In January and February, I had the opportunity to go out and talk to educators from across the country at two different conferences: the Future in Education Technology Conference (FETC) and the Texas Computer Education Association conference (TCEA). While it is impossible to capture the essence of every conversation, there are a few that stuck out to me – especially one I had at TCEA. This educator has a high school VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) team and robotics class. They have been trying, for several years now, to encourage the older students (11th and 12th graders) to teach the basic robotics concepts to the newer students. And year after year, the older students are more focused on their competition robot and their own skills than improving the skills for the younger students. 

As teachers, we can logically see how the time spent mentoring younger students would potentially improve the team’s scores and standings year over year. They would already understand many basic mechanisms and coding concepts before it became their turn to lead the team. However many teenagers struggle with that long range thinking. Bringing mentorship into the classroom or competition team space can be a valuable addition, but only if the students know why they are mentoring one another, and then how to mentor. At the 2023 VEX Worlds competition, team 4154X from the University School in Fort Lauderdale met with Bob Mimlitch III, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of VEX Robotics to talk about their own mentorship program and the value they derive both as mentors and mentees. You can watch their conversation here in the VEX Video Library. This could be a helpful video to share with students as well, so they can hear firsthand from peers the value of mentorship in competition teams.

It struck me during my conversation with the educator that many places advocate for mentorship, but oftentimes students are expected to know how to mentor and the goals of their mentorship without clear guidance. My goal in this article is to help provide a framework so that you and your students can build effective mentorship relationships.

Planning Student Mentorship

Knowing that students struggle with defining mentorship, this outline is here to provide some of that guidance with concrete examples or steps to help you and your students get started.

1. Create a Structured Program:

Creating distinct roles and responsibilities will allow all of the students to have ownership over these activities. Ensure that you can answer the following questions.

• How will students be interacting with one another? 
• When will you have mentorship specific events or meetings in your classroom or during competition meetings?
• What activities will the students be completing during the mentorship times?
• How long will this mentorship last? 
• What will be considered a “successful” mentorship?

2. Offer Training and Support:

Provide training sessions for the older student mentors to equip them with the skills they need, such as communication techniques, empathy, and skills using VEX parts. Continuous support and advice should be available to help them navigate their mentoring roles. Be sure that the student mentors do NOT feel like this is a burdensome task. They should feel like they are building a stronger team through the process and bonding with the new team members.

3. Match Based on Interests:

If you are matching one mentor to one mentee, match them based on shared interests as it relates to the team. You have one new student who is excited to learn and be the team’s coder one day? Pair them with the student who enjoys coding the most or currently codes the robot. This compatibility can enhance the relationship and make the mentoring more effective.

4. Promote Peer Interaction:

Organize events or activities that promote interaction between mentors and mentees outside of the formal mentorship sessions. This could include having mentors and mentees work on coding or engineering challenges together against other groups of mentors and mentees. Help them build the relationships and bonds beyond the team or classroom.

Creating Learning Opportunities with VEX IQ

Once you have an understanding of how the mentorship program will work, you can start to define those activities in your structured program section. One of the ideas this educator and I talked about was the idea of using VEX IQ as a precursor to working with the VEX V5 Kit for the competition team. 

For students new to robotics, the plastic construction system of VEX IQ can streamline the building process. The snap-together nature of IQ makes it faster to build and learn about mechanisms and how to code them. This gives new students the opportunity to iterate quickly on various mechanisms and learn how they function before attempting the same mechanisms with V5. 

Students are using the engineering design process in context when they compete. They are prototyping mechanisms, testing different strategies, iterating on their code, and more.

This same process happens whether students are using VEX V5 or IQ, as shown here with these engineering design process posters. Beyond just the engineering design process, students can also see parallels between mechanical concepts or coding concepts. 

The IQ arms and V5 arms shown here are similar in style and function, but removing the need for screws or potentially cutting metal can save time and cost as students are learning about these mechanisms and how to code them.

The question from here becomes how to incorporate this crossover into the mentorship program. VEX IQ Activities are a great way to get students involved and start to learn different types of mechanisms and coding strategies. Your student mentor can introduce the activity and be there as the facilitator while the younger students work through the given challenge. Then in a subsequent meeting, have students complete the same activities using the V5 Kit.

Activities for engineering practice: 

• Ramp Racers has students experiment with an incline plane.
• Sammy Rescue asks students to design something using pulleys.
• Wheel and Axle Lunar Rover investigates wheels and axles.
• Use the “Engineering” filter to find more mechanism-based activities. 

Activities for coding practice:

• Color Sensing has students code using the Optical Sensor (same between IQ and V5)

Mentorship and mentoring is a nuanced situation and this is just a starting point! I encourage you to book a 1-on-1 Session or post in the PD+ Community to dig more into what mentorship can look like between your students.