kramer714
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2009
- Messages
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There are frequent post from High School and College rocket teams / clubs looking for advice. Over the years I have worked with MANY different youth groups / school teams as an informal or formal mentor. Some of these experiences have been very rewarding for me, others have been frustrating to be polite.
A year ago, I put together a ‘Care and Feeding of Mentors’ document. The idea was to CLEARLY set expectations for the teams. If they didn’t like the ‘terms’ I had laid out, that’s fine, find someone else to mentor you. I didn’t mean that as a threat, just the opposite, I wanted them to know what was willing to do for them, and what they needed to do for me to keep me engaged. No surprises no ambiguity. And yes, like any ‘contract’ if one party doesn’t abide the other party is going to leave. I didn’t make this with the idea of publishing it on here but I think it is good to start the discussion.
For me personally, if you want help with understanding engineering principals, I’m glad to help, if you want a ‘arts and crafts instructor’ I’m not interested, or worse just a check off the box ‘old guy’. Simply if you want my help here are my terms.
Relative to college groups, if you are studying engineering, act like an engineer. Engineering is a process, cool pictures on the screen isn’t engineering, it is graphic design (different major..) the process includes;
Job applications’ – I agree with some of the sentiments on here, applying for an engineering job and talking about the cool rocket you built, might get you a beer and a fun chat about rockets, but doesn’t get you the job. Talk about how your CDR had issues that you had didn’t realize until testing, and how you reacted to that and how you learned about doing a CDR next time, gets you the job.
One engineer I hired, about a year after I hired him asked me why I picked him to hire from the pool of applicants. My answer surprised him. During his interview instead of telling me how cool his capstone project was, he told me what things didn’t work in his capstone (including how unrealistic his schedule was), and proceeded to tell me how he would do the design reviews differently in the future, that is a skill I wanted from a young engineer.
A year ago, I put together a ‘Care and Feeding of Mentors’ document. The idea was to CLEARLY set expectations for the teams. If they didn’t like the ‘terms’ I had laid out, that’s fine, find someone else to mentor you. I didn’t mean that as a threat, just the opposite, I wanted them to know what was willing to do for them, and what they needed to do for me to keep me engaged. No surprises no ambiguity. And yes, like any ‘contract’ if one party doesn’t abide the other party is going to leave. I didn’t make this with the idea of publishing it on here but I think it is good to start the discussion.
For me personally, if you want help with understanding engineering principals, I’m glad to help, if you want a ‘arts and crafts instructor’ I’m not interested, or worse just a check off the box ‘old guy’. Simply if you want my help here are my terms.
Relative to college groups, if you are studying engineering, act like an engineer. Engineering is a process, cool pictures on the screen isn’t engineering, it is graphic design (different major..) the process includes;
- Requirements - Understanding, collecting, determining requirements
- Setting the program schedule and budget – realistically – without counting on perfection (what it rained this weekend and I cant launch….?)
- Performing a REAL preliminary design review
- Doing actual engineering
- Performing a REAL CDR
- Creating a compliance plan
- If there is a requirement how are going to show you meet it? Analysis, testing, spec sheet, divining rod..
- Creating a test plan – and following it
- Creating a ‘build to’ plan – this should be part of the CDR but is a living document
Job applications’ – I agree with some of the sentiments on here, applying for an engineering job and talking about the cool rocket you built, might get you a beer and a fun chat about rockets, but doesn’t get you the job. Talk about how your CDR had issues that you had didn’t realize until testing, and how you reacted to that and how you learned about doing a CDR next time, gets you the job.
One engineer I hired, about a year after I hired him asked me why I picked him to hire from the pool of applicants. My answer surprised him. During his interview instead of telling me how cool his capstone project was, he told me what things didn’t work in his capstone (including how unrealistic his schedule was), and proceeded to tell me how he would do the design reviews differently in the future, that is a skill I wanted from a young engineer.
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