Engineering Mentors Attitude/Role Towards Their NEM Counterparts

[MGoelz]

The beauty of FIRST is that there is a place for everyone. Not just every student, but every mentor as well. The only real reason there can be a niche for each and every student is because the mentors have come along to create those places. It doesn't matter what degree you hold or how much technical expertise you have when you're part of a team. Every contribution is valuable.

When it comes time to brainstorming, everyone on our team contributes. It's a wonderful way to get ideas. Oftentimes, when you have a team with members that have been there for awhile and have worked with the mentors for a couple of years, they will start thinking a bit of the same way. Sometimes, those not involved with the physical aspects of the robot can have the most interesting ideas. It's when you combine all of the best qualities of ideas that a team produces a fine robot.

Our team members treat our mentors equally. They all have value to us, and I can personally say I have learned something from each of them, engineering related or life related.

Another interesting thing about FIRST is that if you're around it long enough, you don't really need to have an engineering degree to understand how to design and build a robot. If you put someone that has been in FIRST ten years next to the brightest engineer from a sponsoring company and ask for ideas for a robot, I can almost guarantee that the person with the most FIRST experience will have the better and more feasible idea. FIRST is its own little wonderful world of robots and engineering and networking, where oftentimes experience outweighs technical expertise.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by MGoelz

Another interesting thing about FIRST is that if you're around it long enough, you don't really need a degree. If you put someone that has been in FIRST ten years next to the brightest engineer from a sponsoring company and ask for ideas for a robot, I can almost guarantee that the person with the most FIRST experience will have the better and more feasible idea. FIRST is its own little wonderful world of robots and engineering and networking, where oftentimes experience outweighs technical expertise.

Be careful with this line of thinking. Any one can come up with an idea but often times it is the real engineers who get it to work. (Not taking anything away from non-engineers but belittling the work an engineer went through to get their title irks me)

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

(Not taking anything away from non-engineers but belittling the work an engineer went through to get their title irks me)

I'd switch out the word, title, for degree or degrees. There has just been a post in this thread about college mentors who lead teams. They don't have their degrees and are not engineers but they are leading teams. That doesn't belittle anyone.

--
One attitude that I've encountered over many years of talking with NEMS and technical mentors is the food side of things. "If the NEMS didn't feed us, we'd starve", kind of thing. That is a 'volunteer' to me; that is not a NEM. Where it can become a NEM process is if the person mentors others in how to feed a team. Otherwise, it is a volunteer finding a way to feed a team.

There are so many aspects to the non-technical sides of the team that must be handled well to have sustainability and consistency. The work that is done by the NEMS is, indeed, valuable. It has been mentioned in this thread that there are technical mentors and engineers who have excellent skill sets in the non-engineering aspects of running the team and they apply those skill sets. This is good as long as a technical mentor is not taking away from the robot side of things to devote time to the organizational and business side of things or working with the awards sub-team. Too many times you see this and you see the mentors stretching themselves too thin. If it is out of necessity because there are not other mentors available then that is one thing. If it is because the technical mentors/engineers want to do the NEM work, that is another thing. If it is because the technical mentors/engineers want to control every aspect of the whole team - that is quite another. Recognizing the value of the work done by the NEMs and seeking NEMS to help the team is just as important as seeking out engineers and technical mentors to work with the team. Then, the real fun begins with everyone learning to work together. We can see the success of achieving this in many of our Hall Of Fame teams.

Jane

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

I'd switch out the word, title, for degree or degrees. There has just been a post in this thread about college mentors who lead teams. They don't have their degrees and are not engineers but they are leading teams. That doesn't belittle anyone.

Nope, it is a title. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineer A degree does not make you an engineer. My friend for example, is not an engineer, he is a person who holds a BS in Electrical Engineering.

In some places it is actually illegal to call yourself an Engineer without having met certain requirements. As one of those College Students helping to run a team (come by 397 and see how many people over the age of 24 are involved in our team) I have no problem admitting I am not an Engineer yet. I still hold that as a goal of mine. (Except CS majors cannot become PEs in the state of Michigan)

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

A degree does not make you an engineer. My friend for example, is not an engineer, he is a person who holds a BS in Electrical Engineering. In some places it is actually illegal to call yourself an Engineer without having met certain requirements.

[IronicObservation]
As far as I'm concerned, if you don't drive a train, you aren't an engineer.
[/IronicObservation]

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

One attitude that I've encountered over many years of talking with NEMS and technical mentors is the food side of things. "If the NEMS didn't feed us, we'd starve", kind of thing. That is a 'volunteer' to me; that is not a NEM. Where it can become a NEM process is if the person mentors others in how to feed a team. Otherwise, it is a volunteer finding a way to feed a team.

I agree completely. I appreciate every thing that volunteers do, however it is important to draw this distinction. A Non-engineering mentor should work with the students interested in those fields teaching them about the business, logistics, and marketing (I am sure I am missing plenty that NEMs do) aspects of the team. By the same definition, an engineer who is not working to mentor the students is not a mentor he/she is a volunteer. It doesn't matter if you write a thousand lines of code for a robot, if you didn't teach and/or inspire the HS students as you did it then you are not a mentor.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

One attitude that I've encountered over many years of talking with NEMS and technical mentors is the food side of things. "If the NEMS didn't feed us, we'd starve", kind of thing. That is a 'volunteer' to me; that is not a NEM. Where it can become a NEM process is if the person mentors others in how to feed a team. Otherwise, it is a volunteer finding a way to feed a team.

I must meditate on this paragraph, and I must remember to use what it says in future discussions. It presents succinctly a way to resolve a vague uneasiness about team organization that's been nagging at me for a couple of years.

[JaneYoung]

Thank you, Alan and James. It is a simple thought which reflects a simple truth.

One of the first threads that caught my attention when I was discovering Chief Delphi is this thread started by JVN. It discusses the value of mentoring and explores what that means.

It is a thread that I search for and study in times of frustration and struggle as a NEM in a world of people who don't often understand what NEMs are and the opportunities they are filled with. This includes the FIRST world.

Jane

[MGoelz]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Be careful with this line of thinking. Any one can come up with an idea but often times it is the real engineers who get it to work. (Not taking anything away from non-engineers but belittling the work an engineer went through to get their title irks me)

Note that I did not give any credit to non-engineers for making something work. I simply was talking about them still being able to contribute to the process despite their lack of expertise. I would never belittle anyone or their work.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by MGoelz

Another interesting thing about FIRST is that if you're around it long enough, you don't really need to have an engineering degree to understand how to design and build a robot. If you put someone that has been in FIRST ten years next to the brightest engineer from a sponsoring company and ask for ideas for a robot, I can almost guarantee that the person with the most FIRST experience will have the better and more feasible idea.

LOL!

I have lots of FIRST experience. Almost 10 years. I've worked with teams, hung out with some really cool VIPs, given countless presentations, helped run events, done thousands of hi fives, met lots and lots of incredible volunteers, and best of all, have interacted with thousands of students.

I know almost nothing about building a robot.

I leave that to the technical mentors.

What drew me into FIRST and kept me engaged was problem-solving, teamwork and partnerships.

But years ago Kathie and I (and another mentor named Cheryl) started talking about all the work we were doing on a team and it had nothing to do with building a robot. In one conversation we made up the word "non-engineering" mentor to describe what we were doing (it was a joke - never meant it to stick) and NEMO was launched. It's fun to see how this label has stuck in the FIRST world and to meet all the great mentors who play these important roles on the teams.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

I often treat myself poorly

To be fair, we all treat him poorly.