Mentor Roles

[IKE]

Originally Posted by hauki

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

...snip...

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?

Welcome to being a mentor. I will likely be the hardest fun you will ever have.

Mentors are definitely part of the program. As others have said, it is part of the core values.

Mentors being part of the team will ultimately be your Team's decision. I personally will not be a mentor on a team that will not let me be "part" of the team.

As a new mentor, I will caution you that there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences between FIRST teams and "high tech projects". the first season you help out can be overwhelming and I suggest you try not to be too pushy as you do not know the background. This can be hard, especially for someone with your large amount of experience. Hopefully a personal anecdote might help.
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For example, I have worked with a few teams in the past. In 2009, I was introduced to a rookie school 3 weeks into build season, and we did not skip any steps, but built a minimally competitive robot (MCC) (it drove around and did positive actions, and even ended up backing its way into an event win that year). I also had about a decade working with a very successful team, and then last year started helping a different successful team.

Even though I had 10 years of FIRST experience (and 15 years of industry experience), I was new to that team. At one point I thought they were irreversibly behind, but they were following their process and ended up with a pretty successful season (a 2nd and 2 first place district finishes along with decent showing at MSC and Worlds (played in elims at both).

They were behind "my expectations" of where they should be, but they were meeting their standards, and ultimately produced pretty good results.

I will not work with a team that won't let me be part of the team. As others have said, that is part of my fun, and my "pay". We are all teammates, as you said in your post, some of us have different roles.

I also will not work with a team that is content with failure. Failure is a perfectly fin thing to have happen, I just push for it to occur early and in the development process, and want them to do their best to mitigate failure during competition.

Your team is young enough that it is likely still getting its culture. Work with them on that. Even on established team with agreement of student mentor involvement, you will have an occasional student that thinks mentors should do nothing. It happens. Try to help them understand the program and if you can point to team values. If your team doesn't have that, point to FIRST values of a mentor based program.

another phrase I like:

We all volunteer to be a part of this team. I work with the students, not for them, nor do they work for me.

[ahartnet]

There's frequently a lot of conversation on student-built vs mentor-built. I used to have much stronger opinions on that, then I came sort of to what I would consider "middle of the road", but in the last couple of years I've come to conclusion that's the wrong way to think of the problem.

My focus is on student accountability. If the students feel accountable for the robot and success of the team - then I don't care how involved or uninvolved the mentors are.

A student-led (mentors there just to make sure students don't lose any fingers) team is no good if the students don't feel accountable and don't feel some pressure to make the team succeed. In other words, they students are just there having "fun" and learning - which maybe they still have fun regardless of the amount of success! That's good - but there are much cheaper, less stressful ways of doing that. Too many people put too much money and time in for a team to not be actively working towards a team that can compete (whether that competition is focused on a robot on the field, or the impact they're having on the community).

Alternatively, a mentor-led team (even one where students are actively involved and learning) is no good either (in my opinion) if the students don't feel accountable for the robot and the team. In other words, if they view the mentors as a safety net and rely on mentors to produce award winning concepts/prototypes/ideas. If a team wins (whether an award or just general success on the field), but the students don't feel ownership over it - then I think a big part of FIRST is missing. Even if the students are inspired and excited about being a part of a winning team.

If students are working hard - I'm working hard along side with them. If students are not working hard - I'm working hard to figure out why they aren't and what needs to change.

[Conor Ryan]

I would love to have a anthropologist study this situation. I think students go primal and do much of what they do out of instinct because the feel the stress and pressure of a looming deadline. Time decay is everyone's worst enemy. Finding leadership and building a team bond are the most important things you can do right now. If everyone doesn't wake up and get on the same plan, <insert a sports analogy>.


Its hard to step back look at the scenario and then figure out the best way to triage it. I would approach it like you do at work, or in a 2 minute drill in football. First step, clean slate.
Step 1) Clean slate. Forget everything up to today.

Step 2) Do what you do best. Take a simple plan, a stupidly simple design. Run with it. Be disciplined, classify everything into a Day 1 feature or a Day 2 feature. You'll get to Day 2 after Day 1 is delivered.

Step 3) Deliver ASAP. This is the time where everyone digs deep and puts something out there.


When dealing with people that don't get on board with the initial plan,
I'd respond to a lot of questions similar to "I don't get it". They will point to something that they did already, and then I'll just say "I don't get it". Over time it works. But building team bond and trust, then getting everyone on the same page with simplicity is the first step to recovery.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by IKE

Welcome to being a mentor. I will likely be the hardest fun you will ever have.

I know what you meant, but I still got a good laugh.