Been thinking about some projects for Fall and was wondering how you folks/teams try and help your fellow local teams. As Wisconsin continues to grow and hopefully make the eventual move towards Districts, I’m trying to get some ideas for how to more directly help teams that need it in our area in the meantime.
Do you have any systems in place where teams can ask for help from teams nearby?
Do you run any workshops to try and help other teams out?
What kind of resources are helpful to have curated locally?
Do you do anything special during season? (Scrimmages, design reviews, ect.)
In Türkiye we have a mentors WhatsApp group where all the mentors in the country can talk, ask for help, etc, and where we can inform them of the various goings on they can participate in, and where they can inform each other of team events.
We run mentor workshops in the early fall to help mentors prepare to help their students (we also consistently have 10s of new teams, so we have lots of new mentors) There are also typically workshops at kickoffs.
Bit of an FRC desert out here in the NW part of the state. There is a strong group down near Lacrosse but otherwise maybe a half dozen teams between there and Duluth. And a few of those orient towards Minnesota. (not with regards to Packers/Vikings of course). Locally we offer a little help to the several new teams that have come along in recent years, not that they seem to need it that much. And of course parts and expertise are informally shared. We’ve done a few demos with the teams in Eau Claire and would really like to find a scrimmage space some day.
5826
Chippewa Falls
Things that have been the most successful in Texas (been trying stuff for 10+ years).
Mentor Slack for mentors, teachers, volunteers. Let’s people easily ask questions and a simple place to stay up to date with local FRC news. Quiet enough for most people to be able to follow along.
Mentor workshops - we have been running them since 2012 and they help build the mentor network as people actually get to meet each other while not having to manage their teams at the same time. We also use this time to introduce mentors to new technologies, products, techniques, etc.
Houston FRC Development Program - this is a project by 3847 and 5414 where we helped mentor 10 young (1-3 years old cause Covid) teams last season, we gave them parts supplies, went to their build sites, tried to answer their questions when possible, etc. It wasn’t a perfect program but it definitely was better than other things we have tried.
I’ll also add that FIRST Canada started an official Ontario FRC and FTC slack support workspace this past season. I’ve absolutely loved it. It’s given mentors a place to easily connect with each other (I had a few teams get in touch with our team because they were able to easily contact me through Slack) and has been a great source of information IMO. It’s also great that there are FIRST Canada staff members active in the workspace, as it gives an easy way to get in touch with them and hear first hand what’s going on in the district.
I can only hope the member base grows further this coming season, and would encourage other areas/districts to adopt a similar network of mentors and volunteers.
*If any volunteers/mentors/teachers etc. from the Ontario district aren’t already in the Slack workspace, feel free to PM me and I’ll send you an invite link (probably not a great idea to post the invite link on a public forum )
It can be a lot, but actually loaning out mentors for a season is possibly the biggest help. Our rookie year we had 3 mentors come from other teams (3683, 2702, and 1241), and they were basically normal mentors for our team that year. It got us up to speed so much faster than anything else we could have done - having them available on a weekly basis, showing us things they learned on their teams.
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