Mentors
Mentors are the backbone of every FRC team, working to make sure we are focused, on-track, and working towards our goals, and making sure each student is contributing to those goals and participating as part of the team. Our mentors instruct the team members how to perform a given job or task, usually via hands-on demonstration, but also through whiteboard discussion and collaboration. Mentors can demonstrate, but student members must do the work to supply the parts needed to construct a competition robot.
Current Mentors
Mentors should be listed in this order, top to bottom, left to right:
Top row:
Marc Rogers
joe barry
Clint barnes
James Campbell
Next row(s);
alphabetical:
Jackson haney
Brandon Hjelstrom
Greg hjelstrom
Dennis Jenks
Dr. Jones
Jen Joseph
Steve Mulcahy
Brendan Mulcahy
Travis Murray
Riki Osako
Terry Ritz
Trevor Ritz
kirstie Ritz
Curt Thompson
QAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Brandon Hjelstrom started out as a team member and lead programmer for the High Rollers, graduated as a team alumni, came back to the team as a mentor, and later became a Sponsor. You could say that Brandon has done it all. During Build, Brandon makes time in his busy schedule to work with the new team programmers and is often the last
As a working Electronics Engineer, when he's not at the job, you will find him in the Shop, fine-tuning it for an efficient Build season. And when he's not leadiing the Field Element build crew, he assists and trains the Lead Electrical team member on all things both electrical and electronic. During competition events he wil be leading a small, dedicated group of High Rollers to be first on the venue floor and the last to leave, setting up the pit and tearing it down, both before and after the competition starts and concludes. In the words of the IceMan:
"Mr. Curt - He's the Man!"
With Brandon still in high school student, thet both began deep-diving into the the world of robot vision. After several successful prototypes were used in competition, they finalized the first commercially available vision subsystem for FRC robots known as "LimeLight" which has become the standard for FRC teams. Greg Hjelstrom was awarded the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award in 2012.
had only two-digit team numbers! Now a retired engineer from a major military defense company, he mentors the High Roller CAD leads in SolidWorks so they are proficient in these important design tools well before Build season starts. Mr. Jenks also performed the duties of Drive Coach for the High Rollers in the 2022 season of Rapid React. And when he's not mentoring CAD students in the Shop or networking with other coaches at competitive events, he's working on end-game stratagies with our other coaches to help push us closer to the Einstein field.