On the Pearson website, I read that Dave mentors a high school FIRST robotics team. (I do as well in the capacity of programming mentor.) FIRST emphasizes the students working with experienced professionals to learn.
What skills do you think transfer back to work as an architect? Some I can think of:
better communication
practice explaining - design, version control, maintainability,
testing
enhanced mentoring skills
more appreciation of project planning
a new way of looking at problems - hardware programming is different