Mentors: What's something you wish you knew going in?

[tjf]

When you got into FIRST, whether by choice, or not, what are some of the things you wish you knew?

[tjwolter]

Last year was our rookie season. A succinct time line and overview of team and event registration, FIRST choice ordering, grant application time frame would have been nice. We did some scrambling...

[Koko Ed]

How addicting it would be. I would probably still be married if I was better prepared for the amount of time I spent roboting.

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

How addicting it would be.

I have to second that. FIRST should come with a warning label.

[ILAMtitan]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

How addicting it would be. I would probably still be married if I was better prepared for the amount of time I spent roboting.

My senior design professor in college actually warned us about this. After putting in untold hours and effort into a major project, the elation at the first time it works is an indescribable feeling. It also seems to effect some people differently. For me, I want to jump back in do it again, but for some of our other mentors they are content with less time spent in the shop.

In that vein, it really is a matter of getting out of it what you put in. The more time we spend there, and the more investment we have in the team, the more rewarding it is.

Also, in contrast to the fun, there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that mentors end up taking care of; the less glamorous side of engineering that mostly entails paperwork. Inventory, purchase orders, travel documents, transport rentals, insurance, team finances, logistics...it really adds up sometimes.

[Chris is me]

You're here for them, not for you.

I was barely 17 years old when I started mentoring in college. I wasn't an adult and it showed.

This doesn't mean you can't help out, have fun, draw stuff in CAD, make parts, or anything like that. But every decision you make should be in the students' best interest, always.

[SenorZ]

How hard it is to convince others that it is amazing.
You can't tell them, you can't show them pictures, you can't just show them videos either.
You need to have them AT the competition, and then the light goes off.

[techhelpbb]

I started mentoring before I finished college in 1996.
I wish I had a chance to go back and chart a more clear path to the level of achievement I would like to make possible for my students.

As time and my leadership skills have improved I have found that sometimes you have to plan ahead even if it is unlikely you will be able to execute. This way if the unlikely happens you are immediately prepared.

I seriously couldn't believe that 20+ years later we'd still be doing FIRST. I participated in 18 or more competitions in high school and they mostly didn't last a year, let alone a decade. I should have realized and had more confidence that if you try hard enough, long enough, you'll find success. Still there's always more to do and there is always more risk and reward.

[Drakxii]

Be confident for them and build fast & simple bots.

[Andrew Schreiber]

That the best way to deal with the large number self absorbed jerks in this program is to ignore them.

[tjwolter]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

Be confident for them and build fast & simple bots.

I would second that notion. At competition I am the mentor nominally in charge of the pit crew. My duties consisted in wandering by once in a while and asking "Is the Robot ready?" As we had constructed a simplistic but functional tank the standard answer was always the same: "The Robot is Always Ready".

As a build / pit mantra you can't really improve on it. The best, most advanced machine is only a fancier paperweight if it does not run when needed.

[Anupam Goli]

Keep your ego in check and be open to learning new ideas

[crazyrobochick]

I get back into robotics 4 years ago by accident when my brother and sister asked me for help with their team. Now I'm the lead mentor and I wish someone had told me to get the parents involved EARLY and OFTEN! Before I was lead mentor we didn't have as much parent involvement and all the fundraising and "other stuff" fell on the mentors and kids when they should be focusing on the bot. Now it is a requirement for our parents or some family member to participate and we have found our parents want to get involved just didn't know how. Remember that FIRST is about more than just bots and having a cohesive team is a having a good partnership between students, mentors, and parents.

Also I parrot what other people have said. It is the students robot. They need to succeed or fail on their own or else they aren't learning.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by crazyrobochick

get the parents involved EARLY and OFTEN!

QFT.
Get all the help you can get. Whether that's from recruiting mentors, friendly local teams, strangers on chiefdelphi - it takes a village to raise a robot.

[PayneTrain]

When you mentor, focus your involvement in FIRST primarily (solely?) on the team. The kids, their parents, the kids, mentors, the sponsors, the kids and the kids are the priority. Working with multiple teams should take a back seat. Developing your own portfolio should take a backseat. Building a social circle in FIRST should definitely take a back seat, and volunteering in FIRST might even need to take a backseat. It is a marriage in FIRST where you and your team are the same entity. Anything you do that is not in the best interests of your students is a waste of everyone's time and effort.

Your primary job is not to build the most technically advanced robot, but build the best possible team. The higher up the rung you get in the mentoring pool on your team, and the bigger your team gets, the greater the focus you must put on leadership skills. To be an effective leader that can build and sustain an effective program, you will have to compromise and sacrifice without gratitude and even when facing great turbulence and headwinds.

Never settle into routine. Always be willing to change your program to make it better and always be willing to ask for and accept help, for your own sanity.

I don't say this solely because acting the opposite of what I described above is bad or unsustainable, but the reward of mentoring comes when you put the students on the team first and watch them fly.