Mentors Input

[Peter Matteson]

For 177

Who builds robots/where?

Students and mentors working together. Students do all the machining that doesn't require complex or difficult setups, which is just a couple parts per year. Most of us engineers are usless without the students to help us.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?

We have a shop at the high school shared with classes.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?

Not at all.

Who manages the team/students?

Students.

How involved is your school?

Not very. The school does little for the team and usually gets in the way due to a litigation happy locality.

How involved are your students parents?

Not very much until recently. The parents now run the fundraising side of the team.

What is your teams operating budget?

$15,000-20,000 for the last 6 or so years, depending on what our secondary sponsors can give. This covers one regional the championship our build budget and bus transport to our local regional.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?

The mentors that work for our primary sponsor get travel covered and teams days comped by the company. I not working there anymore as well as the other mentors usually spend about $1000 dollars a year on materials to alleviate our budget pressures.

What is your typical build season schedule?

Wed & Thurs 5-8, Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5
We don't meet during mid-terms or on snow days because of school rules.

Also we have about 7 dedicated engineer and 4 teacher mentors with a group of 4 or 5 "retired mentors" that we can call in a pinch if we need them.

[thefro526]

Who builds robots/where?

816 builds our robot in the Shop Attached to our Pre-Engineering Classroom, and the robot is primarily student build.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?

Yes, and no. 816's team is based primarily out of the Pre-Engineering Program at BCIT Westampton, and the head mentor is the Pre-Engineering Teacher so the Robotics team essentially takes over the space during build season but it returns to being a classroom after build.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?

No, we don't really have any corp. sponsors...

Who manages the team/students?

The head mentor/Pre-Engineering teacher manages the majority of things.

How involved is your school?

BCIT Westampton gives the robotics program money each year, but other than that they're not really involved.

How involved are your students parents?

This varies. Some parents are very involved and travel with the team (my mom did when I was in HS) and others just help here and there.

What is your teams operating budget?

Anywhere between 15k - 20k per year.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?

I am not compensated as I volunteer and I also pay for my own travel, but the mentors/advisors from the school are compensated similarly to sports coaches. Also, the mentor/advisors do not pay to travel, except in some cases.

What is your typical build season schedule?

Monday - Thursday 3pm - 9pm, Friday 3pm - 5:30pm, Saturdays 9am - 3pm, Some Sundays and Holidays follow the Saturday Schedule.

[Tom Bishop]

832 Oscar:

Who builds robots/where?
Students and mentors build the robot.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
We build our bots here at the school in the Engineering Lab. No real machine shop to speak of but we have a small shop. We have Internet access, lots of basic tools, drill presses and band saws.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
Most of our mentors are from parents of former/present students, or former students. We have some corporate mentors that come in now and then. We also have the support of a place that does water-jetting and machining for us, which helps immensely!

Who manages the team/students?
I do a lot of the management, but the students do as much as I can get them to do!

How involved is your school?
The school is supportive in spirit, but not too materially. They pay for my sub when I go to competitions.

How involved are your students parents?
Besides the ones that mentor not as involved as I would like them to be. Sometimes it's hard to scare up enough drivers/chaperons to go to a competition.

What is your teams operating budget?
We generally get about 15-20K from corporate sponsors. We also have club dues, about $100 per student per year. We also do fund raising to supplement our operating expenses.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
That's about it. But we can dream. I always lose money on this deal!

What is your typical build season schedule?
We meet twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. As build season progresses, we work more, including Saturdays. The last couple of WE we usually work Sat and Sun. One year we worked 22 days straight, WE, holidays and nights. Don't get into this if you want a life from January through mid February (besides a FIRST life)!

[southbend]

For those of you, mentors, with shops - Does your school and or district support you with machinery, hand tools etc. to aid in building and teaching students real world skills?
I am noticing a trend in students needing to be micro-management, more than i've ever noticed previously. Is this due to the fast paced world of FIRST or is it a trend in society?

im not bashing, just ranting.

[Dancin103]

Who builds robots/where?
The students build the robot with mentor input in the high school shop and practice in our team building right next to the shop on the full sized playing field. Every student on the team has input on the robot and what it should do and accomplish for the season.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
Yes. See above answer.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
We do not rely on corporations and sponsors to help us build the robot, me more so rely on them to remain our business partners and fund us year after year.

Who manages the team/students?
We have three team advisors, two are teachers and one is an engineer. Then we have seven or so mentors.

How involved is your school?
The school is extremely involved, providing the team with funding and the administration comes to the competitions and comes to check things out during build season.

How involved are your students parents?
The students parents are very involved, mentoring and having a parent organization.

What is your teams operating budget?
A lot. lol Sorry for not being specific. We usually to two or three regionals, championship, and three off season events.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
Not sure what you mean here, but I get to have fun with the kids and watching learn and be proud of what they accomplished.

What is your typical build season schedule?
Everyday after school from 3 to 9 except Fridays, and then Saturday 9 to 4. If we had bad weather that year we then come in on Sundays too.

Ok, I hope this helps you. If you have more questions post them, or feel free to PM me.

Cass

[Evert Timberg]

Who builds robots? / Where?
The students build the robot in the school's tech shop. We have lathes, mills, a sand blasting cabinet and a small CNC machine available to make parts.

Do you have a dedicated machine shop?
See above.

Do you reply on corporate sponsors?
Yes. One of our corporate sponsors is an industrial plastics company and they weld and fabricate some plastic components for us.

Who manages the team?
The lead teacher manages the team and coordinates part of the build.

How involved is your school?
The first two years the school was not involved at all. They didn't have any interest in the team. After we won two regionals last year, the school decided to give us a small amount of support.

How involved are the parents?
A few of the parents are actively involved, bringing food to meetings and driving to regionals.

What is your budget?
Each year we go to two regionals. The money for the regionals, the championship (if we go) and the KOP is provided by the school board which is very supportive of the FIRST program and supports teams in a number of schools across the city. The money to build the robot is provided by our sponsors and is usually around $2000.

How are you compensated?
Mentors sometimes get free food, but their work is all volunteer.

What is your typical build season schedule?
We usually work:

• Monday to Thursday: 3 to 7PM
• Friday: 3 to 5PM
• Saturday: 9AM to 4PM

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by southbend

For those of you, mentors, with shops - Does your school and or district support you with machinery, hand tools etc. to aid in building and teaching students real world skills?
I am noticing a trend in students needing to be micro-management, more than i've ever noticed previously. Is this due to the fast paced world of FIRST or is it a trend in society?

im not bashing, just ranting.

For us, somewhat. The school has provided some money (a bulk sum for whatever we needed to buy) to purchase equipment, but pretty much everything in the shop has been obtained by the team (primarily by the mentors).

As for micro-managing, i think it has more to do with experience than anything else. The less experience a team member has, the more they need you hovering over them. Being an all-girls team, we may have a fairly unique situation - almost all of our students come in not knowing how to use even the simplest tools. They didn't grow up following their dad's around the house fixing things, building bird houses or pinewood derby cars for cub scouts. So for us at least, it's a lot of micro managing and 1-1 work with the students to educate them in the tools and techniques... but once they learn that, we can start to back off and let them work things out for themselves. After a year or two on the team, we actually expect the students to be able to work autonomously, at least for short (1-2 hours) periods of time.

[Andy L]

Who builds robots/where?
Mainly students, mentors give input but try not to touch the bot a whole lot

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
it's a classroom shared with a couple classes, the team has maybe 1/3 dedicated, and lots of table space in the other 2/3

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
not really

Who manages the team/students?
All parents and a couple teachers

How involved is your school?
In previous years not a whole lot, in more recent years we've been trying to get the school more involved

How involved are your students parents?
Parents who are engineers tend to come in often, parents who like organizing help a lot with bringing food for meetings and small things like that

What is your teams operating budget?

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
Our main mentor is considered a "coach" with the school and gets paid a relatively small amount, we've rotated mentors a lot in recent years but in the past they have mostly donated this back to the team

What is your typical build season schedule?
week schedule:
1-2: Design/prototype
3-5: Build/Test/Break cycle
6: scramble to fix every broken
per day:
3:10(school gets out) - 7
F 3:10 - 8 or 9
S: 10-7
Su: off unless needed

[Billfred]

Who builds robots/where?
2815 (and, this year, 1398) built their robots in USC's College of Engineering and Computing machine shop. Mentors handled the lion's share of the machining (for both training and liability purposes), then students handled most of the assembly. (Notable exceptions included building the first gearbox assembly as a reference and the final-weekend push where all of our kids were already working on things. Even my girlfriend the photographer/journalism major got in on the act then.)

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
We share our space in the student projects room during the season with other USC competition teams (solar boat, Formula SAE, etc.). The machine shop is used by many projects within the college.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
We receive a great deal of funding from Richland One, state agencies, and the University.

Who manages the team/students?
For the past two seasons we've been lucky to have Stephen Kowski (once of 312, then 1369, then a stint on 1902) as a graduate student and lead (tor)mentor. Donn Griffith (once of 281, then 343, then FIRST HQ) handles some of the administrative things as well on the USC end. Richland One teachers handle the relevant school issues, such as field trip paperwork.

How involved is your school?
Not as much as with other teams I've been involved with, mostly due to our setup as a district-wide team; any of Richland One's eight schools (other than W.J. Keenan High, which has had 1398 for seven years) can join us. We still value involvement of our teachers, though!

How involved are your students parents?
It varies; some work with us as full-on mentors, others come just to watch, others I wouldn't know if I saw them on the street.

What is your teams operating budget?
I don't have the figures on this one, so I'm going to pass.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
The team covers our lodging and mileage; that's fine by me.

What is your typical build season schedule?
Our rookie year, we met five nights a week (and the occasional Saturday). This year we only met three nights a week and Saturdays until the last couple of weeks where we hit panic mode. (We still weren't quite finished.)

[JudyVandy]

My team is in its fourteenth year of existence. Every year has been successful in that we have built a robot and competed with it, and have inspired our young people. Some years were more successful at competitions than others. We have been a regional champion twice, a regional finalist more times than I care to count, and even a national finalist once, many years ago. Many of our alums have gone into engineering, science, and technology. My responses are strictly mine. My colleagues may see things a bit differently.

Who builds robots/where?
We build in the shop area of one of our schools.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
We share with the HS shop classes. The teacher is one of our mentors.
Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
No.

Who manages the team/students?
A representative from each of the schools involved is responsible for the students from that school, but any mentor has the right and responsibility to mentor and correct any student needing attention.

How involved is your school?
For all of us, moral support, some monetary support, and the site is about it.

How involved are your students parents?
This varies. We try to involve them at least in providing lunches on Saturdays. Once we can get them to a competition, they're usually hooked. We are a black hole. Several of our mentore are actually the parents of our alumni.

What is your teams operating budget?
We can do one regional on 10-14 K.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
Just that.

What is your typical build season schedule?
Monday through Thursday, 5 to 8-ish. Plus Saturday, 9 to 4 or 9, depending on the week. As it gets closer to ship date, the ending time gets later.

I have many more questions and concerns, but this is a starter thread.

[Andrew Schreiber]

397

Who builds robots/where?
School Shop, it is OUR space.

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
Yes, we have our rooms

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
No.

Who manages the team/students?
Currently, a Kettering Student. She does one amazing job considering taking classes while managing an FRC team.

How involved is your school?
I prefer not to discuss this

How involved are your students parents?
2 of the parents are incredibly involved. The rest... not so much

What is your teams operating budget?
If we go to States, ~12000. Otherwise ~8000. We could have shaved a bit of money off if we hadn't went to West Michigan and had to pay for hotels.

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
Technically speaking I am paid by Kettering to mentor an FRC team. I am paid in food and $300 a year from KU for doing recruitment. Kinda a sweet gig because I was planing on mentoring anyway.

I am also compensated by meeting industry leaders... great networking.

What is your typical build season schedule?
M-F 230-6 Sat 10-4/6. Meetings can be extended as needed.



2337

Who builds robots/where?
Premier Tooling

Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
Yes, Premier donated 2 rooms for team use as well as access to machines.

Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
No, machining is done by mentors or students. Usually students.

Who manages the team/students?
A mentor

How involved is your school?
I am not sure.

How involved are your students parents?
Incredibly, a good number of mentors are parents

What is your teams operating budget?
I am not 100% sure

How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
See above

What is your typical build season schedule?
M-Th 6-9 Sat 9-9 Sun 9-9 (if needed) All meetings can be extended.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by southbend

For those of you, mentors, with shops - Does your school and or district support you with machinery, hand tools etc. to aid in building and teaching students real world skills?

Back when we first started up and were working in one of the high schools, the district reimbursed us for most of our hand tools and many/some of our standing power tools. We also shared equipment from the physics department (unsurprising since we worked in a physics room supervised by a physics teacher) and sometimes the wood shop. We continue to have access to a wood shop at our new location, though there's no money or equipment changing hands any more.

Originally Posted by southbend

I am noticing a trend in students needing to be micro-management, more than i've ever noticed previously. Is this due to the fast paced world of FIRST or is it a trend in society?

Depends on the students. I've had to micro-manage a decent number of new--and sometimes less new--students. However, a good amount of that took place while I was also a student. By and large we like to have them ask questions on their own, preferably of other students--unless of course it's a safety concern. That said, people handle different management styles in different ways, and that itself isn't such a bad skill to learn.