View Full Version : Team Structure Help
Sperkowsky
08-05-2015, 19:49
Hello all,
Our team has run into a lot of issues with club structure and I figured I would get your help on this.
To start we have about 3 kids who come almost every day 5-6 that come conistantly twice a week ish. and then 10-15 that come once a month. Plus we have 30 or so people that have come in once ate our food and left.
We are from a small sports heavy district. 90% of our team does a sport or 2. Our team president did track, cross county and tennis, I do competitive gymnastics, and another one of our every day members does competitive rock climbing just to name a few. What happens is people join or team thinking of it as a little club they can show up once and put on their college application.
We also had issues with elections. 2 of our 4 club officers showed up less then 10 hours throughout the whole build season and one of them didnt even go to one day of the competiton.
They are nice people they just dont see it as a comitment.
We also have issues with people coming on day 1 and then getting scared off by rules and people talking.
the other big issue is overcrowding of the pit. We have new members who never have showed up show up the competition and crowd the pit instead of going up to the stands. When I say anything to our mentor hes says everyone needs to feel included which I understand but there has to be boundries.
We need help on team organization, member retention, getting new members, making people realize its a big comitment, holding people acountable, and establising boundries.
I was getting a chuckle reading your dilemma thinking to myself "Welcome to every team USA"
I sure wish I knew how to solve those problems, but we continue to have them on our team after 8 years of looking for solutions.
Couple things that have helped.
We have a core pit team consisting of a lead and 3-4 team members. They have all access to the pit. We also have a drive team and scout team. Anyone not assigned to one of those three teams rotates thru various positions during an event including; pit, pit scout, historian, spirit. We rotated on a two hour schedule at AZW which didn't work so well, probably will try have day rotations next time. This worked pretty well to keep the pits manageable.
Part of the problem, assuming you are characterizing rght, is the view that everybody needs to "feel" included. IMO everyone needs to earn the right to be included in the functioning of the team, that includes being there for meetings, outreach events, and build days. We choose the most active members of our team to be on the pit/drive/scout teams. The others get the rotating duties.
Anyway hope that helps give you a couple ideas of how to improve.
The team, just like the robot, needs constant iteration and innovation cycles in order to continue to improve.
Good luck and keep moving forward
One thing to keep in mind is that kids will feel interest in robotics when they are actively involved in what is happening. I see a lot of teams with a "survival of the fittest" style of work in which either you know how to tighten a bolt, your friend teaches you how to tighten a bolt, or he just sits on the sideline. During build season our team meets 6 times a week so spending ~30 hours watching other people do nothing is no fun.
One way to do this is to funnel all recruits in to specific time frames - "burst recruitment" e.g. posting flyers for an open house around the school for interested students (also provide food, drink, etc. to entice the stragglers here and there that might have hidden interest in engineering). At these burst recruitments, get all of the kids involved in different tasks (e.g. building a pit cart, programming FLL robots or similar that doesn't require much programming knowledge, using pre-crimped wires and PWM stuff to wire together dummy robots). Doing this helps get students involved in a specific field of study so they know what they want to focus on in their robotics career. Some kids don't ever have this experience so they stay on a team wondering if there is something they can do, so if nothing is compatible to them up front than they can just turn away after the first day.
Also keep in mind first day turnaways aren't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of these kids have friends, bf/gf, etc. that pressured the other into joining the team. Its not that they were genuinely interested in engineering and robotics and wanted to join but were turned away from the team day one. True interested students will stay (with some s.d.).
We also had issues with elections. 2 of our 4 club officers showed up less then 10 hours throughout the whole build season and one of them didnt even go to one day of the competiton.
In both of the teams I've been involved with, all leadership positions were chosen by mentors. As long as you don't have any issues with favoritism in your mentors, this works well to get the kids who attend meetings and competitions effectively and remain involved within the team.
What happens is people join or team thinking of it as a little club they can show up once and put on their college application.
For this there is no true cure. You will get a lot of kids like this who may even be good kids but just have absolutely no interest in engineering and have an abysmal record to get into the ivy league college of their (parent's) dreams. If you truly see that they have the potential to be a key player on the team, than you may be interested in gathering some alumni information regarding their involvement in the team (driver, captain, etc), how many hours they put in, and how robotics affected their scholastic career.
the other big issue is overcrowding of the pit. We have new members who never have showed up show up the competition and crowd the pit instead of going up to the stands. When I say anything to our mentor hes says everyone needs to feel included which I understand but there has to be boundries.
I totally agree with you; at any given point in our pits there can be anywhere from the 2-3 people that actually need to be there compared with the person doing after-match repair with the 15 bored students standing in the pits with the mom that brought her entire elementary school with her to the 8x8(?) pit.
Usually the best option is to designate an additional two members "pit crew"- working with the drive train + programmer to just perform general modifications. When not busy, these members should be responsible for working with some of the newer students and getting them in the pits (because, they still need to be there to get experience...) but still maintaining order. Sometimes, though, if a student says he is just watching, than you just need to be straight forward and say "Please stand in the hallway so we can get our work done easier, please!"
getting new members
Make a video with your chairman's team (or just give a kid Windows Movie Maker and have him go to town with it) and make it a requirement that every student presents the video along with a short presentation in at least one hour in school. (though there can be some exceptions, e.g. i cant do this because I have a full AP schedule) In addition, just short demos like bringing in the robot to the side of the room during lunch and stacking totes with a Chairmans display and a few passionate students to get people involved.
holding people acountable
Food privileges!
Edit:
I was getting a chuckle reading your dilemma thinking to myself "Welcome to every team USA"
So true! I've only been an active member of a team for two years so maybe someone more experienced than me can give some insight / point to where this topic has been discussed before.
OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."
Sperkowsky
08-05-2015, 20:32
OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."
We are working on two.
One is a so called Constitution thats still imo too vauge another is a student and I's project with 9 pages of policies so far.
We are working on two.
One is a so called Constitution thats still imo too vauge another is a student and I's project with 9 pages of policies so far.
That's better than nothing...
Typically, in an organization of this type, the constitution/charter will have the group's structure: What leaders do they have, who's in charge of what, requirements to be an officer, and various other "legal" type items (this last would probably include the whole "who's a member" determination). So that's your answer to the "two officers didn't have a lot of time invested"--one of the items might be that officers who aren't putting in the time may be removed and replaced by other officers. Again, this is your "team structure".
The policy document is what I would consider the "team handbook" (others might call it "bylaws"). It would have some of the same information as the constitution in that it would reference the stuff laid out in there, but would also have items like team dress code, attendance policy, how to get the team to let you represent them at competition, grade policy, role of mentors (yes, please please put that in--it could save some internal hassle later), just to think of a few items offhand.
One thing that you should be absolutely sure to include--in both!--is the process to change them, should that be needed (hint: it will be, at some point in the future).
sanddrag
09-05-2015, 02:08
We model our team after a business, with specific job classifications (each with a job description) that students can apply for, and are ultimately granted or assigned. For competition, we have specific role assignments, and those not assigned to the pit crew are not allowed to be in our team's pit area unless specifically requested by someone on the designated pit crew.
We soon hope to produce our first-ever org chart.
We expect every student on our team to be able to coherently answer the question, "What would you say, ya do here?" at any time, as asked by any person.
Setting standard policies and procedures, and having mentors to come up with them and help enforce them, is a big help.
To what I can contribute to: our team typically only allows pit crew, judge speakers, and safety captains in our pit at all times. Of course on day 1 there are usually programmers and scouts posting schedules in the mix. Team members, if not scouting, are allowed to browse the pits and visit ours, but as soon as the pit becomes a "meeting spot" someone brings up the fact it's getting crowded and we disperse. I feel like this is related to rookies not knowing that just like during build, there are a multitude of positions during competitions.
Our team doesn't have that many students involved in sports, mainly things like speech/theatre/music. (I'm in like 5 clubs but that's Another Story.) As long as that member lets the mentor know where they are going and how many days they cannot attend build, and don't sit around when they can be there, it's been fine. We also have a 60% attendance requirement to go out to our week 1/2 regional since its considerably further than our second one. Also, not to point fingers, but are your mentors aware of this issue? It always helps when they realize it too.
I remember there being a video 1114 made about team management? I think this (http://www.simbotics.org/files/pdf/runteam.pdf) is the PowerPoint link. Feel free to PM me OP, I have a bunch of safety guideline sheets we use for going to competitions. :>
OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."
This is a really good suggestion. 1923 has a pretty extensive handbook, and we're still developing it each year to adapt to lessons learned - if anyone's interested in a copy, PM me!
A charter is nice in specifying mechanics and procedures of the team, but it really has nothing to do with how the team operates. In reality, it all comes down to personalities, politics, and policies. This is true whether you're a tiddlywinks club or a government. The key to keeping an organization healthy is to be ready to have an effective means of managing dissent. These means range from the "big tent" in which the organization recognizes differences but keeps the discussion open to the secret societies in which dissenting or disruptive members are never seen again. Hopefully, your team can find a nice balance between these extremes.
What you may need to do to promote participation among team members is to establish real standards regarding expectations at the various levels of participation. On our team, we have two or three levels of officers (varies from year to year and according to the team dynamics), varsity, junior varsity, and (between spring banquet and fall tryouts) prospective members. The number one rule (unwritten, but strongly enforced) is that all positions except prospective members must be earned, both to rise into them and to hold them.
On our team, officer selection and ranking within officers is decided by the head coach. He definitely consults with the mentors and other officers, and often asks for recommendations, but these are his decisions. Each department (whether technical or business) is assigned a number of varsity positions. When there are vacancies, that department's officers and mentors nominate a JV member for varsity. The head coach has (rarely if ever executed) veto authority. JV is earned at the tryouts from among the previous year's JV and the prospects. Mentors and varsity members present a number of relatively simple to moderate challenges which the JV and prospects must tackle. We select members to the JV based on their attitude, drive, spirit, and interest, then assign members to the various departments based on aptitude and interests. The big distinction between JV and varsity is pretty much like athletics - varsity gets to go to competition as a fully excused educational field trip. JV only goes on Saturday.
When we won Bayou, the school administration told us we could bring 25 members to CMP. Our varsity happened to number 24. We announced that our "wild card" spot would go to the JV member who raised the greatest amount of funds between the two competitions. As a result of the Bayou win and this announcement, we raised as much money in 6 weeks as in the preceding 11 months, if you exclude only the "3 year" donation we received from Ingersoll Rand Foundation to purchase and outfit a trailer. The bottom line is to make membership on a team a position something which must be earned.
Many teams have this issue. In our team we have incentive...only those who come regularly will be in drive team, they probably know the robot better than others. Yes, this has its own drawback, we cannot pick the best driver (at least till now), we are living with this.
.. this has its own drawback, we cannot pick the best driver (at least till now), we are living with this.
Consider whether the best driver is the one with great hand-eye coordination and fair commitment, or the one with fair hand-eye coordination and great commitment. If a team member skips a third of the build sessions, how confident are you that (s)he'll be there at competition?
This is a really good suggestion. 1923 has a pretty extensive handbook, and we're still developing it each year to adapt to lessons learned - if anyone's interested in a copy, PM me!
I was gently reminded that our handbook is, in fact, online.
For those interested: http://frc1923.pairserver.com/firstrobotics1923.org/?page_id=1459
Jon Stratis
11-05-2015, 10:46
It's really hard to draw the line between inclusion and team performance. Including more people is great, but can cause issues for the team that ultimately degrades the experience. How you handle it goes a long way.
The first point you need to keep in mind is setting expectations. A team handbook can help a lot with this - you can list expected hours for travel and lettering, expected behavior and performance whip in the shop and at competition. Create a process for selecting leadership each year that rewards dedication and leadership qualities, and ensures that the leaders will be around for the meetings (fun fact: of a scheduled 99 build hours this year, my teams two co-captain's were at 104% and 117% - in other words, all the scheduled meetings plus extras we had at the last minute!)
A large part of FIRST is about changing the culture. Unfortunately, science or math clubs are seen in our culture as something that you can participate in occasionally with no big commitment required. Changing the culture puts a FIRST team on the same level as other sports. The time commitment, intensity, and fun all compare with sports. It's hard to create that culture. Many teams have to deal with conflicting priorities, as their students are over-achievers involved in multiple after school activities. Create a schedule that works for your team! While many teams try to meet right after school (after all, the kids are already there, right?), If this conflicts with a significant portion of the team, then find a different time. We meet from 7-9 in the evenings. This allows kids involved in other activities time to do them, eat dinner, and get a little homework done before robotics. It's a win-win!
It won't happen overnight, but it's something a team needs to constantly work at to change. My team had 27 students this year. 19 were present at 50% or more of the meeting hours, making them eligible to travel with the team (a majority of those 8 who weren't eligible to travel were first year members). 15 had enough hours (80%) to letter.
FIRST teams should be inclusive - it doesn't matter if a student shows up 5% of the time or 100%, so long as they are inspired and get something from it. But you need to face reality and utilize everyone appropriately.
For the crowded pit problem, my team uses a schedule. Everyone gets scheduled time in the pit, either as part of the pit crew or doing "pit scouting", and everyone spends time in the stands. Some people may be scheduled in the pit more, base on their expertise, but that is an incentive to everyone to work a little harder:). It's all about having a scheduled job for everyone, at all times, to help the team succeed. If you don't have something for people to do, they'll loiter wherever they want. Come up with a rule in your handbook that gives you a maximum number of people in your teams pit - you need elbow room to work, and over crowding in an area with power tools is a safety issue. Everyone else needs to be outside the teams pit, either in the stands or talking to other teams.
Sperkowsky
11-05-2015, 11:01
I was gently reminded that our handbook is, in fact, online.
For those interested: http://frc1923.pairserver.com/firstrobotics1923.org/?page_id=1459
Wow read through the whole thing a few questions.
First the $200. Ive thought of this in the past but it has been dismissed as people aren't sure if their parents will pay it. We live in a generally well of area but I wonder if there's an attendance issues.
Second is the $50 do parents pay it?
Third is how do you keep the mentor heirarchy flat. We have issues where we only have one mentor most of the time so when our other mentors are there, there are issues with the main mentor overruling their decisions. Again this isn't a shot at him it's just an issue when anyone has absolute power.
Wow read through the whole thing a few questions.
First the $200. Ive thought of this in the past but it has been dismissed as people aren't sure if their parents will pay it. We live in a generally well of area but I wonder if there's an attendance issues.
Second is the $50 do parents pay it?
Third is how do you keep the mentor heirarchy flat. We have issues where we only have one mentor most of the time so when our other mentors are there, there are issues with the main mentor overruling their decisions. Again this isn't a shot at him it's just an issue when anyone has absolute power.
1). Absolutely. The $200 Team Dues are what cements your spot on the TIMS roster. This year, we had 109 families pay the dues. Eligibility for travel depends on your time contribution and the work you do.
2) Yes, the parents pay their $50 or contribution to our events. It's a non-negotiable. If your families have not contributed, you don't get to travel with the team.
3) Our mentor hierarchy is not entirely flat - we're actually revamping that section now, there's definitely mentors who have 'authority' over a particular segment of the team, (not to mention our advisor) but we certainly all work together.
I'll be posting our 2015-16 soon(ish)!
Jon Stratis
11-05-2015, 11:32
Mentor hierarchy is a rather interesting topic, and I've seen it done many ways. Ours is mostly flat, but every mentor has their own niche where they fit in. For example, I "lead" the electrical team, but help out in every other area. That means I'm responsible for training and ensuring the electrical team has appropriate student leadership and direction. If I'm not there, someone else can step in, but I plan my absences ahead of time, and make sure either the student leader or another mentor knows my thoughts about anticipated issues. The same is true for our mechanical and programming leads, and I assume our business mentors (although I don't work too closely with that part of the team, just jump in when asked for a specific task)- it's all about communication.
Perhaps the key aspect, for my team, is that the students make all the decisions (except where Safety or School rules get involved!). So if we're working on a design for a subsystem and two mentors have different thoughts for the direction, it doesn't matter. The students brainstorm first, the mentors then can provide input (which, in some cases, means redirecting the conversation and design down a different path), and the students make the decision. So, when two mentors present different ideas, neither one can over rule the other - the students decide and we move on.
GreyingJay
11-05-2015, 11:33
Thanks for the post Libby! I've been doing a lot of reading lately into other team's manuals and organizations, and it's great to see how other teams operate.
The team I'm currently mentoring has similar policies for an application fee (I think it is also right around $200) as well as a requirement that parents help provide food during build season. During build season the parents rotate being responsible for bringing dinner for the team, whether it's take out pizza or home cooked meals. It was actually really nice to have so many meals reflecting the cultural backgrounds of the students -- we had butter chicken, schnitzel, chow mein noodles, pasta with meatballs -- I looked forward to dinner as much as I did building the robot ;)
As Libby implied, asking for a fee helps legitimize the application. People tend to be a bit more selective and put more effort and care into things when some of their hard-earned cash is involved.
Sperkowsky
11-05-2015, 11:36
As Libby implied, asking for a fee helps legitimize the application. People tend to be a bit more selective and put more effort and care into things when some of their hard-earned cash is involved.
Thats a good point. Another point another student just brought up to me was people fundraising for the $200 if they had trouble paying for it. We have lightbulbs and hype wipes ready to go!
GreyingJay
11-05-2015, 11:43
Thats a good point. Another point another student just brought up to me was people fundraising for the $200 if they had trouble paying for it. We have lightbulbs and hype wipes ready to go!
Yes, and having to fundraise their own entry fee will also indicate to you that a student is motivated to be on the team.
It's not unreasonable either. Think about how much you pay to be part of any other sports team. Here in Canada, hockey is really big. Kids (or their parents) pay all kinds of money for equipment, fees, and then the parents get involved driving to and from practices, games, tournaments, etc.
An FRC team is a sports team.
ArtemusMaximus
11-05-2015, 11:44
Wow read through the whole thing a few questions.
First the $200. Ive thought of this in the past but it has been dismissed as people aren't sure if their parents will pay it. We live in a generally well of area but I wonder if there's an attendance issues.
Second is the $50 do parents pay it?
Third is how do you keep the mentor heirarchy flat. We have issues where we only have one mentor most of the time so when our other mentors are there, there are issues with the main mentor overruling their decisions. Again this isn't a shot at him it's just an issue when anyone has absolute power.
I wanted to suggest to have a members fee as well. That will weed out free loaders. However to have a system where if kid is from poor family but shows dedication, then fee is waved.
To put things into perspective, our team fee was $600.
The team I'm currently mentoring has similar policies for an application fee (I think it is also right around $200) as well as a requirement that parents help provide food during build season. During build season the parents rotate being responsible for bringing dinner for the team, whether it's take out pizza or home cooked meals. It was actually really nice to have so many meals reflecting the cultural backgrounds of the students -- we had butter chicken, schnitzel, chow mein noodles, pasta with meatballs -- I looked forward to dinner as much as I did building the robot ;)
That's exactly what we do! If parents don't have time to be a part of the meal rotation (or bringing water/drinks to the build site), then that's where the $50 contribution comes in. It's a 'would you rather' situation for our parents. Bring us some food, or bring us the money and we'll feed ourselves - whatever works. :)
Thats a good point. Another point another student just brought up to me was people fundraising for the $200 if they had trouble paying for it. We have lightbulbs and hype wipes ready to go!
Yep! That's a thing on our end too - we definitely make sure that if a student wants to be on the team and can't make the dues, their fundraising efforts would contribute directly towards their own dues.
We do this for travel/event fees too - fundraising cuts your payments.
Mentor hierarchy is a rather interesting topic, and I've seen it done many ways. Ours is mostly flat, but every mentor has their own niche where they fit in. For example, I "lead" the electrical team, but help out in every other area. That means I'm responsible for training and ensuring the electrical team has appropriate student leadership and direction. If I'm not there, someone else can step in, but I plan my absences ahead of time, and make sure either the student leader or another mentor knows my thoughts about anticipated issues. The same is true for our mechanical and programming leads, and I assume our business mentors (although I don't work too closely with that part of the team, just jump in when asked for a specific task)- it's all about communication.
Perhaps the key aspect, for my team, is that the students make all the decisions (except where Safety or School rules get involved!). So if we're working on a design for a subsystem and two mentors have different thoughts for the direction, it doesn't matter. The students brainstorm first, the mentors then can provide input (which, in some cases, means redirecting the conversation and design down a different path), and the students make the decision. So, when two mentors present different ideas, neither one can over rule the other - the students decide and we move on.
This is a better descriptor of how we work, too. There's definitely a mentor who 'leads' each subgroup, and our advisor who takes care of all the paperwork/financials, but other than that, we all jump in and help each other.
The nice thing about having a mentor who 'leads' is that they're essentially paired up with the student leaders of that group or subteam - students drive the decisions, mentors help make it happen.
GreyingJay
11-05-2015, 11:46
I wanted to suggest to have a members fee as well. That will weed out free loaders. However to have a system where if kid is from poor family but shows dedication, then fee is waved.
To put things into perspective, our team fee was $600.
Good idea about waiving fees for deserving kids.
What does $600 buy you? Do you fundraise part/most of the travel expenses or are students responsible for that too?
Students on my current team paid ~$200 for the team application but then had to pay around $400 per regional competition we went to, and our trip to St. Louis was another $850. These figures were subsidized as much as possible by fundraising and sponsorship.
We need help on team organization, member retention, getting new members, making people realize its a big commitment, holding people accountable, and establishing boundaries.
The first thing to do here is to talk to your lead mentor about these problems and suggest that you would like to help fix them.
The next step is to establish a leadership tree with clearly defined responsibilities for each group. I understand that you want to be democratic and fair, but elections do not always pick the best person for each role. Don't put your team in hole by allowing someone who won't commit enough time to the role to be elected into the position. Often, a leadership structure is agreed upon by the leadership themselves instead of by the entire team. Strong leaders will fix most if not all of these problems.
A 5 page write up including expectations and responsibilities for each position (including non-leadership positions) can alleviate a lot of these problems. Many teams have posted their "team manual" to CD for reference.
Another tip from me is to require people to log their hours and require that they meet a certain threshold to travel with the team.
Good luck!
-Jeff
ArtemusMaximus
11-05-2015, 12:01
Good idea about waiving fees for deserving kids.
What does $600 buy you? Do you fundraise part/most of the travel expenses or are students responsible for that too?
Students on my current team paid ~$200 for the team application but then had to pay around $400 per regional competition we went to, and our trip to St. Louis was another $850. These figures were subsidized as much as possible by fundraising and sponsorship.
I think school put out $10,000 for the team. We had only 9 kids, so that brought budget to $15,400. That included few "extra" parts, travel and accommodation.
Third is how do you keep the mentor heirarchy flat. We have issues where we only have one mentor most of the time so when our other mentors are there, there are issues with the main mentor overruling their decisions. Again this isn't a shot at him it's just an issue when anyone has absolute power.
In your situation, it may not make sense to have a flat hiearchy for mentors. I have been on a team where there was a clear lead mentor, one other "every-day" mentor and a plethora of mentors and parents who think they are helping (once a week or less).
In this situation, I think a lead mentor with more power is a good choice. The lead mentor is going to understand the problems and situations that the team is struggling with more than those less dedicated. To be fair, the mentor should clearly tell the other mentors when they decide to link up what the objective of the team is and what their role on the team is going to be.
GreyingJay
11-05-2015, 12:44
I think there needs to be a balance between democratic discussion/vote and "the buck stops here". You do need some element of both. There needs to be a person who says "OK, I'm making a decision, THIS is what we will do" but they should speak after everyone who wants to have input has had their say. You can't wait forever for those people, either, so other mentors and students need to know that if they want to be a part of the discussion, they need to participate or it will get made without them.
... we have 30 or so people that have come in once ate our food and left.
...
What happens is people join or team thinking of it as a little club they can show up once and put on their college application.
We also had issues with elections. 2 of our 4 club officers showed up less then 10 hours throughout the whole build season and one of them didnt even go to one day of the competiton.
They are nice people they just dont see it as a comitment.
...
the other big issue is overcrowding of the pit. We have new members who never have showed up show up the competition and crowd the pit instead of going up to the stands. When I say anything to our mentor hes says everyone needs to feel included which I understand but there has to be boundries.
Our team often starts meetings after the last class, We serve food later in the evening, around 7:30 so it is typically those who have been working who are still around.
Don't worry about those who just sign up to put the membership on their college (or job application). If there is an interview, it will come out that they didn't really do anything. The mother of a friend on another team interviewed a job applicant who could not remember the team's name and could not say what role he served on the team. Needless to say, he did not get the job.
You may want to ask your mentor what allowing everyone into the pits, at the same time has to do with being inclusive. What would happen when your team grows to 50 members or 100 members? Perhaps some of the adults who volunteer as the Safety Judges(?) at the various events can nicely inform the mentor that there is an unsafe number of people in the pit.
Sperkowsky
12-05-2015, 20:11
Our team often starts meetings after the last class, We serve food later in the evening, around 7:30 so it is typically those who have been working who are still around.
Don't worry about those who just sign up to put the membership on their college (or job application). If there is an interview, it will come out that they didn't really do anything. The mother of a friend on another team interviewed a job applicant who could not remember the team's name and could not say what role he served on the team. Needless to say, he did not get the job.
You may want to ask your mentor what allowing everyone into the pits, at the same time has to do with being inclusive. What would happen when your team grows to 50 members or 100 members? Perhaps some of the adults who volunteer as the Safety Judges(?) at the various events can nicely inform the mentor that there is an unsafe number of people in the pit.
What's a good # of safe people in the pit. With and w/o the bot.
Our drive team consists of 4 people
All of which are
2 - cad
1 - safety manager
1 - shop manager
4 - build team
1 - electrical
1 - strategy.
So with just the 4 people most bases are covered except for programming and scouting.
One of the best ways to discourage large congregations at the pit is by giving everyone a job at competition - whether it's cheering, scouting, taking photographs, promoting spirit, field reset, running an FLL table, or passing out safety or spirit paraphernalia. Mentors too! We had a policy that there was supposed to be EXACTLY ONE of the six main technical mentors on duty at the pit at all times as well as the three "on duty" members of the pit crew, and occasional visits by the drive team, scouts, or people solving a specific repair/maintenance problem. Since the on duty mentor didn't have much to do, and our pit was on an "outside corner" where there was plenty of room to stay near the pit but be out of traffic, mentors did do some long (10+ minute) chatty turnovers, but these steps cut down significantly on the crowding from our previous years. Except for those mentioned above, our team members were expected to spend no more time in our pit than they did in each of the other pits, learning about the other machines.
The time it really didn't help at all this year was when we were selected for the first time for Bayou playoffs and everyone wanted to stick around after the big parade back to the pit! Even so, after about 15 minutes or so, most had returned to the stands. And yes, there was another party after our alliance won Bayou, but by then most of the other pits were packed into trailers and there was plenty of room to gather around for a while. But once we got serious about reconfiguring our robot to fit in a shipping crate, team members that couldn't find something useful to do on our robot found other things to do (such as helping break down the fields and stack game pieces for the trip to the next regional).
... our team members were expected to spend no more time in our pit than they did in each of the other pits, learning about the other machines.
An excellent idea!
team members that couldn't find something useful to do on our robot found other things to do (such as helping break down the fields and stack game pieces for the trip to the next regional).
Team members can also be sent out to offer help to other teams. At Lone Star, our pit crew was not busy so they spent a lot of time working with a rookie team we had been mentoring to help them build an RC grabber.
sanddrag
12-05-2015, 22:42
The $200 Team Dues are what cements your spot on the TIMS roster. This year, we had 109 families pay the dues.
To put things into perspective, our team fee was $600.
Wow, not to derail this thread, and not to single out any one team, but being involved with school-based teams from California for nearly 15 years, and now seeing how much others charge and how widespread charging a fee is among FIRST teams is really eye-opening for me.
At the Championship diversity conference, I brought up a point that I called "two FIRSTs" and when I made the point, it was not based on team admission fees at all, but the more I learn, the more it reinforces my point about "two FIRSTs."
What's unique about FIRST compared to other student organizations is that teams really run themselves in very different and distinct ways, and I think there are two easy to draw dividing lines in our program: the number of hours spent, and the admission fee (or lack thereof) to join.
I feel like California has been a front-runner in equal-opportunity efforts, and the other states just have not caught up yet. In California, it is downright illegal to charge an admission fee, participation fee, activity fee, whatever you want to call it, for a public school-funded or in some cases even public school-affiliated program. I know certain other states have similar laws, and I know some teams choose not to work in schools, so that they can charge an admission fee.
If FIRST is really looking to grow nationally, they need to get it into schools. And running a program in which all the member teams are charging high fees for students to join is not the right way to go about it, and does little to serve the group of students that really need this most.
Our annual expenses run in excess of $1,000 per student when calculated on that basis, but we don't charge them a dime to join or participate with the team.
I'll close my comments here, and leave any future discussion on this particular topic of admission fees for another thread.
Jon Stratis
12-05-2015, 23:10
Wow, not to derail this thread, and not to single out any one team, but being involved with school-based teams from California for nearly 15 years, and now seeing how much others charge and how widespread charging a fee is among FIRST teams is really eye-opening for me.
At the Championship diversity conference, I brought up a point that I called "two FIRSTs" and when I made the point, it was not based on team admission fees at all, but the more I learn, the more it reinforces my point about "two FIRSTs."
What's unique about FIRST compared to other student organizations is that teams really run themselves in very different and distinct ways, and I think there are two easy to draw dividing lines in our program: the number of hours spent, and the admission fee (or lack thereof) to join.
I feel like California has been a front-runner in equal-opportunity efforts, and the other states just have not caught up yet. In California, it is downright illegal to charge an admission fee, participation fee, activity fee, whatever you want to call it, for a public school-funded or in some cases even public school-affiliated program. I know certain other states have similar laws, and I know some teams choose not to work in schools, so that they can charge an admission fee.
If FIRST is really looking to grow nationally, they need to get it into schools. And running a program in which all the member teams are charging high fees for students to join is not the right way to go about it, and does little to serve the group of students that really need this most.
Our annual expenses run in excess of $1,000 per student when calculated on that basis, but we don't charge them a dime to join or participate with the team.
I'll close my comments here, and leave any future discussion on this particular topic of admission fees for another thread.
You know, every after school activity I was ever a part of charged a fee. And there were always ways to work around it if your family couldn't afford the fee. There's nothing wrong with that.
My team charges an activity fee. It's the same fee that every other sport and activity at the school charges. Like those other activities, we then have a supplemental travel fee. No student has ever, in the history of the team, been turned away due to the fee.
Having a fee associated with a team ensures that the student and family have a little "skin in the game". If they can't afford it, you can have options for fundraising or other ways around it.
Sperkowsky
13-05-2015, 10:49
You know, every after school activity I was ever a part of charged a fee. And there were always ways to work around it if your family couldn't afford the fee. There's nothing wrong with that.
My team charges an activity fee. It's the same fee that every other sport and activity at the school charges. Like those other activities, we then have a supplemental travel fee. No student has ever, in the history of the team, been turned away due to the fee.
Having a fee associated with a team ensures that the student and family have a little "skin in the game". If they can't afford it, you can have options for fundraising or other ways around it.
I talked to our mentor and he agrees this is a good idea especially because then everyone has the attire and we don't have to use club funds for stuff like shirts.
GreyingJay
13-05-2015, 11:40
What's unique about FIRST compared to other student organizations is that teams really run themselves in very different and distinct ways, and I think there are two easy to draw dividing lines in our program: the number of hours spent, and the admission fee (or lack thereof) to join.
I feel like California has been a front-runner in equal-opportunity efforts, and the other states just have not caught up yet. In California, it is downright illegal to charge an admission fee, participation fee, activity fee, whatever you want to call it, for a public school-funded or in some cases even public school-affiliated program. I know certain other states have similar laws, and I know some teams choose not to work in schools, so that they can charge an admission fee.
If FIRST is really looking to grow nationally, they need to get it into schools. And running a program in which all the member teams are charging high fees for students to join is not the right way to go about it, and does little to serve the group of students that really need this most.
I appreciate your comments, and I applaud your state for working to make these opportunities available to students at no cost to them.
However, I don't know that it's fair to draw lines between those teams that charge admission fees to team members and those that don't, and use that as some kind of delineator for different "classes" of team experience. It's very much a "when in Rome" situation. Teams should do whatever is "normal" for other, similar, sports teams in their area.
In your state, nobody charges fees, so your FRC teams shouldn't either. In other places, if a nominal fee is typically charged for students to join other sports teams (hockey, basketball, gymnastics, etc.) then it's probably fair and comparable for FRC teams to do the same.
There will always be those who can't afford the fee, and we should make provisions for those students, of course.
thehotsauceman
13-05-2015, 13:38
One thing that our team does is we have a mandatory 15 hours every week during the build season. If you don't meet the 15 hours required one week you can always make it up by the end of the build season but if you don't have 90 hours by the end of build season you are not eligible to travel to competitions. This gives us a reason for coming and putting effort into the things we do while we're at the shop because what FIRST student doesn't want to travel? This helps us with commitment of our members and hopefully it helps you too!
ArtemusMaximus
13-05-2015, 15:10
One thing that our team does is we have a mandatory 15 hours every week during the build season. If you don't meet the 15 hours required one week you can always make it up by the end of the build season but if you don't have 90 hours by the end of build season you are not eligible to travel to competitions. This gives us a reason for coming and putting effort into the things we do while we're at the shop because what FIRST student doesn't want to travel? This helps us with commitment of our members and hopefully it helps you too!
I would be hesitant to base effectiveness of students purely on hourly bases. It is, however, a valid performance indicator.
Suggestions that are given here are the building blocks. Not all teams will run the same way, so teams are build using different blocks, in different combination and in different amounts. The trick for team leadership is to figure that out, implement and enforce it.
GreyingJay
13-05-2015, 15:32
I would be hesitant to base effectiveness of students purely on hourly bases. It is, however, a valid performance indicator.
I like the concept, but I'd want to refine it to reflect the actual productivity of the students. I don't want them to just show up and sit there.
However, you can't do that until you can accept responsibility for ensuring everyone has adequate work. We had issues with students in various sub-teams wanting to do work but not be able to because of whatever issue that was out of their control. We're going to work on restructuring the team and the expectations of build season to try and prevent those roadblocks from happening again.
At the Championship diversity conference, I brought up a point that I called "two FIRSTs" and when I made the point, it was not based on team admission fees at all, but the more I learn, the more it reinforces my point about "two FIRSTs."
What's unique about FIRST compared to other student organizations is that teams really run themselves in very different and distinct ways, and I think there are two easy to draw dividing lines in our program: the number of hours spent, and the admission fee (or lack thereof) to join.
There aren't two FIRSTs, there are thousands of them. But I do agree that these two metrics would expose much of the variation across teams. I suspect that hours would correlate more closely to team success (both competition and degree of inspiration/outreach/recognition) than admission fee. Total team budget would be a third game changer.
For the record, 3946 is moderately high on number of hours spent; about four mandatory hours per week average in off-season, and about 15 mandatory hours per week from game announcement through the end of competition. Off-season hours are about evenly distributed between business and technical, and all the extra hours during competition season are related to the build, pits, etc. We also have a number of extra hours, opportunities, and meetings for leadership and other go-getters.
We are low on the admission fee - upon selection to the junior varsity, you must buy a team shirt ($20) each year. However, to receive a "letter", you must meet three of four requirements, one of which is raising $500 or more.
Our budget is moving from the "low resource" into the "mid resource" realm. Our budget last year started somewhere around $15-$20k, and we may make it into the $40ks next year.
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