Mentor Roles

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by hauki

I am a new engineering mentor (started in Sept) and would like some advice.

If the build team is totally getting off track what should be the mentors role? I've tried to influence them to get back on track with little success. I've worked in the high tech industry for 30 years and have seen many projects fail. I feel at this point the team is not going to get a robot built. Should I just let them fail and call it a learning experience? Is it my role to build the robot for them? I don't think this is correct.

Is a mentor part of the team? I was told by an angry\stressed student that mentors are not part of the team. My view is that we are all on the same team but have different roles to support. I think I am there to help\encourage\voice concerns if the project is slipping?

This is an interesting scenario. Pardon my ignorance but is your team relatively new?