Mentor Roles

[MrForbes]

Sounds like a tough situation, although I've sort of been there in the earlier years. After a while at this, I've figured out that the reason that I keep coming back year after year is that I really enjoy the engineering process, and working with a team of students to design and build a robot in 6 weeks is about the most fun an engineer can have. And I let the students know that being part of the team, them letting me do stuff, is what keeps me coming back. I don't have any interest in sitting around watching other people do stuff.

As suggested, you all need to sit down and talk about your roles on the team, and the status of your engineering project (the robot). There are two weeks left, and a few teams have already demonstrated that you can build a robot in three days....but it takes a cooperative effort by everyone on the team. Let them know that you want the team to succeed, and you're concerned that if things keep going as they are, that won't happen.

Mentoring is a tough game.

[mathking]

As many others have said, every team has a different culture. I have found that the best teams have a commonality, that their is a feeling of partnership in the process. My first question would be how many other mentors are there and what are their views of how things are going? If this is a school based team, talking to the teacher in charge (for some, the teachers are mentors, for some teams the teacher really acts more as a business manager and HR director but isn't as involved in the robot building, for some the teacher is the person they have to have around to have a team in the school) is also a good idea. Ultimately if you want to be successful as a team the team has to develop a good working culture in which people know and are willing to accept their roles. Some of our mentors do more and teach less, some teach more and do less. We try to let the students learn how to do everything we do, but we all pitch in when things need to get done.

I would not put too much stock in what one stressed out student says. Everyone involved is part of the team. I have been doing FRC since 2000 and with team 1014 since we started in 2003. I also coach track and cross country. That experience comes in handy a lot more than you might think. Building a good track team and building a good robotics team share a lot of similarities.

If you want more specific suggestions feel free to send me a PM.