We are team 9575 and this year was our rookie year. We were about 12 or so people and we had 2 mentors.
The head mentor is the programming mentor but he has no experience in Java, and he handles buisness of the team. The other mentor only shows up during comp and build season to help out with mechanical stuff. Starting the offseason, I want to give our team a good run. Most of our team (80%) are graduating so we will have a team comprised of completely new people next year mostly.
I am currently showing some of my classmates who are interested what we do, java programming and the robot but I feel extremely unqualified to teach this because I never got properly taught myself and am still learning most of it. I wish we had more experienced mentors or experienced teams that can help us but I am not sure how to reach out to them. I found a vast amount of resources online, but I feel nothing beats a well experienced and enthusastic person telling it to your face.
How can I find people willing to give us a hand . One that we really need? Mentors or just a team willing to really support us.
I know about teams nearby website, and have emailed those nearby that had emails listed to contact but have gotten no response.
Getting more help definitely seems like it would be useful, but if you’re up front about not knowing everything I don’t see anything wrong with you teaching about the robot/programming. You can phrase it somewhat more as a collaborative learning session and you can all collectively figure things out. You’re just the person who happens to be organizing the sessions and planning what you’ll all be looking at. You don’t need to fully know what you’re teaching for people to learn. This isn’t meant to say getting someone to help you isn’t a good idea, just that you can still be a valuable teacher.
You are in a great place already thinking about next year!
Remember that knowing is only half the battle, when you don’t know something being able to figure it out is key.
On our team we focus on making it fun and inspiring. Make the team a place team members want to be and point each other toward great resources to keep learning.
FRC is not another class its an experience. As anyone who has studied engineering at college/post-secondary schools will tell you: Good engineering professors help you learn how to learn. (ie learn how to teach yourself).
We try to pick one or two projects to do in the offseason at a much reduced pace. Last year the team decided to build the smallest possible robot they code and compete at offseason events.
The previous year they team designed and built a 15 barrel T-Shirt cannon.
Both of these projects brought new team members into the fun and provided great opportunities for cross-training and having fun!