team rather up with peers in top-25 rankings talked about each week.

We stay strong because that is what it takes to get to the next level...or its not your best.

I'm going to steal a quote from a new mentor friend on another team...

"Good enough is the enemy of anything great!" ..post that on the wall. Get the intoxicating excitement back!

Coming from a strategist perspective every robot every year has to be customized to the game that year. That is why in part we are "so far" successful (we build our bot in a parents garage no fancy workshop). Doesn't mean you don't test options but once game comes out you build a bot to succeed at the "killer strategy" as an alliance member ...to win it all. "Effective" is our goal...every year otherwise its a waste of time isn't it? These kids need mentors invested in the outcomes...and to succeed (or fail) as a team.