Mentors VS Students

[catsylve]

If the mentors and students on a team are not seeing eye to eye or are having issues with who is supposed to do what, it seems that you may need to try some team building. Now that the build season is coming to a close, try taking a little time to get to know each other.

When a trust begins to develop, it is easier for mentors to turn tasks over to the students and let them incorporate their own ideas.

As a teacher, I recognize the difficulty of getting to know a new group of people over and over again. You worry about keeping things safe and making them work out for everyone. But if you establish a trust at the beginning of the season, you will have a more productive and comfortable build.

You need to accomplish this in the off season or pre-build.

[GeorgeTheEng]

This has been an interesting discussion to read through and I have to put in some input from my own experiences this season. My students have stuggled with one or two engineers this year who are new. Some of the kids and I had a heart to heart chat about why and it drifted to how my approach to working with them is different then the new engineer's approach.

At the most basic level, I treat them as adults. When I discuss an option or design I don't discount any points of view. I think whatever decision is made, there is a strong desire in anyone to feel heard and respected.

I will admit that at times, I do strongly suggest or force certain decisions. And with a VERY limited number of decisions insist on specific decisions. But I do a couple of things. I'm a mentor so you can claim my decision is based on experience and that may be true. But am I serving the students well if I make statements like "this is the decision..." or "this is the way it is going to be..." without putting my reasoning behind it? I don't think so. I think a mentors approach should generally be help and direct the student's decision so that they understand why I want something do a specific way. A Phrase like "Wouldn't it be safer to run the wires inside the arm rather because another robot could accidentally run into us and rip them out in their current location" does more to help a student understand then "we're running the wires down the inside." It also keeps the door open for additional suggestions. And as engineer who works for a company with a strong peer review process, I know that you always need to be open to suggestion. In addition, by asking questions and leading the students can be guided through the thought process that we've spent many years developing.

Our experience as mentors is only beneficial to the students if they are allowed to understand the rationale behind a decision.

The team is both mentors and students. We all put in lots of hours, blood, sweat, and tears into the hunk of metal and electronics that goes on the field. If a team communicates effectively and all opinions are respected, then everyone from the student to the mentor to the CEO of the major sponsors should be able to take pride in what ends up on the field.

I challenge teams to define whether the season was successful NOW. The performance of the robot, and the awards should be secondary to the experience that ends officially in the next few hours when FedEx loads your crate into it's truck. I for one, will say that Team 87 was successful.

[purduephotog]

Why does it have to be 'mentor vs student'?

The other day we had this situation arise. I had my opinion. Another mentor had his opinion. We called one of the student leaders over to 'settle it' (since we were all pushing student designed student built). We both stated our cases. Poor kid looked like a deer in the headlights and finally said "But no matter what I saw one of you is going to be mad at me!".

Funny thing was, both the other mentor and I answered at the same time "No we aren't". We didn't care- and we explained that if he chose idea 1, we'd go with that for now and build a backup of idea 2, and vice-versa.

The second problem ... we'll save that for another post.

[Chris Fultz]

First, I wish the title was "Mentors and Students" - that is a little more representative of the idea of a team.

But, to the topic. There is lots that could be written, but the first sugestion is to try and talk it out with the team. Talk to other students and see if they share your view, or if you are alone it in. Talk to the mentors, and explain how you feel things are going and ask if there are some better ways. Talk and work it out. In the end, a team needs both motivated students and motivated mentors to be successful.

Remember, their is no defined way to run a team. Some work very well with a high level of mentor activity, some with a high level of student activity, and others with a blend of the two. Chances are, the 'better' teams (define that however you want) have learned a "style" over a few years and have adapted to it - mentors and students.

As a mentor, one of the biggest challenges is to know when to step in. Yes, there is value in letting a student make a mistake and learning from it, but sometimes those mistakes have a significant impact on several students and mentors. Letting one student "learn from their mistake" by having a robot break down in match 1 of a weekend is an expensive price for a whole team to pay and not fair to anyone involved, especially if a "better way" would have prevented it. Even letting a whole group learn by buildig a robot that cannot function is a high price to pay for a "lesson".

A mentor is responsible and accountable to several people - students want to learn and be inspired, other mentors want to contribute, parents want their kids to gain some real knowledge from the program, school administration wants to be sure the students are safe and benefiting, sponsors want to be well represented by their teams, the mentor himself / herself needs to know they are adding value to the process - if not there are lots of other things to do with their time. If things go really wrong, it is more likely for the mentor to hear about it than the students. It is a delicate balancing act and is not easy for anyone.