Category Archives: FIRST Robotics

FIRST Mentor Ready and Volunteer Ready Training + Data Protection Event Training

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FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) release a new online training program for mentors and volunteers. I would have liked more detail on what to expect so writing it down here.

It is easy to get to the training. You go to your dashboard at firstinspires.org and there is a big “Training “FIRST Training” button on the “My Teams” page. The button is also on the volunteer Registration Tab; at least after you volunteer (I don’t remember if it was there before)

Some of the trainings expire. You can see this on your certifications tab in the training tool. I also noted which ones they are here.

Mentor Ready

The first page says you have to do 4 milestones plus the completion and that it take approximately 90 minutes. Not sure how they got 90 minutes as the modules are listed as 15, 60-90, 15, and 15 along with the quiz. Even if you don’t count the quiz, this gets you to more than 90.

It took me a little under an hour, but I’m a fast reader and already familiar with much of the material. (I’ve been mentoring and volunteering a long time). The milestones were:

  • Milestone 1 – Welcome to FIRST – this was estimated at 15 minutes and took me 8. There were 3 Youtube videos embedded that you could watch at 2x speed. (You might have been able to skip them; I didn’t try that). One of the videos you can choose between 4 different ones and pick the one you find most interesting. Two of videos had content to reader lower on the page which you could watch while listening to the videos. Since these were embedded youtube you could also go to different browser tabs and listen.
  • Milestone 2 – Youth Protection Program – This one is long. It says 75 minutes up front and then inside the video says 60-90. It took me 44 minutes. A lot of it was a series of short videos. You cannot speed them up or go to another browser tab during these videos. And since they are short, you also can’t let it play in the background and listen as you do other things. There are two optional modules at the end: one for vendors and one for parents. I skipped those and went straight to a 5-10 minute tests. You are allowed to get one question wrong and you get three attempts. I didn’t get any wrong on my only attempt. This expires August 1, 2026
  • Milestone 3 – Data Privacy – It is listed as 15 minutes, but took me 4. It was just reading and knowledge checks in each part. If the material was new to you, it would take far more than 4 minutes of course. This expires August 1, 2027.
  • Milestone 4 – Role of a Mentor – Also listed as 15 minutes; this one took me 5. It was also just reading and a single knowledge check.
  • Milestone 5 – Mentor Ready Completion – This took maybe a minute. It just clicking. There’s no content in here. The first time I clicked it, I got an error message “This page can only be accessed after you have completed the prerequisites. Welcome to FIRST, Youth Protection, Data Privacy for Mentors, and Role of a Mentor”. I was puzzled because I did take all four modules. The problem was that I hadn’t first clicked on the Mentor Ready training path to start it. I went back and did that. Everything was reflected that I took. Phew.

Volunteer Ready

Volunteer Ready consists of two of the four Mentor Ready milestones – Welcome to FIRST and YPP. You don’t take them again. I just had to enroll in the path and immediately complete it.

Dat Protection for Event Volunteers for the 25/26 season

This course was in my list. I don’t know if it is from signing up as a volunteer (I judge FLL and FTC) or if I’m already in the system as Volunteer Coordinator. I suspect the former is what triggered it because I submitted my volunteer application today.

It didn’t say how long it took but I spent about 35 minutes on it.

This uses a player that pops up in a new window. You control playback speed in the bottom left corner. It mostly videos (you press next 22 times). The right nav shows what will be covered on each one including the knowledge check quiz. And you can go to other browser tabs/windows and listen.

For the six question quiz, you must get a perfect score but have unlimited attempts.

The material was similar to the mentor one so felt redundant doing it again. Some info was different like the mention of VMS, engineering notebooks, etc though. Also this one has a specific year in the title suggesting it has to be done each year.

why a FIRST robotics WFFA essay means so much

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FIRST robotics competition team 694 nominated me as their Woodie Flowers Award candidate this year. (I won the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award in 2012 at the NYC regional. That was a long time ago so the essay was completely different).

This award is to celebrate effective communication in the art and science of engineering and design.” The students write an essay about the mentor they nominate. I encourage all teams to submit an essay. Both because “you have to be in it to win it” and also because it is a great way to show your mentor that you appreciate them.

And it definitely worked out that way. I LOVED reading the essay the students submitted today. I got to see the Google doc a few hours before submission. Which included three sections

Part 1: Bullet notes from students brainstorming

I enjoyed reading this part because it let me see what the students were thinking. And also the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the essay due to space constraints. For example, they included “nighttime rehearsals.” I think they were right not to include this in the final essay. But it was still nice to see those practice sessions were appreciated!

Part 2: Quotes from student members about me

This year, the students included some quotes in the essays. Seeing the quotes they came up with draw from was a lot of fun. Some were things I would have recollected. Others were things I didn’t think anything of at the time. For example:

At FLR after 694 won the Impact Award, she made sure to give due credit to PulseCrew and the whole team for making it possible -> makes everyone feel included and part of the team community 

I absolutely did this. What I didn’t do is reflect on the impact. Seeing it written down gives me a happy feeling because it shows I included people without thinking about it. And inclusion is one of the FIRST core values, so that’s great!

Part 3: The Essay

As I started reading the essay I immediately smiled. What the students don’t know is that I got that bow in 2018 or so because the girls on the team that year ordered bows as swag. When one of them handed me a bow and asked if I would wear it at competition. I was hesitant. I’m not a frilly/bow person. I said I would wear it to a Saturday meeting and then decide. I did always put my hair up in a half ponytail and the bow felt this same. So I said yes. Then at the NYC regional, a volunteer was looking for me and described me as “the volunteer with the big red bow.” That beats the pants off “the medium height lady with the brown hair.” So the bow became a thing that I wear now. I like that the girls on the team years ago had a transitive impact on a student this year.

A bright red bow, used to mitigate the missing presence of red from StuyPulse’s t-shirt, which was caused by the absolute necessity of wearing the FIRST Volunteer t-shirt instead as the NYC FRC Volunteer Coordinator, seemed to shine and speak to me from the back of Jeanne’s head. 

There was so much in the essay that I enjoyed reading. This passage resonated with me because *I* came to the FIRST community from the outside. (I’m not an alum or a teacher or a parent. I found out about FIRST from a public demo 694 around 2008. They told me the event was free. I went and then started volunteering. Then in 2010, Java was a choice of programming language and I started as a mentor.) When I won the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award in 2012, one of the students (Alex) in software asked me “do you feel like a part of the FIRST community.” That was the exact moment where I felt like I did!

Wearing that pink tiara, I felt like a part of the robotics community; watching Jeanne speedwalk throughout the venue keeping order, I felt in awe of the FIRST community, recognizing that there is so much to do, so much dedication and opportunity. 

I like that they included things that were important to me. While I don’t know about magic :), I am proud of the fact that they’ve never seen me code for the robot. [I have done work there and I did some writing towards my book in the lab. So they have seen me code. But that’s not robot code]

having never touched the keyboard and instead watched us code while speaking words of advice or magic 

Then there were memories from the past. This was a quote from something that happened freshman year for a student who is now a senior. Granted I’ve given other students similar advice. But it’s cool that this student remembers it!


She made me hold paper when I first tried out for impact. ‘If you’re holding something, you can’t put your hands in your pockets and you can’t fidget 

And then the ending was great. I’ve always had mixed feelings about women in tech stuff. Like when I got asked to be on a panel, my thought process along the lines of “I wish gender in tech didn’t matter”, “but it does and girls/women need role models”, “I guess I should”…. This sentence resonates for me because I didn’t talk about being a female in STEM. I was me; who was a role model by happening to be female while mentoring on software and awards and just being there.


At competitions I now wear a red bow in my hair, proud to be a girl in STEM and happy to be a part of this FIRST community, with a mentor like Jeanne. 

Finally

Thank you to everyone who was involved in the writing of this essay. It means so much to me. The time you spent on writing was very much worth it.

FTC Judge vs Judge Advisor

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I’ve been judging FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) competitions for many years. It’s a lot of fun. The kids tell you about their robot and outreach and learnings and more. You also negotiate with other judges to determine the award winners. And the day ends with some super excited kids finding out the result. It’s a great day.

There’s also a judge advisor role. The description includes

The Judge Advisor coordinates the judging process, which includes facilitating group deliberation sessions, ensuring the award decisions are made, and the awards script is written. Sometimes the Judge Advisor trains judges and can help in scheduling the judging interviews. The Judges, Judge Advisor Assistant, and Judge Match Observers look to the Judge Advisor for training materials, schedules, and other general questions throughout the
event.

I was asked a few years ago about being Judge Advisor and passed. I like judging a lot. The judge advisor doesn’t get to interview the teams or make any decisions/negotiate. They are a manager and facilitator.

I got to the event on Saturday and was greeted with the event coordinators telling me their judge advisor couldn’t come unexpectedly and could I do it. I said yes. While it isn’t my first choice of role, I am qualified to. I was also the most experienced judge in the room (by a good amount.) I also appreciate that they asked/told me in the form of a question. If they had asked me two weeks ago, I’d have said no because there was still time to find someone more excited about the role. Day of, choices are limited!

What’s interesting about the combination of managing and facilitating is that I very much like facilitating and very much dislike managing. I was able to train folks, form groups, enforce standards and keep things on track.

I definitely relied on crowd sourcing. I wrote constraints on the board and explained what I was trying to accomplish for groups. Having a dozen people “check your work” real time is great quality control!

Overall, it was fine. We accomplished what we needed to and the judges/event staff were happy with how things went. But I still greatly prefer judging and will continue signing up as a judge for future events!