I’m currently a senior on a second-year team, and I am looking to mentor a team next season. I’ll be starting my BS in CS, but I think I have a good enough understanding of Java (might be Dunning-Kruger) to lend help to teams. Is there a specific place to look for teams who need help?
As for my own team, I thought about it and decided against it for various reasons.
Honestly I would recommend taking a year off to get used to college first. It’s a MASSIVE transition from high school and you may discover that you simply don’t have the time or energy for both. If you want to stay connected to FIRST you could volunteer at events (particularly as a CSA given your field of study). That also gives you a chance to identify local teams which might need help. Spend the year learning Java (maybe a Java class) as a way to dovetail your interests with professional development.
I agree with this.
Personally, I graduated from my team last year after spending two years on it as the strategy sub-team leader. I’m now in college attending NCSU. College is a pretty big transition from high school, especially in time management. Managing your coursework (especially if you go above 16 credit hours) can be difficult, especially when you find you want to join about 15 different clubs and groups on campus.
Regarding coursework, taking a Java course (or two) your freshman shouldn’t be too difficult to get into from my experience. I took a computer systems course my first semester and MATLAB my second semester (had the opportunity to take python or java).
Don’t.
I think a lot of students don’t quite understand what mentoring will really be like (and mentor roles/responsibilities varies team-to-team). Unfortunately, a lot of students return as “alumni mentors” but only stick around for a year or two. If you look at the mentor parades at events, there are toooons of 1st year mentors (both alumni and industry mentors), and the number drops sharply as you get to 2-4 and beyond.
If you feel that you have good experience that you will be able to pass on to future students and be able to help them understand and complete the things needed for FRC, then consider finding a team near your college.
I didn’t start mentoring until after college, but here’s what my experience was (Mechanical Engineering). Freshman and Sophomore year: mostly Gen-Eds so I had a decent amount of free time and could have mentored a team. Junior and Senior year got a lot more busy with classes, labs, research, homework, etc. and there’s no way I would have had time to mentor a team.
So if you do decide to mentor in college, my advice would be to be fully prepared to take a break during your Jr. and Sr. years to focus on school, and then possibly come back after you graduate.
I would have to say after doing exactly what you are talking about, going from being a team leader in high school on a second-year team to mentoring my first year in college has been a bit rough. It’s stressful and hard to establish priorities. I would also recommend volunteering at events because you can stay involved but not jump into the deep end of being an adult leader.
That being said I have two recommendations if you want to go crazy and mentor, one do not mentor your team, and two stays away from being a head mentor of your skill set or the only one.
You do not want to become a mentor for your own team because the friendships and particular relationships between you and other team members will become extremely stressed if you are trying to transition from friend to adult leader… it just doesn’t go well.
If you decide to mentor don’t be the only one of your skill set, there are very very few people that will have a large enough knowledge of there field. There are hundreds of ways to build, program, design, and use things. You will not no matter how much time you’ve spent in FIRST as a student know enough to teach others the skills they need. I’m sorry but I know from experience.
My son was a founding drive team member on our first year team and became a mentor in our second year …he loves it and leads the builders along with the lead engineer student then he is usually our drive coach if not away for military service… this is on the same team he was a senior on. He’s a huge asset to our team and all the students past three years have always looked up to him. His skills and in game knowledge are assets to incoming new members.
He finds time to do it along with college and military service and two jobs.
So if it calls to you…do it. Do what you want.
Otherwise don’t, not every senior has time or passion to continue as an FRC mentor.
He does it 4 month out of the year during “robot season”
I would suggest another alternative would be to volunteer to help out an FTC team. Bringing your experience from FRC along with a knowledge of programming would be a huge help. It is also easier because there is more of an age difference and it is easier for the students to identify you as a mentor instead of a “fifth year senior” which could be the view of high school students.
Marshall with the succinct answers here.
I tell seniors: go volunteer at an event next year. It’s three days, it’s contained, they feed you, and it’s a good way to get your fix.
I didn’t practice that when I graduated, and yeah, it’s awkward to be right back on a team run by the teacher who taught you freshman pre-chemistry. It’s now a rule on 1293.
The other thing that can (will) happen is that you’ll feel an obligation to the team (obviously you want your friends to succeed), and will be pressured to spend more and more of your time during build season and competition season. You’ll become a stressed out, sleep deprived wreck wondering how on earth you’re going to pass those midterms and keep your marks high enough to maintain your scholarship – and your team will still be wondering why you can’t put even more hours into them “like you used to”.
At least with mentoring another team you can set expectations going in and it’ll be easier to say no to things in order to maintain your studies.
It’s generally considered a good idea to focus on school for at least your first year of college. It’s a big transition, and college grades matter a lot when you’re looking for work. For extended rumination on that subject, please see this sticky thread from the general forum.
My best recommendation to you is find an event near your college or your hometown to volunteer at over your spring break (or equivalent), be helpful on CD when the traditional panicked programmer threads form during build season, and otherwise take next season off. The bonus from volunteering near your college is that you can meet local-ish teams and see both who needs more mentoring help and what their team culture is like.
Finding a new team to mentor isn’t just about what they need, it’s also about whether you are comfortable with the team culture – how often do they meet and where, who makes decisions and how, what is the expectation for how mentors and students interact…
Taking time off to volunteer or pursue something else are good recommendations for any recent HS graduate. Would +1 the above posters who suggested that.
If that is an avenue you do not pursue I would recommend the following.
-Don’t mentor your current team, look around. You already seem to have reached that conclusion on your own for various reasons, but for other students in your position reading this post its not wise to try to mentor your peers the following year. Many teams have four year policies before alums can come back and mentor. Reach out to a senior mentor in the area or talk to mentors on other teams in the area.
Hey, so, I’ll chime in here. My senior year was 2015. I enrolled at a college 3.5 hours away from my HS team. I spent the first two weeks of build season with them and then went to help them out at events (kind of). It was a good break to not be spending so many hours per week for so many weeks on end and I still got to have my “FRC fix” by going to the events (which were very conveniently located for me – my college town and my hometown).
The next year (2017) I did the same thing. It was ok and I still got to have the great competition experience with the team. But being 3.5 hours away from your robot during build season sucks.
This year I’m mentoring a more local team and it’s great. I get to spend hours and hours and hours at meetings. I’m a much better mentor than I would have been two years ago when I graduated HS. I’ve grown up a bit and I’ve learned a lot more about robots.
I recommend exploring the option of either volunteering or becoming a “remote advisor” / “overattached alum” / “college mascot” for your HS team if you’re on good terms with them. Let them do their thing but help out here and there. (Don’t let yourself think that you have any part of their robot. That’s when it gets annoying for others.) You still get the competition fix. If not, you could volunteer, like others said.
For me, it wasn’t about adjusting to college. I was adjusted within my first 3 days of arriving. It’s about learning enough - not just about robots, but about life in general - to become a solid, effective role model for your students.
Since the question was how to find a team that needed help, I will share my experience finding a team to mentor my freshman year of college. Location was a big factor for me because I did not have a car to get to meetings. I used FIRSTmap https://firstmap.github.io/ by 1418 to find teams in the South Bend area that would be close enough that I could bum a ride from other mentors. I was left with 135, 5484, and 3865. I looked at the team’s performance for the past few years on Blue Alliance and narrowed my choice to 3865 because I wanted the chance to help a program grow. As a potential programming mentor, I would look at autonomous routines for nearby teams. Maybe they haven’t had an auto or just drove straight. If you want a challenge, look for a team that has never used vision or PID control.
This thread is going to be full of responses telling you not to mentor your first year. As someone that has done it and is continuing, I want to leave you with my 2 cents. Last year I was in Gen-Eds and able to spend a lot of time mentoring, I hardly missed a meeting and stopped playing video games and other time sucks to stay caught up on my work. This year I’m getting into the Mechanical Engineering curriculum which is much more time intensive and have cut back my involvement to a couple days a week and weekends. My general rule of thumb is if I have to stay up past midnight to get my work done then I don’t go to the meeting that day. To be as involved as I have been I had to trade off involvement in clubs and sports. I am content with this because I have gotten much more out of mentoring than troubleshooting the Notre Dame Robot Football fleet or welding the frame of the Baja race car. You need to be realistic with your time and be ready for the difficult transition from student to teacher. I am still struggling with this, but as I gain more technical and teaching skills, I hope that with a couple years practice I can be a half decent mentor.
I have seen college “mentors” on teams do extremely well with the work load, but it isn’t for everyone. If you still want to be involved with a team instead of volunteering, just help them out. Don’t try and be a full time mentor during the build season. You can help at the beginning of the season by building practice elements, or helping students analyze the game. You could come in once a week and show students how to use machines, or write code. Don’t expect, or try, to be a full mentor. It will only add unneeded stress. There is nothing stopping you from helping a team your first year in college, and as I said, I have seen it work for quite a few people.
I was with my old high school team my winter break during my freshman year of college, but after that I went on to mentor a rookie team my sophomore/junior years full time. It’s really fun to work with a new team as an alumni mentor, easier to get involved than older teams with very established hierarchies. Who knows? When your team is only 2 years old you might qualify for Champs with your old high school team as your alliance captain (shoutouts to 1259 @Wisconsin Regional) :ahh: . I would say taking it easy your freshman year is a good call, speaking from experience 
As a college freshmen and mentor, I may have some good insight. I have made a few mistakes scheduling wise, but given the opportunity again, I would do it every time. Mentoring has been a great experience and I have learned so much. I have really grown to appreciate everyone on the team and I have made some of my best friends at college through mentoring the team.
My decision to mentor may not be the same as yours will be and I am not pressuring you mentor or take a few years off. Everyone’s situation is different and there is no definitive yes/no answer to your question. I am just going to give you my experiences:
**
Deciding to Become a Mentor:**
I did not decide to become a mentor before going to college, but rather during. I could argue this is because I didn’t know the team existed before college, but it is still a good idea nonetheless. Use your first semester to gauge whether you can balance the workload. Jumping into two very new and very time consuming experiences is very stressful. Do not thrust yourself into both positions when you haven’t even gotten used to one of them. The first one you should get used to is always college. That’s why you are there in the first place.
When testing the waters of mentorship (which I would start doing around October/November assuming your first semester will be in the fall), only go to a couple of meetings a week. This wasn’t much of an option for me as the team I mentor (6844) only met two days a week in the pre-season.
Deciding Who to Mentor
Another thing that wasn’t an option for me but may be for you is to not mentor a team that is in dire need of help. If you choose to mentor a struggling team or a rookie, you may be put into more time consuming mentor leadership roles you may not have time for and compromise your schooling. While I definitely have learned a ton from being the team’s lead build/CAD/design mentor, it has been extremely taxing on me.
I would suggest you choose a more established team, one that ideally has a mentor or two in the thing you are interested in helping out with (in your case, programming). In this situation, you will still be able to effectively help the team, but also have flexibility in taking breaks when the semester gets tough. Flexibility is not something I had.
Working With the Team
The most important thing is communication
Before you commit to becoming a mentor, tell the head coach or mentor how much time you will be able to help out the team, and let them decide whether you are a good fit for the team and their schedule. At this point you should have gauged how well you can balance school and a meeting or two a week. If that was all you felt comfortable with, keep it that way. If it was easy for you, maybe add a day or two. I would not suggest an every weekday schedule, especially if team meetings during the build season are long. I showed up almost every day during build season, but most non-Saturday meetings didn’t exceed 2 or 3 hours. I could not imagine what every day for 5 hours would do to my grades.
Get in a good relationship with the team you are going to mentor, both the students and the mentors. You do not need the extra stress of dealing with a student or mentor who do not work well with. Luckily, I haven’t had any bad experiences with any of my fellow mentors or students on the Provotypes, but my level of stress was high as is. Any extra load from not working well with someone would have definitely had negative consequences.
During Build Season
This is pretty much an extension of your preparation from the previous few months. Communication is key, being realistic when you need to take time off is key. I would treat the times you gave the mentors as the cap for your time commitment. Don’t go over. Don’t compromise time to study or do homework. It’s good to be committed to the team, but don’t let that commitment compromise your commitment to school.
My Biggest Mistake
Don’t take more credits during the build season! I really wanted to get more classes out of the way in the winter and incorrectly gauged how difficult and time-consuming a few of them would be (I blame everyone who told me Multivariable is easier than Calc 2:rolleyes: ). Taking 16.5 credits during the build season is not fun. Don’t do it your freshman year. Don’t do it during build season.
As a Mentor, your first priority should be to focus on your own education. You would be setting a bad example if you flunk out of college.
The alumni from a number of Houston area teams help their former teams for about the first week before going back to their schools out of town. A few keep in touch and help evaluate CAD renderings. Quite a number come home for a visit and volunteer at local events serving as Referees, Robot Inspectors, Field Reset, Game Announcers.
I myself spend my first year in college mentoring a local team. Here are my thoughts.
TIME
LEARNING TO BE EXPERIENCED
2. The is a lot behind mentoring. It’s amazing what all has to be done, and how much more there was. If you do mentor right out of college, make sure you take with some younger mentors who have done the same, so you have an idea about whats going on. This is my 5th year mentoring a FIRST team, and FRC is definitely different than mentoring FLL or FTC. You will end up learning a lot, but only if you are dedicated, and not everyone is able to due to conflicts.
NOT YOUR OWN
3. I highly suggest looking into a team different than your own. This is both for your team and for yourself. First, it’s very critical that, as a mentor, students view you as a mentor. That distinction is quite important. I know that would not have been true with my old team. Also, it has been an amazing learning experience for myself switching teams. I have learned from their team culture, as well been able to bring a little from my old team.
TEAM CULTURE
4. Team culture will be different if you mentor a new team. You have to understand that to realize the differences you will encounter. Starting off, you will want to have your old team culture, but you will slowly adjust if you want to be an effective mentor. That culture shock can definitely be a shock if you are not prepared.
WHERE TO MENTOR
5. As for where to mentor, that depends on where you are located out of. If you plan to go to college, then there might be a program associated with it. I am currently at Purdue University, and we have something call Purdue FIRST Programs (PFP). They allow we to network with multiple teams, and mentor my current one. Check if there are support groups for these areas.
Mainly though, stay close, travel time is no fun, and can be super draining.
WHO TO MENTOR
6. FRC might be for you, but never leave out the possibility FTC or FLL. Those are also great programs to mentor, can take less time, and is typically less stressful. FLL was especially like that, and having mentored multiple FLL teams for 4 years of high school was a glorious experience, which I highly suggest doing if you want to still make an impact on a student’s lives without having to put in the grueling hours during build season.
My largest suggestion for mentors is learning to connect with your students. Having a good relationship is not only good for getting kids to learn from you, but also having more fun.
It separates good mentors from great ones.
Good luck in your endevors. If you or anyone else would like to know more about my experiences, just let me know.
As much as I concur that it may not be the right thing to do, I did not see anyone answer OP’s real question, which is how to find and contact a team. Team locations can be found quickly at https://firstmap.github.io/, or with a bit more work at https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search. Another good place to start (or if you can’t find enough contact info for a team) is with the local FIRST Senior Mentor, or contact a nearby local regional/district planning committee.