Mentors on the team

[Andy A.]

It's as important that mentors find this as fun and inspiring as it is for students- otherwise it's just like tacking another 5 hours onto my work day I don't get paid for. The goal, as I understand it, is to put highschoolers in close enough proximity to scientists and engineers that they can see us work, try it out and realize it's something they want to do full time. It's not so they can learn how to make a robot.

There's a balance to be struck. Students should be inspired to pursue careers in STEM fields. Mentors should be inspired to continue mentoring. As long as those things happen it really doesn't matter what percentage of the robot is student built or mentor built.

[jason701802]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Life is the greatest teacher of all. If you go on your (pick your social media of choice) and say your boss is a big jerk and they find out and fire you, do you believe they are unjustified for doing so? For every action there is a consequence.

Okay, so you teach them not to call their boss a jerk in public, I'm not disagreeing with this, but this doesn't teach them how/why the boss' way is better and will probably only cause more dislike for the boss.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by jason701802

Okay, so you teach them not to call their boss a jerk in public, I'm not disagreeing with this, but this doesn't teach them how/why the boss' way is better and will probably only cause more dislike for the boss.

One of the biggest myths in FIRST is that everybody has to like each other. I never got that. There's too much diverse paths and goals for that. One team may focus on winning regionals and collecting blue banners while another is looking to grow and strengthening the FIRST community while another just wants to offer their students an opportunity for a different path to their future. Every team takes something a little different from the program and it's not always going to jibe with what other teams want and it can cause friction.
I always viewed Gracious Professionalism as "I may not agree with you or even like you but we need to work together to solve this problem. So let's get to work!"

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I always viewed Gracious Professionalism as "I may not agree with you or even like you but we need to work together to solve this problem. So let's get to work!"

This definitely applies to more than just FIRST, it's a solid life lesson, and one that is hard to gain in other types of activities.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

This definitely applies to more than just FIRST, it's a solid life lesson, and one that is hard to gain in other types of activities.

It might be the ideal that comes closest to the concept of World Peace (and there are people who still won't even go for that).

[superbotman]

I do not know everything nor have I seen a large amount of teams working, but in the 4 years I was on an FRC team I learned that just like when creating a robot for the game, there is no right answer. Every team is run differently and every way works, some more than others.

Also every student and mentor is different. I have seen some students be able to much by themselves and rarely need mentor guidance, and I have seen some that need a large amount of guidance. Similar with mentors, I have seen some that are very hands on and actively involved, and some that are less involved and give little nudges here and there, and some that only get involved when specifically asked to help.

There is no single perfect way for a team to function, every team does and should find their own happy medium. They need to also realize that what works best for them may be a horrible way for the next team over to run because everyone is different.
Just my 2 cents.

[Garret]

I have seen several times in this thread, people literally jumping from extremes, talking about how mentors not being involved would be scenarios where mentors aren't even teaching anything and are acting more like what I would call babysitters, and going as far as to say that it would be this almost utter state of anarchy in which all regard for safety and such is disregarded and all students would end up struggling so much that they give up on STEM forever ( I may have embellished a bit, but not that much at all really ). To the other extreme in which the mentors are in total control and all of the students do absolutely nothing but sit and watch their mentors make the robot. I see both of these as shameful and I would think that everyone else would see them as that as well. In reality what FIRST wants is in between these (and if it isn't in between these I don't want anything to do with FIRST).

On my team, we nudge the students towards a solution so that they feel as if it was their idea. If the students cannot come up with the ideas on their own then we push a little harder, and then after all else is exhausted (and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere/totally wrong direction) do we mentors actually step in and dictate some design decisions on a limited scale.

However if the student comes up with a feasible idea that is different than what we were thinking we go with it (its not about us, we are already inspired which is why we mentor, or at that is why we mentor on 691). With this philosophy we have managed to make all those students who wanted to learn feel as if they did something great (not just watched a mentor come up with something great and then help the mentor); because of this the student now feels more confident and, in my opinion from when I was a student, smart. (I would consider us to be extremely student run, we actually try to refrain from suggesting things that are beyond the current ability of the students.

That's my (1 year of personal and 4 years of my dad) mentor perspective on this.


Now when from when I was a student on the team. Because we had very few mentors when I was on the team I spent a lot of time teaching myself and learning by researching what the super FRC teams had done. In general I attribute my own accomplishments to a little bit of intelligence on my part but mostly a lot of work done by the "giants" (Newton quote reference in sig ) who did the things before me. During this time I would have loved to have dedicated mechanical engineering mentor, however I did not so I did the best I could and frankly I think I did a pretty good job (at least last year). However as I look back, I realize how having to struggle has pushed me so much farther ahead than if everything was just handed to me or if I just helped with the design. I believe, I would have been very upset if I just sat there and watched my mentor design the robot.

Just so that no one takes this next part the wrong way (which seems to be happening a lot), I admire many mentors who are very hands-on and are enthusiastic/lucky enough to have the time to be very involved in the design of and FRC robot during the build season. I find mentors who are very involved to be very inspiring and the robots that they guide the students to create (with varying levels of guidance) to be inspirational as well.

This is something I heard from one of my teams sponsors who has had prior experience with this type of high school robotics program: in particular BEST and FIRST. This sponsor had made the observation that students from FIRST don't seem to care as much about the program as students do in BEST. Their basis for this was from interactions with students at competitions. They attribute this to the level of mentor involvement in FIRST. The high level of involvement encouraged in FIRST seems to result in the students feeling more disconnected from the design process than the students in BEST (I honestly have never done BEST nor do I know anything about it). I would tend to agree that the more mentors are involved the less the students feel they have contributed. I have heard other sponsors say how they liked how on our team the students are supposed to do everything with mentor guidance. In fact the principal of our school (base school, as we are a district team) said that she would not support the program if we changed our philosophy in regards to mentor involvement.

Our team mission statement embodies my teams interpretation of the mission of FIRST:

"Our mission as Hart District Robotics is to promote education in science and technology through an exciting, student led, mentor guided, high school robotics team. The program emphasizes team work, self confidence, gracious professionalism, and leadership. It demonstrates the value of individual diversity, combined creativity, and positive achievements not only in our program, but also in our society. "

The bolded part is a cornerstone of our teams identity. This is my teams philosophy and I am quite proud to say that I am from a team that has this philosophy.

I apologize in advance if my post is offensive, rambling (almost definitely a ramble ), and that its so long.

[jasonbrooks]

From the perspective of an FTC team, I think things are much the same. First off, I would love we would love to participate in the FRC competition, but because of financial resources (and the fact that our head coaches wife will divorce him if he stays at school any longer!) we can not. We still operate as an FRC team of sorts. Of course, the FTC competition is simpler and not as intense will scheduling as there are more weeks to build. Our team has 4 mentors for our High School's two FTC teams. We have 1 mentor that helps with all the programming, 1 mentor that helps with all the CAD, 1 mentor that helps with the building, and the head mentor who watches "the whole operation."

I helped start the FTC team at the HS and have therefore watched it change over the past 3.5 years. In the beginning, as we were a new team, we needed much help from the mentors (at that point we didn't have the CAD or programming mentor) to build our robots. Naturally, we didn't know all the laws of building - from the best gear ratios to how to efficiently and effectively wire the motors.

Things change as the years of a team progress. I have learned over the past 3 seasons the best way to accomplish many of the building and electrical tasks on the robot. This knowledge allows me to teach people in lower grades and newer members of the team. With this, over time, the role of mentors changes. However, mentors still never ran the team or didn't let the students build.

Now in our third FTC season, the mentors act as guides, and only help when we ask. This year, we pretty much came up with all the ideas for our mechanisms, built and programmed them, created CAD models along the way, and did most if not all of our PR and outreach connection work. At most, our building mentor will help us prototype a mechanism, our programming mentor will give us suggestions after we run our autonomous programs, and our CAD mentor will help our CAD guys with creating the custom FTC parts not given in the kit of parts (the tank tread idlers for example).

With 4 mentors for two teams of 10 kids, that is a 1:2.5 mentor-to-student ratio. Even with such a high ratio, especially for a FTC team, the students still do primarily all of the work, from fruition of the designs to completion of the bot.

From talking with people on FRC teams, it seems like what I outlined above is the same in both, despite the many differences between FTC and FRC. Can someone let me know if this sounds right?

[johnmaguire2013]

There is a local team (not my team) which, by the students choice, is 99% student-run. Most of the students actively try to prevent mentors from working with them, as they prefer a product which was built completely by themselves. They are always on time, and have a decent robot by the end of build season. It works.

Our team has a lot of students (maybe too many,) and a fair amount of mentors. For the marketing teams (PR/Media, Website, etc.) the team mentors usually assume a leadership role, making sure that things are taken care of, and if no students can solve an issue, they will come in to help. Additionally, with the website team, our mentor manages the hosting (we're on a type of AWS,) and domain, although even this could be done by our students. Some of the teams hardly get any leadership input (like the website team, which has mostly been a product of a couple students creating and coding a design, and a handful more adding content,) while others rely on it quite strongly (the PR/Media team, which has a couple mentors organizing things, and also handling purchases, etc.)

When it comes to our build teams (mechanical, electrical, effector, etc.) our mentors have a larger role teaching students to use equipment, monitoring safety, and overseeing things. Additionally, they will help out with the actual cutting, use of machinery, etc. both to save time, and to provide examples of the correct ways to do things. Again, they also handle purchases of wood, and other materials.

This works for us. It's not a sure-fire strategy, and every team is different. We also have a student leader, who manages a lot of the sub-teams, and he is pretty much able to do his own thing, regardless of our team coach (a mentor.) I think, as many others have said, it's up for the team to decide the type of involvement.

[Bill_B]

Originally Posted by johnmaguire2013

There is a local team (not my team) which, by the students choice, is 99% student-run. Most of the students actively try to prevent mentors from working with them, as they prefer a product which was built completely by themselves. They are always on time, and have a decent robot by the end of build season. It works.

Do they ever ask any questions of the mentors? If not, I'd find it unattractive to be on time myself. Is there a reason you didn't give a team number? Not that it matters much to me directly. I was wondering what their website looks like.

[robert.hatchett]

My $0.02....

Much has been said (and will continue to be said) about mentor involvement on teams.

My personal rule of thumb as a mechanical engineer with degree specializiation in robotics and personal involvement since 2004 in FIRST is this - adults advise the students and help them solve the problems they cannot answer on their own.

This may involve "leading" questions to inspire thought, it may be a "white-board exercises" to walk through the problem, it may be playing "devil's advocate" for a number of competing theories. In all, it should always be about the students.

My humble opinion is that, if we cannot advise and inspire high school students to create the design evolution on their own, with adult help advance that evolution to physicality, and execute their design plans on the field we are failing in our mission.

I will always believe that a robot that wins competition and no students are allowed to touch it is a failed robot. Conversely, a robot that obviously had no involvement by anyone schooled in mechanics or engineering that fails the competition should not be in last place. Somewhere in the middle is where we should be as an organization.

My advice to all mentors is to let it ALWAYS be the students' idea. Do NOT project your own opinions. Additionally, play the thought game of ALWAYS arguing against your own opinion/idea and let the students correct you on you "ignorance".

[gracie.]

Our mentors on 2399 are mostly college/grad students. Their general philosophy is to be as hands off as possible while still teaching us and helping us when we need it. It's created an environment where the expectation is that the students are going to build the robot, and they're going to build all of it. There are still times where mentors have to machine aspects of it (they have access to a machine shop and we don't), but students are always most prominent in the design/build process. I walked into FIRST thinking there was no way in hell I was going to be an engineer, and now through an awesome experience with great students and mentors, it's the only think I can see myself doing. So yeah, I'd say it works out pretty nicely.

[EricH]

I think, personally, that sometimes a mentor does need to offer an opinion. For whatever reason, a student either can't figure something out, or there are other circumstances, or maybe it's just that sort of team where mentor opinions are treated the same as student opinions.

In that sort of case, the mentor should offer an opinion, but while they offer it, they need to give a reason. The reason can be as simple as "I've seen this work before (on X system that is comparable to what we need to do with Y); let's give it a shot" or as complex as "here is this differential equation", but the students need to understand it. This may take additional mentoring.

For example: We need to exert force X at distance Y, and we are looking at System Z to do it. Rumor is that System Z is probably not going to cut the mustard. Let's look at the engineering analysis to determine a) is System Z going to work and b) if System Z won't work, how can we improve it so that it will? This sort of problem is a great one to run through the analysis on one or two options (and say, "You know, guys, I don't think System Z will work like we want it to") and then turn all the students involved loose on the other options.

I think a 100% student-run team is as good as a school taught by your peers. Mentors are there because they know all of the things you don't.

On the school subject, imagine a team like a school; The team members students, and mentors teachers. If the mentor/teacher solves all the problems, then the students don't learn anything. If the mentor/teacher doesn't help their students at all, then the students don't learn anything. The best results come from equal mentor : student cooperation.

Just my .02 FIRST dollars

[pfreivald]

We believe that cooperation between students and mentors is paramount to success in FIRST -- that means both on the field and in the lives of students. FIRST Team 1551 strives to be cooperative at all levels, and mentor/student is no exception.

Our students knew nothing about PID before this season; now they know more than they did. That's a win. It's also a win because our robot works better than it did. By next year, hopefully they'll know even more about what P, I, and D values work, and why.

The long and short of it is this: don't worry overmuch about what other teams are doing. Do what you think is best, and if you think another team has an advantage because of their philosophy, beat them anyway.