2022 FEB 23 | Written by the FIRST Volunteer Resources Team
We want all FIRST ® Robotics Competition teams and team members to feel successful as you engage in team meetings, the next iteration of your competition robot, competitions, and a brighter future, but you may not always have the resources you need close by. That’s why we created FIRST ® Mentor Network sponsored by NI. The community platform provides new and returning FIRST teams access to passionate, engaged mentors, while giving mentors the opportunity to use their unique skill sets and have meaningful involvement with one or more teams.
With the added and ongoing complications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FIRST Mentor Network has proven to be a great resource for teams to connect virtually and in-person with mentors. The new employer feature also allows teams to see a mentor’s listed employer and make a connection with industry experts and organizations that actively support FIRST.
Whether your FIRST Robotics Competition team needs support for fundraising, branding, or robot-building, you can find one or more of the 900 mentors across the U.S. and Canada. These mentors offer both technical and non-technical skills, come from across the U.S. and Canada, and are available and ready to help.
To get started, teams should create a post by having your lead mentor access the platform from their FIRST Dashboard, and build a team profile.* The profile should highlight your successes, goals, and desired mentor skill sets and experience. After creating the profile, your lead mentor can find and communicate with FIRSTYPP (Youth Protection Program) verified mentors to provide your team with expertise and collaboration. Through more powerful mentor relationships, your team will learn to use their collective skills to make a positive impact on each other, in their community, and even the world. Create your team profile today!
*FIRST Mentor Network is only available to teams in U.S.A and Canada. All participants of the FIRST Mentor Network must be at least 18 years old and complete FIRST youth protection screening.
Last I checked 900 mentors were best found on CD, right @marshall?
More seriously though, we still need a way to email / contact teams who are way in over their heads. In theory this is the job of a FSM but they also are often in over their heads. Peer mentoring works but if the first contact is at an event, we’re still waiting on a full season to build that connection.
I’m asking for [email protected] or something, and only passing it through if the from field is an email in the Dashboard. Sensible, fast, and extensible. And (hopefully) likely to be used.
I also want to make the case that this isn’t a crazy software engineering feat. FIRST already has a “message the coordinator” button in VIMS, so they know how to relay email between users.
That said, it requires login to the dashboard, a process I’d say rivals rocket science in its complexity.
Edit: Look, I’m glad they have something but setting up an email relay and allowing the RDs/DCs to freely distribute mentor email addresses would be easier. Past that, working with Microsoft/LinkedIn, who is already a sponsor, on some feature to enable FIRST mentoring as part of professional development/resume building would be a win/win. Going beyond that… working with TBA and integrating more of the team capabilities into something that can also help teams communicate with each other and find mentoring support would be useful. Beyond that, when teams get started, making sure they have some mentor support beyond “Primary contact with a credit card to pay for registration” would be awesome. Just seems like there are easier and better ways to help teams than whatever this is… hiring/anointing a community development manager to post on CD or just letting the staff post (most of them seem to have accounts anyway) would be useful. For all I know, they’ve tried all of this and it’s all failed. I don’t work for them and they mostly don’t tell me stuff. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Bill&Ted Talk. Be excellent to each other.
