In the fast-paced world of competitive robotics, technical expertise and strategic planning are crucial. But, for Liam Doran (11), captain of the independent FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team Gear Up, fostering the next generation of innovators is where the real impact lies. Twice a week, Doran and his teammates visit Black Mountain Middle School to help students design, build, and program their own robots. In his role, Doran teaches the kids how to code and refine their mechanical designs. His work also extends to coaching students in their presentation skills and reigning in their sometimes outlandish ideas.
“At the beginning of the season, they have so many ideas, and some of them seem outrageous,” he said. “But it’s interesting to see their creativity. Part of our job is helping them refine their designs and learn from their mistakes.”
Through hands-on mentorship and countless hours poured into the program, Doran has helped shape a middle-school robotics program that includes three teams and a total of nearly 40 students.
According to Doran, one of the hardest parts of mentoring is learning when to step back.
“It’s hard sometimes to let them fail,” Doran said. “I’ll look over a kid’s shoulder and know their code is going to crash as soon as they run it. But letting them figure it out on their own is how they learn.”
But according to Doran, the mentorship program isn’t just beneficial for middle-schoolers, it also helps the high-school team grow and learn how to better teach their own underclassmen.
“Mentoring them broadens my perspective on robot design and ,” Doran said. “It also helps me mentor the younger members of our own team. Teaching middle-schoolers makes it easier to teach our freshmen and sophomores.”
The program has also become a pipeline for new talent, with many students on the Black Mountain team joining the Westview program once they reach high school.
“[The Black Mountain program] is also an incentive for us to be better mentors because if we’re bad mentors, we’re creating bad candidates for our team’s future,” Doran said.
Meaning that for Doran, mentoring is about more than just robotics—it’s about motivating future innovators.
“My mentor in middle school had a really big impact on me, and she’s probably my greatest inspiration for continuing the mentor program and also for wanting to expand it,” Doran said. “I saw how big of an impact she had on my team because she spent a lot of time with us and I was like, if we had more people doing that kind of thing, we could really expand the impact to all the other teams, and it improves their performance, it improves our performance.”
Throughout the years, The mentorship program has become a core part of Gear Up’s mission. While the FTC program is centered around building robots, it also emphasizes the importance of outreach and giving back to the STEM community.
“The whole catchphrase of FTC is ‘not just robots,’” Doran said. “There’s an aspect of community outreach that’s really important. At competitions, we present our mentorship efforts, and there are even awards for outreach.”
As the robotics season intensifies, with league tournament regionals on the horizon, Gear Up is balancing their own competition preparation with their mentorship responsibilities. But for Doran, the rewards of mentoring far outweigh the challenges.
“There’s really no downside to doing it,” he said. “It improves their performance, it improves our performance, and it’s just a lot of fun to hang out with them.”
