Training technical mentors

[jason_zielke]

It sounds like you are dealing with 2 different issues here: technical abilities that match the needs of FRC and context about FRC.

In both cases, new mentors need to come in with a focus on learning, rather than teaching. The best mentors I know are that way because they spend (or have spent) lots of time learning as a part of being on the team.

I have found that the former issue (direct technical abilities) is best learned through a mentoring approach (whether it is mentor to student or seasoned mentor to new mentor). We typically match our new mentors up with a seasoned mentor to learn from.

As for learning about context, going to a competition and understanding the game during play is the best approach. However, this experience can be simulated by reading a previous years game, watching videos and talking strategy/game play. Also, once they understand the game, go through pictures of robots on CD that were very successful at that game and talk through how they worked. We have found that this approach works well to get new students up to speed on context of FRC and I expect it would do the same for new mentors inexperienced with FRC.