what teams are going to help mentor

[Jgreenwd1]

I was wounding what teams are going to help mentor next year?
And i would like to know how much fun it was to mentor a team? (from those who are mentoring a team this year)

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Jgreenwd1
I was wounding what teams are going to help mentor next year?
And i would like to know how much fun it was to mentor a team? (from those who are mentoring a team this year)

It is actually listed in the FIRST place about what teams are willing to adopt a team, or veterans willing to mentor a team, etc... At: http://www.usfirst.org/2001comp/Mentoring/

There are some mentoring guides, and give you the person to contact if your team is asking for mentoring... Well, I know your team doesn't need mentoring, but it's nice if rookie teams will go to that place and look for mentoring teams.


Mentoring a team is actually a lot of fun. Mentors usually have a lot of FIRST experience already, so they have a lot of useful information to share with the team members. At the beginning I had to try to get to know the new students, but eventually I got to work with a lot of them, and they started to pay attention to my advises. It is really satisfying because I got to give back something I learned from the team; some of the members actually look up to you for that.

I got a lot more freedom when I became kind of a mentor to the team... I got to help out who ever I want, and people usually come looking for you for opinions...

It's a really enjoyable experience, but at the same time, it is really time consuming...

[Wayne Doenges]

We (Team 535) are hoping to start 8 Lego league teams for this year.
I loved mentoring this year. I've been married for 23 years and we don't have any kids. It was alot of fun working with a group of kids for a common goal.
We did very well as a rookie team. Second place at WMR and third at Motorola. We got Rookie All-Star both times.
I plan on mentoring again next year.

[Joe Ross]

Last year we mentored 3 teams. It is a lot of work, but the end result is a lot of fun.

The first team that we helped to start is the one that we had the best relationship with. They were for King Drew Magnet school (606). Our administrative leader spent a lot of time working with them before and during the season. Most of our students didn't get to meet their team until the week before shipping when they came to our building to play with the ramp. While we were waiting for everyone to show up, their students and our students got a basketball game going with a black ball and a makeshift hoop. That was the point at which I felt that we were no longer just the mentors, but friends.

They cheered for us throughout the finals at socal, which was really great as their team is about 3 times the size of ours. At nationals, we were in different divisions, but both teams found time to go cheer for each other.

They ended up winning the rookie all-star awards at the so-cal regional and at nationals, as well as the highest rookie seed in their division.

Another team that we mentored was from the MAST academy (410). They were a second year team, but weren't happy with their robot from the previous year. They wanted more engineering help. One of our engineers spent most of his time with that team, finding them sponsors and giving advice. While we never bonded with them as much as King Drew we still had great fun watching them. They won the Delphi "Driving technology today" award at the socal regional for their limbo bot that was modeled after a low-rider. I thought they should have won the photoegenic award, for their blue fiberglass frame, but then I'm not a judge.

The last team that we mentored was CAMS academy (697 i think) One of our former students transfered schools to this one and his mom started a team there. They started late, and I'm not really sure what our role was in mentoring them.

Since our robot didn't perform as well as we would have liked, my favorite moment was seeing 606 win the Rookie all star award at nationals.

I beleive that we are planning on mentoring again.