Mentors are the core of FIRST Robotics

Posted: Jan. 26, 2010

It's ironic that the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition (FRC) kicks off in January, the same month that recognizes mentors through National Mentoring Month (NMM). FRC thrives because of mentors: engineers working side-by-side with high school students to guide them in building a robot.

Created by the Harvard School of Public Health and MENTOR, National Mentoring Month (NMM) marks its ninth year in 2010. It focuses on creating national attention on the need for mentors to assure a brighter future for young people.

FRC has been brightening futures since 1992 when creator Dean Kamen sought to create excitement and passion for science, engineering, math and technology. Now in its 19th season, 25,326 mentors and adult supporters in 50 states and four provinces in 12 countries allow 45,225 students on 1,809 teams to take part in the FRC challenge.

Guided by mentors, students use sophisticated software and hardware and "play with the pros" to design, build, wire and program a robot in six weeks.

In Mukwonago, the Mukwonago B.E.A.R.s (Building Extremely Awesome Robots) FRC Team 930 has been nurturing youth for years. Mentors came to the team for a variety of reasons.

Team 930 mentors

Mentor Loren Tieman, part of the team in the early days, was pulled in to the team because his business was the first entry in the yellow pages. Mukwonago High School called him looking for an engineer to start a robotics team. Many seasons later, Tieman is still part of the FIRST excitement.

He has watched students grow since they were in FIRST LEGO League (FLL) in elementary school. He has seen students who are struggling in school flourish in robotics and continue on to college to study engineering. He has watched leadership skills develop as students moved through the program.

"I don't think there is any other program that I've seen that puts kids together with professionals," said Tieman. "It keeps me thinking out of the box. These kids think out of the box all the time."

While mentoring provides more of a one-on-one atmosphere, Tieman sees mentoring as a social and professional responsibility.

"Anybody that lives in the community should give back to the community," Tieman said. "From the mentoring part, anyone who is a professional owes it to their careers, to their profession. Who better to fill the slots of those who retire than the people you've been training?"

GE electrical engineer Jeff Fenstermaker came to the team three years ago after hearing co-workers talk about their experience mentoring teams. GE paired him with Team 930.

"It's really refreshing working with people who want to do this," Fenstermaker said. "They're not getting paid. They're taking their time from other things to do this."

Fenstermaker enjoys the energy of the students and their eagerness to learn. "It's skills I didn't learn until I graduated from college and worked a couple of years," Fenstermaker pointed out.

From a professional standpoint, it's an opportunity to generate recruits and talent for the future to a depth that schools can't provide because of time and money constraints.

Mukwonago High School English teacher Dan Hansen has spent a number of years off and on with Team 930. He sees similarities between teaching and mentoring in FIRST. The two aspects complement each other since students don't always get to apply what they learn in the classroom, and teaching provides a basis for what they learn in FRC.

Hansen specializes in game strategy for the team.

"I love games. I love game playing, and to play a game of this complexity with robots of this complexity is exciting," said Hansen.

Hansen also enjoys seeing students get excited about the game.

"I like seeing the progress," he said. " I like seeing light bulbs go off. I feed off that excitement both in teaching and in robotics."

A newcomer to FRC mentoring, mechanical engineer Derek King learned about the team and FIRST through a couple of team members.

"It's a great opportunity to see and have instruction beyond the classroom of real-world activities, to see how engineering takes place in real-life situations," King said

King enjoys the teamwork and having a common goal. In college, he was part of similar activities.

"These types of projects, more than any classes, prepared me for the real world in engineering," said King.

Team members

Mukwonago senior Josh Holat sees a mentor as "someone who takes time out of their day to help high schoolers learn about things they could never learn about in school. They can offer real-world experiences and provide real-world applications for tasks commonly done in their fields of expertise."

Through Team 930 mentors Holat has learned about planning, decision-making and electrical engineering, as well as how to work with a team for a common goal. He's learned the value of perseverance.

"My mentors in robotics have affected my life tremendously. Not only do they serve as role models kind enough to devote the large amounts of time required of robotics, they are also extremely intelligent and inspirational," Holat said.

Sophomore Josh Santarelli learned useful work skills, such as the importance of planning and designing before actually building, thoroughly discussing all aspects of the purpose/goal/design to determine what is important. He learned that it is important to divide work into different aspects, with leaders to oversee each aspect.

Santarelli added that mentors don't "just tell or show you how to do something, instead they guide you toward the answer, giving you hands-on experience by giving you only the help or information that you need, and letting you figure it out."

To learn more about mentoring, visit www.mentoring.org. To learn more about FIRST Robotics, visit www.usfirst.org.