What are your Mentor Experiences?

FIRST General Forum
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Starting later this year I will be moving to Arizona. I was inspired by a mentor of mine to repay his kindness by becoming a Mentor myself. I’m trying to decide what kind of a Mentor I want to be, how to really make an impact on a team, and what I can do for FIRST in general.

Now I understand that I should “Discover how I mentor myself” and other such quotes, I really do. But I enjoy stories and I want to enjoy hearing about your experience either with Mentors or as a Mentor yourself. There are also a lot of different people with different experiences.

For example the stories of a 2 year mentor is different from that of a 21 year mentor. There is the difference between a student who has been with a team for a single year and those who have been a part of FIRST since elementary school. Then there are Students who have become mentors and mentors who became District Managers. All of which are stories I would absolutely love to hear.

So here’s the question:

**What are you Mentor Experiences, either as a mentor or as a student? **

and/or

Based on your experiences, what would you like to see in a mentor?

Edit: Yes; I will be in College and I know my studies come first. Yes; I know mentoring takes up a lot of free time. Yes; I have a plan to keep my grades up and not fall behind. I’m moving from Texas to Arizona, almost nothing up there is the same. FIRST is the only thing that is similar there and I would like to keep at least one part of my life the same.

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This seems like a great place to tell my FIRST story and where I’m at now :smiley:

I got introduced to first back in 1999 (I think). My Uncle got my parents to bring me up to a competition in Michigan. I was hooked, and tried like hell for the next year to get my school involved. It did not happen, FIRST was still new and my school would not get on board, and no one was interested in sponsoring us.

I lost interest and ended up going to college for Industrial Technologies with a concentration of Electronics (As close to an EE as Kent State University had). My major adviser told me he had an Alumni reach out to him. The alumni was shop teacher now, and needed some help on a robotics team. Turns out that team was FRC 1278 the B.E.A.R.S. I was a college mentor and on field coach for them in 2005 and 2006. I loved it, it gave me the chance I did not have in high school. I was able to share my electrical experience with the team, and while we did not even make playoffs in our 1 regional each year, we still had a blast. Unfortunately the team did not compete after 2006 due to a mix of funding and student participation issues. And for me personally, life and college got in the way.

Fast Forward to 2010: I had now moved from the Akron area to Columbus, Ohio and worked for Time Warner Cable. Around that time they were just starting their Connect a Million Minds initiative. The Central Ohio Robotics Initiative was hosting an off season event. TWC was a sponsor and was looking for employees interested in Judging. Of course I jumped at the chance, and judged the event in 2010 and 2011.

Life ended up taking me to Alabama in towards the end of 2011. Yet again, I found myself not local to ANY Robotics teams, not even BEST (which is bigger in the south for some reason). In 2014, My wife and I ended up buying a house. Being in stable place with my own office/work space, I started wanting access to a makerspace for 3D Printers, laser cutters and machining. I ended up finding out about ColumbusMakesIt! At a arts and crafts my wife wanted to attend. Talking with one of the founders, he was going on about all the stuff CMI was starting to get involved in and he mentioned helping out with school robotics programs. I stopped him and asked “FIRST or BEST?” He looked at me with that look of realization you get when you know someone knows what they are talking about!

I joined CMI and helped judge the 2016 Columbus FLL Super Regional where I got introduced to FRC 4188, Columbus Space Program. I mentored them as much as I could during the built season, and volunteered for the first time officially at the Columbus, GA and Albany district events. I also managed to get my Wife hooked as well and were looking forward to 2017 and beyond, Now that were finally “Stable” I hope to stick with FIRST longer than 2 years!

Now that I’ve rambled on about that, let me put some perspective in how I’ve evolved though FIRST. When I first started mentoring, I was more involved in the design and fabrication then I am now. It may be because I’m still new to 4188, but I find myself sitting back and asking the “What-If” questions that help the team members see something they may not realize, and trying to teach them how to troubleshoot problems better. It was also a VERY emotional experience for me this year getting into the playoffs, and the subsequent win we got in Columbus. Getting that W felt great after 11 years! Getting to experience Worlds was also a crazy trip I wont forget!

But that brings me to the other odd evolution I noticed this year. I honestly think that my place during competitions is volunteering. I love mentoring during the build season, but it felt like at Worlds, we just got in the way at times, so to speak. Again tats something that might change next year as I’m not the “new” mentor :slight_smile: I guess part of me likes being involved too, the logistics and “Man behind the curtain” aspect of competitions are fun to me. You don’t appreciate the amount of work that goes into something like a district event until your there 18-19 hours setting up, only to spend the same amount of time at the venue the last day until the last crate is loaded onto the semi.

One sad thing for me personally: I can never really be a FIRST alumni :frowning:

Sorry for the rambling, and I hope you find my story interesting :slight_smile:

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Cool thread!

I was an FRC student for 2 years in high school, and started mentoring my Freshman year of college. 2016 was my 10th season as a mentor.

I think the single biggest thing I’ve learned is that different teams utilize different styles of mentors. Finding your “mentoring style” may take some time, and several teams. I started as a mentor on 190 Gompei and the HERD, remotely mentored my high school team 971 Spartan Robotics, then joined Skunk Works 1983 for two seasons before my wife and I started a rookie team this season. All of those teams are very different in their team structure, team makeup and team goals, and how mentors are expected and encouraged to contribute are influenced by that. If you join a team as a mentor and don’t feel like you fit, don’t be discouraged. Stay a bit, learn what you can and then try something else another year. There are teams out there for every style. In my opinion, the more different experiences you can get as a mentor, the better mentor you will become.

Below is some of my personal experiences mentoring, hopefully it helps you. I am a technical mentor, primarily strategy and robot design.

The single biggest tool a mentor has is communication. Build personal relationships with your students. Get to know them personally, find out what they’re struggling with, what their passions and aspirations are. Build rapport and build mutual respect. It is very hard to be an effective mentor if you don’t have the respect of your students, and it’s very hard to earn the respect of students if you don’t respect them. It sounds obvious but it’s not easy. They will have good ideas and bad ideas, and so will you.

As you gain mentor experience through multiple seasons, the age difference will become more pronounced. Never forget that they’re still high school students. They will still goof off (they need to, and so do you!), and they will still make mistakes, some of which will seem stupid and obvious to you. You MUST allow students to make their own mistakes. I have found one of the most successful mentoring “tools” is to suggest a students try something in a particular way. If they choose to follow your suggestion, great. If they choose an alternate method (say a different machining technique) that’s OK too. If they decide to switch to your method and it works better, they will respect your idea more without you having forced it on them. You never want a student to resent doing something because they weren’t allowed to do it their way (unless their way is unsafe, in which case don’t let them). Understand that you will make mistakes too. Apologize for them if you realize it.

I try to have discussions with other mentors while students are around, if the subject is relevant and appropriate. If I’m working on a design problem with a student, I will often call over another mentor to bounce an idea off of. The student may or may not have enough experience to contribute to that discussion/decision, but they will hear, absorb and retain it. They will also appreciate that you don’t have the magic right answers, but that the process of engineering involves many people with experience providing opinions and double checking each other.

Three final thoughts: Firstly, mentors can have mentors too. I have many people in FIRST whom I look up to for their skills as a mentor, and have learned from.

Secondly, you can always learn from your students. They will blow you away with creativity, enthusiasm and often maturity beyond their years. We can always keep learning new things, it doesn’t matter from whom.

Last but not least, my personal golden rule of mentoring: Be passionate about what you do, and let it show. Passion for FIRST is infectious. Students will work much harder on a problem and care more about it if they feel like it is a priority to you and the team. It’s OK to get into heated discussions as long as it remains respectful. It’s OK to be disappointed with a poor performance, or be frustrated by something not working right. It’s ok to lose your voice screaming because you won a tough match that looked hopeless, and have your voice still be gone 3 days after Championships :rolleyes:.

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It was great, and I’m glad to hear your story. That’s definitely something you don’t hear everyday and it makes me appreciate what I have even more. Hope you guys do great things during off-season and 2017 Competition.

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Thank you. I needed to hear this. I didn’t know if it was acceptable for me to switch teams or not. I thought if I joined a team it was almost permanent. Kinda silly thought huh?

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Just like with jobs, it’s easy to become stagnant in your own growth if you stay in the same place for too long. I’ve switched teams twice (when switching locations), and you gain a different perspective and a different experience each time you do it.

I feel that it is valuable to mentor a team that is a good cultural fit. I am very fortunate to have found that with both 1747 and 225. If you aren’t having fun and aren’t happy, you aren’t going to be a great mentor.

All the members of 225 (both mentors and students) try to embody the bottom half of this image. Others give you a lot more respect when you’re ‘in the trenches’ slogging through the issues with them.

http://msl-cdn.radiantforestllc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/boss-vs-leader-800x800-300x300.png

Ultimately, the thing I hope students get out of the program is an experience having ownership in and working very hard to achieve a goal while gaining the skills to chase their own goal in the future (whatever it may be).

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That’s because it’s sponsored by and run out of Auburn University, and it’s free.

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As a student on my frc team I mentored an fll team for 3 years and really enjoyed doing it. I would assist the kids with whatever I could whether it was listen to project ideas and presentations or help them program and create a robot. My experience there helped me become a future mentor for frc because it taught me patience which is huge. It took the kids a while to do things and rather then do it for them (big no no in my book) and let them spin there wheel then offer my advice on how to overcome a problem that I offered never made them use. It was a really rewarding experience seeing how even only helping a student alittle made such a big difference.

Now my experience mentoring experience after I graduated from high school. I decided to pay it forward to another team instead of helping my old team (they have enough help). This team I knew going in didn’t have nearly as many resources or knowledge. I went in expecting the worse and was pleasantly surprised. I saw the dedication of the team members and that all they need was some guidance. I then would assist them with decision makong and designing of there robot by helping them talk it out and with the exicution of things. I’m glad I decided to mentor them cause I got to see a total different style of work that I never got from my team it helped me to grow up and learn even more about patience. I highly recommend mentoring if you have the time.

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My first experience with the challenging past time that is mentoring was while I was still a student on HOT Team 67. As a part of my volunteer work, I mentored one of our FLL teams during the FRC offseason. One thing took me completely by surprise – nobody actually knew what they were doing. All of the adults were mostly stumbling through this FIRST experience while trying to impart knowledge and wisdom to their students. But when we went to state championship and I got to experience the rush of watching my students succeed, I was hooked. Participating is fun, but mentoring is just so much better.

I made the mistake of jumping in as a mentor as a freshman in college. I went to Michigan Tech – going from being a member of a hall of fame team to mentoring two teams (857 and 2586) in the wilderness that is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. There’s no industry anymore, low population, low income, and small schools. But $@#$@#$@#$@# if yoopers aren’t the nicest people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. I remember rolling in there expecting to impart all of my expansive FIRST knowledge and transform the programs into hyper competitive success stories.

Needless to say, that is not what happened.

During my time in the UP, I learned how incredibly challenging it is to sustain a thriving FIRST program in rural, low resource areas. How nobody is going to respect or listen to you until you’ve earned that right. That being a mentor is less about building robots, but more about helping young people develop and grow – which is really hard when you’re 19 and have no idea what you’re doing. I learned that not all teams have access to a giant flagship sponsor, or a team of dedicated engineers, or school districts that are happy to work with you. That to be a good mentor, you have to take care of yourself first (AKA get more than 4 hours of sleep a night, actually study for exams, relax once in a while, etc.) before you can worry about others.

After eating slice after slice of humble pie for four years, I graduated and got a Big Kid Job in south east Michigan. I knew that I never wanted to leave FIRST, so I sat down at my computer and looked for the four closest teams to my office. I sent them all an email detailing what skills I had to offer, and that whichever team emailed me back first would have a new mentor. A mentor from Frog Force emailed me back – kid you not – less than five minutes later and I began my whirlwind journey with team 503. By the time I had gotten to Frog Force, I figured I had this whole mentor thing figured out. I would be working with a world class team again, and it would be smooth sailing just doing what I love (mostly Chairman’s work).

Once again, that is not what happened (I know – sensing a pattern yet?).

Once I started looking into all of the things that I would be involved with, I was tired before I even started. I swear this team has something going on every week – Jr. FLL, FLL, FTC, FRC teams to mentor. Offseason events to run. A giant event at Comerica Park. Parades. Demos. All of the work we’re doing in Detroit. This was going to be the opposite of smooth sailing! There was so much to do! Turns out, mentoring is hard no matter where you go.

Am I perpetually tired? Yes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way at this point. Now that I’ve had seven years of mentoring under my belt, I can say for sure that I still don’t know what I’m doing. None of us really do. I’m constantly surprised by how much trust and faith these students put in me – sharing about their lives and asking for help. Allowing me to help guide their path through and out of school. Their victories have become my victories, and their disappointments are mine too.

That’s what being a mentor means to me – when my team wins or loses, I have no personal stake in the matter. But I feel the excitement or the sadness that THEY feel. It’s not really about me anymore, and it’s really really rewarding. I keep a shoe box at home with all of the thank you notes and mementos from students over the years. When things get hard or I’m frustrated, I pull out that box and read through them. Their stories and gratitude for the role I played in their lives reminds me why I do this and why I should keep going. And it reminds me that I need to thank MY mentors more often – the ones from 67 who inspired me to keep going, all of my co-mentors from 857 and 2586, and the ones that I work with now on 503. I have and continue to learn a lot from all of them – hopefully that never stops.

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Some advice as someone that only participated my senior year of high school but then immediately started mentoring in college:

It’ll be nearly impossible for students to see you as a mentor and not a peer simply due to the small age difference. It’ll help however not knowing any of the students on the team. It’ll likely also be difficult to balance the desire to be a peer with the responsibility of being a mentor

It’ll take some time to learn how you want to be a mentor and not be a “student” team member. There are guidelines you can use from the mentor handbook in what you should or shouldn’t do as a mentor - but every team will draw different boundaries. My first several years of mentoring I took a very hands off method of mentoring because I know how much I appreciated being able to do any and everything as a high school student myself. I relied heavily on asking leading questions to get students to come up with the same idea I did without me telling them it. While my method of mentoring has changed considerably over the past 3-4 years, I’m still glad I took that method of mentoring as a college student

My personal take on mentoring is to focus on helping students feel accountable for their work. If students feel accountable for the success of whatever it is they’re working on, then I want to be right there next to them working with it on them, showing them new ideas, how other people have done it, how I would do it, etc. If students don’t feel accountable (such as they feel someone else on the team will take care of it, whether it’s another student or a mentor) then I want to be right there next to them trying to figure out how to change that. Again though, I think the small age difference will make it difficult to achieve the “authority” needed to really do this.

This may be a double doozy - 1st know that how you see your team function as a student may be way different than how your mentors see the team function. There’s a lot that mentors take care of behind the scenes. 2nd (and I’m sure you already know this) but there’s no right way to run a team and so if you are helping to mentor a different team and don’t necessarily like how it’s run, focus more on what you can bring to the table and what you can learn from others on the team rather than how to change the team. But also don’t be afraid to shop around to find the team that best fits with what’s important to you.

Lastly but most importantly - don’t be afraid to take a year or four off from the competition and come back to it later. You can always still keep FIRST as part of your life by volunteering.

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I’m not here to build a robot. I’m here to build students. That catchphrase has been attributed to me several times now and I’ve decided to own it. I think this should be the motto of every FRC mentor.

My background: I’ve spent 20+ years as a volunteer with a local summer camp, working with students from ages 8-18. Through all of this I’ve developed what I hope are a good set of skills for working with this age group. Both FRC teams I’ve mentored have recognized me with some sort of “mentor of the year” award including being the WFFA nominee on 2706, so I like to think it’s working :smiley:

My secret? Honestly, it’s simple. Treat everyone the same. I talk to a 9-year-old the same way I’d talk to any of you. No BSing, no patronizing, no exaggerated tones of voice. I listen when they speak, and even if they’re clearly wrong and “I know better because I’m an adult” I’ll work to steer and teach, not assert my authority “because I’m the leader”. I try to be very, very, very patient. These are traits that, frankly, are not always easy to model. But I work at it because I think it’s worth it.

You know what else I’ve been known to do? Say “I’m sorry. You were right. I was wrong.” Because, hey, it happens. And I’d say it to you, so why wouldn’t I say it to a student? How many times does a teenager hear an adult say that to them? (Try it, if you dare, and watch their reaction. And watch how much more respect they have for you afterward.)

I seek not simply to teach technical skills but to model what positive human behaviours in general should be like. Someone who listens and seeks to understand, not push the answer they already have. Someone who works with you rather than talks at you. Someone who can see the problem, be sympathetic to the frustrated party, but figure out a fair solution without playing favourites. Someone who understands that in life, losing is a thing, and dealing with it. These are skills everyone will need.

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Love this thread! Hope my story is helpful to you (and hope I do not ramble too much :)).

I was not involved in FIRST when I was in high school. The high school I went to had a robotics team (Red Alert Team 1741, woo!) and a lot of my friends (and my then boyfriend, now husband) were involved on the team. They always seemed to have tons of fun and I was really interested in it. However, I decided I wanted to focus on horseback riding, another one of my passions, and did not have the time needed to commit to both activities. Regardless, I would still show up to their competitions and cheer them on. I called myself a “fan” of FIRST.

I attended Purdue University, which has a student led organization called Purdue FIRST Programs (PFP). PFP helped support several FLL teams, an FTC team, and 4 local FRC teams. We helped provide mentors for them, and helped put on the Boilermaker Regional (before Indiana went to districts). I am sad to say I did not get involved until my senior year, which I regret. It was so much fun to be involved in FIRST in more of a direct way. I was the director of public relations, so I helped coordinate different events for our FRC teams (such as robot reveals, open houses, etc) and wasn’t directly involved with the students on the teams.

By the end of my senior year at Purdue, I knew that some day I wanted to help coach/mentor/teach high school students just from seeing how inspired and passionate they are about FIRST and what they are doing. I graduated from Purdue with a chemistry degree and a full time job at Procter and Gamble, so I knew if I wanted to help mentor or teach high school students, I would need to find a FIRST team to mentor.

After I moved to Cincinnati in 2014, I met Rick Oliver, a (now retired) mentor of FRC team 4028, The Beak Squad. They were the robotics team from a small, private high school that just happened to be 5mins away from my apartment. After attending a few of the meetings, I hit it off so well with the students and the other mentors, I was hooked.

Those who know me well understand that I am either very passionate about things or not at all; there is no in between for me. When we were attending our first competition for the 2015 season, I was so excited and could not wait to see our robot on the field! I was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement, at least that is what the students and other mentors on the team told me :). However, I noticed everyone else on the team was just going about their day like it was any other day, not like we were about ready to debut the robot we spent hours and hours on perfecting and testing. So, I took it upon myself to get the team pumped up and ready, much like athletes do before a big game. I would make sure my team would cheer when we were on the field, and actually show some team spirit! My goal was to make sure everyone was having fun and the team kept a positive atmosphere/attitude when things didn’t go wrong. Through this, the team started calling me the “spirit captain”, which makes me smile every time they say it. FIRST is about inspiring others and having fun while solving difficult STEM related problems, and I feel like I was able to accomplish that with this team, just by me being myself. This year, I am happy to say that I don’t really need to do much to get the team pumped up and cheering. Many of the students will start the cheers without me and ask me why I’m still in my seat if I am a little late to realize we are on the field. I started implementing team spirit wear, such as hair spray paint and face paint. Instead of having to convince the students to use these things to show their team spirit, they ask me at the end of every day “so if we are leaving at X time to go to the competition, what time do we need to be here to become team spiritified?” - this makes me so happy I cannot even describe it!!

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but another one of the reasons why I wanted to become a mentor was I because I want to make sure all of the students know they can do anything they want after college(be it engineering, science, art, business, etc) regardless of what society says. As a female scientist, I have ran into many instances where there were a ton of people who did not think I could be a scientist. In high school, I was told by many of my teachers and some of the faculty that I would never make it as a chemist or a scientist. That the path to becoming a female scientist was too hard and I wouldn’t make it. The only reason I did not give up on my life long dream of being a scientist is because I had 2 teachers who believed I could do anything and I would become an excellent scientist. I don’t know what I would have done with my life/career without those two teachers/mentors, but I know for sure I would not be as happy as I am being a chemist.

From all of the above, I have three goals as a mentor:

  1. Encourage at least one student to follow their dreams and passions, even if society is telling them they will never make it.
  2. Make sure all the students are having fun and the team has a positive atmosphere. Even when things are though, not going the way they were planned, and tensions are high, having a positive attitude and outlook can solve 75% of the problems.
  3. Become a tool the students use to accomplish their goals. I do not want to be the one carrying out the student’s tasks for them to accomplish a goal. I am there to facilitate their needs in anyway possible, but I want them to have the experience and satisfaction of actually reaching their goal on their own. For example,
  • If a student wants to see if a company would sponsor the team but they don’t know where to start, provide them with contact information and advice on sending an email/making a call.
  • If a studentwants to create a cool robot feature, but are having trouble describing it, introduce them to CAD and show them how they can bring their idea to life to show others.

Anyway, I could go on and on about how much I love being a mentor and how it has impacted my life, but I will stop my rambling. If you have any questions or want some advice on being a mentor, do not hesitate to reach out! :slight_smile:

I will leave you with the advice my teachers/mentors have instilled in me, “Do not worry if there will be a place for you in the world. If you follow your passion, you will create your own spot in the world that no one can ever take from you.”

~Rachel
2 Year Mentor for 4028
Team Spirit Captain and Co-Lead Strategy/Scouting Mentor
Purdue FIRST Programs Alum
Purdue University Alum

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PFP member here too (though back when it was PUFP). I think it’s really cool how many PFP members are out in FIRST doing good stuff still!

I think it would have been harder to be a mentor for a FIRST team while still in college without that program (and I really only mentored two years because my co-op took me away in the spring).

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Thank you all for your kind words and amazing stories! Words can’t describe how happy each and every story made me. I will take each story to heart as I move forward and I hop to hear from more people.