Building just isn't a priority anymore

[Imperium283]

We have a larger team, which in my opinion could be good or bad. In our case, this isn't a good thing right now. Our team right now has about 50 people. You would think that being in the -->Robotics<-- club you would be interested in building, or wanting to learn about the robot. This just isn't the case anymore. I just don't see the logic in having over 40 people making buttons, banners, flags, and posters while we have less than 10 people doing the building. This can't happen anymore. Don't think we just let this happen. We're holding building seminars for when the seniors (the ones who basically built the robot this year) graduate. People on our team are making the spirit award a priority. People would rather dress up ridiculously, hold up signs, and cheer for our team while we aren't even on yet. They'd rather do this than what they're supposed to do. People who are in the stands (except for a select few who have different jobs that aren't required of them just yet) are supposed to scout the teams. Do you think this gets done? Yes, we force them to scout, but are they interested? No.

When we have a sheet lined up with Autonomous, which rack they scored on, if they have a minibot or not, and other comments, which are all made in a chart, it will be filled with all zeros. When we are at competitions and we want to see which team to talk to, how are we supposed to know whos good and who isnt when these boxes are all zero? Other comments-zero? No. This can't work anymore. People show up to the meetings, then go home. They'd rather show up and socialize with their friends that do something. Having an art department in this club isn't a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the majority of the club, because its the robotics club, not the art club. This club was more upset that we lost the spirit award then when we were eliminated out of the quarter finals in our last competition.

Sure, we've tried to change the direction of the club. What do you think happens? They think we're jerks. They don't listen to us. They'd rather sit in the stands and draw pretty pictures of our mascot on posters. Why are you in this club if you aren't interested? Why are there 30 people making buttons and posters, when you can go to the building seminar and learn? Why are they more interested in these things? We feel like broken records, and it just makes us more unpopular in the club. People are running for club president next year because it looks good on college applications. People who want the spirit award than first place. When I heard "Well, at least we won the spirit award at the first competition" I wanted to scream at all of them. What I wanted to say was "Well maybe if you did your job (scouting), we could of had a better chance".

The alumni come back 1,2, even 3 years later to do the majority of the building. When one of these spirit people becomes president, the build culture would disappear. We've been preaching to them, and they don't listen. At this rate, the club isn't going to be building a decent robot for a really long time. I'm sorry. Painting Pictures doesn't build a robot.

What they need to realize is that winning the spirit award doesn't get you first place. Winning the spirit award doesnt get you the chairmans award. And the most important part, it doesnt get you a spot into the nationals either. They don't want to listen though.

Can anyone give any advise as to what we should do? We've tried everything we could think of, and this art culture is just not changing...
If we can't change the culture of our club now, This club is going to go down hill very fast. We need help. Can anyone please give us some advise? Our club is filling with friends, friends of friends etc. who aren't interested in building and we've run out of ideas....

[Akash Rastogi]

Before others try to tar and feather you, I'll just say two simple things.

1) I actually agree with you on most points and can see where you're coming from.

2) You gain nothing by posting this to Chief Delphi. Gather your thoughts, write a little more eloquently, and email your lead mentor. Set up a meeting with the main leaders on the team. Its an issue that you can solve, just work on it in private.

As for advice:

Show the other students how much satisfaction and pride they can gain from having a more successful robot, I really think that's the only way to show them they need to step up their game robot-wise, and focus on what this robotics competition is really about. I'll get some flak for this, but I've always wondered how students would react to cuts on the team.

[Imperium283]

I know this, and we plan on doing so. I am only doing this because I am taking a leadership role, and the way everything is working out, it's going to be me and about 3 other people building. I'm just looking for advise, and to see if any other teams have had to deal with this, and how they solved it.

[Pmaxm00]

You can do what our team does, we require all people interested in joining the team (even returning members) to fill out an application. Only 30 people are accepted. This is our application sheet: 10676

[Timz3082]

Now that it is the off-season (no need for major team spirit) I would do some projects such as building a t-shirt cannon, or a "robotic go-kart" to use that as a teaching lesson. People only really get interested once they start doing things, not making buttons, trust me. Few will want to make buttons after the tested a robo-kart by racing others down the hall and nearly hitting everything in the process.

With that said start these projects with the intentions of specific people working on specific things. If they don't do them, tell others that may have been uninterested in the past that you need their help to get the project done. If they know they are helping it will increase their want to build.

That is about all I can think of, hope this helps::rtm::

[ChristopherSD]

I understand how you feel. Two weeks through build season, the majority of our freshmen on the team aren't working in their departments (CAD, programming, build, etc.).

I would definitely take Akash's advice, and I would also put the students on probation. Let them know that if their lack of interest continues, they'll be off the team.

[dodar]

Even though our team is quite different than yours in the fact that your team is about 204 times the size of ours, we have had 1 singular set of rules that has not changed from the beginning of our team back in 2005. That rule is that no matter what part of the team you are on, that to travel to our home regional, Florida, you had to put in at minimum 25 hours, to go to our travel competition it was 50 hours and to go to CMP(and thats only if we made it) 90 hours. And throughout the 5 years that I have competed on this team(4 as a student +1 as a mentor) I have seen students come through and do the bare minimum and ive seen kids go over 200+ hours. I myself as a student probably put close to 1000 hours into our team's build seasons. But as the more hours you need to travel, the more involved each student becomes and the more they learn about each part of the team and the interest in each sub-team grows, until you dont have to beg these kids to be a part of the whole team; they beg to make the team bigger and better.

[Alexa Stott]

As many others have said, I would definitely recommend implementing some sort of minimum requirements for people to be a member of the team.

Try to work with what you have. Maybe work with some of the students who are into spirit and have them transition into a PR/awards role. We have had some of our more creative members make a team yearbook/portfolio to show the judges. It was filled with useful information about our team and it also looked fantastic. Perhaps you have someone interested in drawing who you might be able to get involved in the design process. Remember that there is also animation, web design, and other tasks for the more creative/artistic students on the team. Don't dismiss them simply because they can't/don't want to actually build the robot.

When 25 travels to other regionals outside of New Jersey, a list of all the responsibilities is made and then the list is populated with members to fill them. This helps to make sure that everyone is there with a purpose.

I would also recommend checking out this recent thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95000) about team attitude. Some of the posts in there might be useful to you.

As you move forward, remember that spirit isn't all bad. You just need to find the right balance. You don't want to make FIRST unfun for those students who really want to be a part of it.

To add to my post: I was in a similar position to you a few years back. A bunch of new students joined the team and wanted to focus entirely on the team image, including spirit. I was incredibly resistant to this initially. I was a programmer and PR person and nearly all my time at competitions was spent in the pits. What happened in the stands outside of scouting was unimportant to me. I didn't understand why we needed people to focus on making the team look good. I thought it was a waste.

In the end, I let them do as they pleased. And you know what? I love where the team is now. I feel as if we have become more complete now that we embrace some of the things we used to dismiss.

[dtengineering]

I was always very appreciative of those who worked hard to make our team look good.

Sometimes the build team would feel that they were "doing all the work", but strangely they never complained when we won website awards, sportsmanship awards, safety pins (never quite got the safety award), or when the presentation material on our robot helped us to win design awards. The build team was very happy to show up at the dinner when we received the City of Vancouver "Youth Group of the Year Award", thanks to the work of a number of team members who never touched a wrench! Sometimes it took a bit of work to reign in the egos of the build team and remind them that FRC is about a lot more than just building a robot or playing a game, but usually not.

My experience has been that what people get out of FRC, like most things in life, is very much related to what they put in to it.

Jason

[Hawiian Cadder]

we sometimes have a similar problem. typically though, the people who are not that interested don't put in the late hours ( we work way way late on saturday ) and they loose interest after a while. another thing to do is to simply ask people who are there to socialize to leave. we have a scapegoat in that our work area is relatively small, so we tell them we need them out of the way.

[PayneTrain]

A group of, say 16 humble, hardworking, knowledgeable kids and 4 good mentors make a very good build team. In fact, our build lead and I are eyeing the kids on the team we need to participate where on build, and who we need on support.

Some people on your team just aren't fit for building. That's not just tolerable, that's encouraged by FIRST. In fact, I've been recruiting kids in my school who have no desire to touch the robot. Our team needs videographers, animators, creative writers, and even kids just trying to satisfy a volunteer hour requirement.

I'm not saying to let this perceived problem persist, but embrace the members who can't tell a CIMple Box to a SuperShifter. There are plenty of online resources that help you figure out what kind of balance of responsibility your team needs.

Your team is almost nothing without a good robot, but it definitely is nothing without supplementary support students that make your "club" a real "team."

[EricH]

Spirit is one thing. But if there is no robot to cheer for, it's like sending out the cheerleaders and only the cheerleaders at the football game. Guess how many teams would win if they did that? Right. It might be interesting to announce that if the robot wasn't fully functional when it entered the crate (or bag), only a skeleton team, made up of primarily the team members who actually contributed to the build, will go to competition.

And yes, do the application process. Take a leaf out of 234's notebook: The team is disbanded at the end of the competition season, and everyone has to reapply to be on the team the next year (mentors evaluate the applications). For you guys, it might be the lead students who do the evaluation.

Two things that you should have on the application:
1) "Why are you doing this?" Stuff like "it looks good on my college application" shouldn't be an automatic disqualifier, but should merit further evaluation of the student in question.
2) "What are you interested in?" Again, stuff like "Spirit" shouldn't be an automatic disqualifier, but if you have 50 people interested only in spirit, make sure that some of them don't end up on the team.

[Colin P]

I'm not a big fan of teams going too far out of their way to win the spirit award or chairman's. I usually feel like it defeats the purpose of the Chairman's award to make it your primary goal. I feel like teams should be doing the work for chairman's first and writing a submission second, not tailoring team actions to win an award.
I kind of feel the same about the spirit award. It's a fun award, but it shouldn't be a goal to win it. You should be more worried about showing spirit than winning at it, you know what I mean?
My team won a spirit award at the Waterford District this year. We only had 10 students and four cardboard cut out numbers. Somehow we managed to win the spirit award with about 10-20 people cheering maximum. A similar situation happened at Troy district, a small team with fun imagery won the award. I think the judges are looking for students who are genuinely excited about engineering and their team. I know when my students were talking to the judges they were smiling and carefree, eager to talk about the robot. On the field my drive team wanted to do silly dances when we were announced, just for fun. I don't think judges care too much about who's the loudest and most noticeable any more. The nature of the award has changed, and for the better.

After all, it's not a "cheering and looking nice" award.

[Clark Pappas]

We only have 13 or so students on our team, so we never tolerated no-work attitudes. It's either you show up to shop with a good attitude or have your parents pick you up. Even just the threat of doing so is a great tool (I know I've come to shop lazy or grumpy several times, and this threat bore near immediate improvement)

It may help to force the students to try every position on the team; that's what we do. It helps people discover things they love that they never would consider doing in the first place. For example, I avoided machining and CAD all I could originally, but now I love the lather, and CAD is growing on me.

If they still show interest in just spirit (Depending on the number left), do what others suggested and say they can't attend regionals or champs. We pulled that threat with work days/work hours and it's an effective tool as well.

Good luck.

[Vermeulen]

I agree with you on a lot of points. While there should be some creative people to do the team image/chairman's presentation/outreach stuff, that should never get so big that the robotics lives in its shadow. There can't be team spirit without a team. I would take a few different approaches to this situation.

Our team has never been organized enough to start imposing strict attendance/application rules, and not big enough to need them; none of the students took it seriously because none of the mentors had time/inclination to enforce it. If you can do that, great, it will help weed out the people who don't really want to do anything.

Another suggestion would be to weed out the leadership roles. Make students write a short piece on why they want to be a leader, and how they think it will help the team (emphasis on the latter). We do this for drive team applicants to weed out the serious people from the non-serious people.

A third thing could be either to run for team president/other leadership role, or step up and tell the team what the situation is. You sound like you are passionate about your team, and I'm 99% sure there are mentors who would support you on that. If some students realize that they don't actually want to be on the team, let them leave.

Fourth, try to recruit some people who want to build. This would be the preferable option, unless people on the socializing side of things distract others and bring the whole team down. In that case, I would tell them directly that there is a problem.

[CMAT17]

Perhaps what you could do to actually involve the team members into doing something useful would be to harness their energy for community outreach to compete for the Chairman's submission. Our team doesn't have a lot of people that actually work on the actual robot, but most of the people are in PR, and it worked great.

[Molten]

Some people here find spirit as important as the robot. I understand where they are coming from. But lets try to remember something here. The cheering should be produced as a response to the robot. The robot should not be produced to create something to cheer for. Though the results look similar, I see a very important difference. I hope you find a way to get the focus back to the robot where it belongs.

[Robby Unruh]

My team is completely opposite. We don't exactly have that many members, but none of them want to work on our spirit stuff. We had to have our mentors work on it, because everyone wanted to have a slice of the robot, which got realllly out of hand towards the end of the build season. We had to keep some other kids busy by doing mindless errands (like going to go pick up more reflective tape from ace hardware/etc). You should probably stress more of the competition side of FIRST.

Let's just admit it, it's not all about gracious professionalism.

[Kims Robot]

A couple of ideas for you...

1. Tailor & Refocus your recruiting efforts.
If the kids that are joining just aren't interested in the robot and no matter what you do, they won't take an interest, then maybe your team could work a little harder on finding the kids who ARE interested in building a robot. Its often difficult to make robotics look "cool"... though it sounds like your team may have gone overboard on that... the team is "cool", but the robot part just isnt interesting. Many teams have students that never touch the robot, and IMO thats ok. We've had several kids leave our team to major in graphic design or business or things like that, all of which are important to technology companies, but yes, not the focus of a Robotics Competition. So its good to have SOME students like that, but as you say, it sounds like you are overloaded with them. In my mind a 75%/25% balance would be good. There are several things you can try
A. Talk to Tech teachers (computer classes, technology classes, math classes, science classes). See if they can recommend/encourage anyone to join.
B. Develop a Student Application (http://penfieldrobotics.com/docs/StudentApplication2006.doc). We generally accept everyone that applies, but it gives us the chance to weed out if necessary, and also makes sure that the applicants are serious enough to fill out a couple pages of questions.
C. Develop a Team Handbook (http://penfieldrobotics.com/docs/TeamHandbook.pdf). We have all of our students and parents sign to say that they have read the team handbook and know what is expected of them. This sometimes gets kids to consider what they are getting into.

2. Work on your Preseason Activities
The whole goal of FIRST is to expose kids to science and technology. They may decide once they are exposed that its not for them, and thats ok, but we've had several students become interested in different aspects that they never before would have considered.
A. Do some fun/teambuilding type activities (http://penfieldrobotics.com/Rookies/Tasks%20for%20Summer%20and%20Preseason.doc) that incorporate some science/tech knowledge. Balloon Rockets, Paper Bridges, Newspaper Towers, Bottle Rockets, Egg Drop, etc... are all fun & teambuilding, but if you provide good resources, the team can learn about structures and gasses and all sorts of science/tech type stuff at the same time.
B. Do a Mock Build Season... whether you use Legos or Vex or FTC parts, get small groups (6 or less) to build robots that compete in some sort of competition. With super small groups, everyone is forced to pitch in in some way.
C. Have subteams that meet outside of your normal team meeting, and require that every kid that travels attends at least half of a technical subteam's meetings. This ensures that they at least TRY something in preseason.
D. Do a Subteam Rotation Night. We do this every year, all 10 of our subteams each have a table/location and the mentors put together short (5-10 minute) presentations/activities that show what that preseason subteam does (hint, the more hands on/visual the better!). The students rotate through every table in groups getting a "taste" of what each subteam does and get to figure out what subteams they want to join for the preseason.

3. Force Your Build Season Subteams
We do an application each year for Build Season Subteams and the mentors sit down and sort the kids out into groups. Each group must have 1 new student, 1 returning student and 1 student familiar with CAD. We attempt to balance the rest of the group with what the kids want to do (1st or 2nd choice subeams). And try and make the groups reasonably balanced in size. This may be a bit tougher in your situation, as you don't want a bunch of dead wood... but with some good mentors/build kids, you might suck in a few kids that might not of helped before. A good example is that we have had kids join the controls subteam because they want to "decorate" the controls box. Then our mentors rope them into helping with wiring or designing the box, and then they get a little more hooked.

Overall I can definitely understand your frustration. There are always students that you sort of "wonder" why they joined a robotics team in the first place. Though it does sound like you recognize that its good to have fun, but with such a large team, you could do with having a stronger core of people working on the robot. Though Realistically I think even a lot of the bigger teams will tell you they probably have a solid core of 10 kids, and then however many others that "help out" but aren't as dedicated. Really its all about balance.

Give some of these ideas a shot and see if they help amp up the interest in working on the robot, or helping the team in more technical ways.

Good luck!

[rocker2475]

My team is completely opposite. We don't exactly have that many members, but none of them want to work on our spirit stuff. We had to have our mentors work on it, because everyone wanted to have a slice of the robot, which got realllly out of hand towards the end of the build season. We had to keep some other kids busy by doing mindless errands (like going to go pick up more reflective tape from ace hardware/etc). You should probably stress more of the competition side of FIRST.

Let's just admit it, it's not all about gracious professionalism.



Our club used to be like that, (I'm from the same team as OP) but the real problem is that all these kids focus on at competitions is yelling and screaming trying to get the spirit award. When people Should be scouting they put a bunch of fake numbers down and keep screaming. Then when we lose matches because of failed scouting they all keep smiling and cheering. It causes the rest of the team members who put hard work into a robot they want to see do well feel like they don't matter. There needs to be a balance that isn't there and we need to fix it.

[Andrew Lawrence]

What I would suggest doing-at the competition and during the build season-is setting up some clear, understandable rules to everyone. Say, if you're not doing x, or if you do y instead of z, then you're off the team. You have 50 people on your team, I'm sure that getting rid of some people won't hurt. As for the competitions, I suggest having a responsible student or so to control the people there. Tell them and the people in the stands that if the person finds you're not doing something, you're sent out of the stands. I know some teams that don't allow students to even come to the competition if they don't do what they're supposed to do.

All in all, you need to take control over your team, via the lead mentor on your team. Set down some sturdy rules, and most importantly, enforce them.

[Imperium283]

What I would suggest doing-at the competition and during the build season-is setting up some clear, understandable rules to everyone. Say, if you're not doing x, or if you do y instead of z, then you're off the team. You have 50 people on your team, I'm sure that getting rid of some people won't hurt. As for the competitions, I suggest having a responsible student or so to control the people there. Tell them and the people in the stands that if the person finds you're not doing something, you're sent out of the stands. I know some teams that don't allow students to even come to the competition if they don't do what they're supposed to do.

All in all, you need to take control over your team, via the lead mentor on your team. Set down some sturdy rules, and most importantly, enforce them.

We completely agree with you on this. But heres the problem: They're all friends. They think we're all jerks because we don't care about being obnoxious in the stands. They go on bike rides, they have parties, they go laser tagging, they have their own drama circles, they do everything but focus on what the main part of FIRST is about (Science and Technology)

What they think when chains snap or the gears wear out, they think "Oh, the builders will just fix it they know what to do" and rely on that. Newsflash! There's going to be max 4 people building next year's robot. (If we're lucky). Sooner or later theres going to be no one to rely on, and none of them realize this and don't try to learn or go to the seminars. Half of them didn't, and still don't know what "Autonomous" means after we won a regional this year, and made the quarter finals in the other two.

I honestly have no hope for next season.

[Mk.32]

Our team is also like that, next year we will only have about 4 core members left after the seniors are gone. And past season we only really had about 6-8 people work on the robot itself. And the rest (10+ people) didn't even bother to show up to meetings.

This coming season recruiting will be the key for us; being able to find people that are interesting into STEM and getting them into building/programming etc would be a big help. Try prompting at your school, look in the comp sci/woodshop/engineering classes for motivated students. And lay down a set of rules for everyone to abide to in terms of commitment.

In addition give people fun jobs to do in terms of building, we were able to gain a few members by letting them mill out parts(with instruction) on our milling machine and getting the "oh this is cool" response then they have been coming back.

[Chexposito]

We have a larger team, which in my opinion could be good or bad....

Get an hour system in place, take only the top participants. The people who pour their heart and soul into the team/robot will usually show up on top (or they'll forget to clock in/out because they're there so much). Put it this way, myself and the other people in the top 5 had over 500 hours at the end of the season. DON'T TAKE EVERYONE TO REGIONALS! If they didn't do any work then they don't deserve the trip especially if they are not paying for the trip. You'll find the cost to the team go down if you cut the people you haul along. Those people are usually the ones who cause the problems you are having at the regional. just my 2 cents

[Andrew Lawrence]

We completely agree with you on this. But heres the problem: They're all friends. They think we're all jerks because we don't care about being obnoxious in the stands. They go on bike rides, they have parties, they go laser tagging, they have their own drama circles, they do everything but focus on what the main part of FIRST is about (Science and Technology)

What they think when chains snap or the gears wear out, they think "Oh, the builders will just fix it they know what to do" and rely on that. Newsflash! There's going to be max 4 people building next year's robot. (If we're lucky). Sooner or later theres going to be no one to rely on, and none of them realize this and don't try to learn or go to the seminars. Half of them didn't, and still don't know what "Autonomous" means after we won a regional this year, and made the quarter finals in the other two.

I honestly have no hope for next season.

I understand being friends, and we have a similar issue on our team. What I meant to say was to have control over them, but still let them do the screaming and the shouting. Let them do that if they still do their work (correctly). My 8th grade english teacher told our class that we could talk amongst friends and listen to our iPods while working in class as long as our work got done. In the end, it all worked out fine, except for a few students who were disturbing the class.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Get an hour system in place, take only the top participants. The people who pour their heart and soul into the team/robot will usually show up on top (or they'll forget to clock in/out because they're there so much). Put it this way, myself and the other people in the top 5 had over 500 hours at the end of the season. DON'T TAKE EVERYONE TO REGIONALS! If they didn't do any work then they don't deserve the trip especially if they are not paying for the trip. You'll find the cost to the team go down if you cut the people you haul along. Those people are usually the ones who cause the problems you are having at the regional. just my 2 cents

I agree with this, but our team has an issue with this. You see, around 50% of our team is autistic, which for the most part is a very good thing, as they are bright and help a lot, but the problem is, with their autism comes some difficulties. One of them is that they don't/can't work on something very long or don't ever show up to practice, and the second one is a few of them don't like the idea of "Gracious Professionalism", and try to drive the robot like a battle bot while being extremely rude to our alliance members and the judges. If we try to do this sort of thing to them, they can essentially sue us for discrimination, or worse, have the team broken up! :ahh:

[GGCO]

I've been on a team where this happens, so I totally understand how frustrating this can be. Unfortunately, until your mentors realize this there's not much you can do.

The best solution would be to bring on more technical mentors, make a strict policy regarding alumni working on the robot, and implementing a tiered structure to your team described below:
1. Core - group of 10, leaders, 1+ yrs of team membership, build robot, at space every day
2. Specialists - group of 15-20, newer members w/ lots of potential, have a skill but not master of it, work closely with Core, at space for majority of week
3. Support - rest of the team, they do button making, painting, etc., also put on bumper making duty, team blogging, picture taking, "spirit" (ugh), stuff like that.

After each season, people should be evaluated and placed into the proper "supercell" where they can best grow/learn and contribute to the team.

As for what you can do in the meantime, find others on your team who are the movers of your team - those who get their hands dirty and produce something. Find them and talk with them, my guess is that they feel similar. With those people, talk to your mentors and just with 100% transparency tell them your concerns. If nothing happens because your mentors are satisfied with the status quo, then leave and form your own team. It's well worth keeping your sanity.


I think I just put a target on my back...

[Alan Anderson]

If we try to do this sort of thing to them, they can essentially sue us for discrimination, or worse, have the team broken up! :ahh:

As long as you discriminate based on performance and behavior, and not on their "disability" status, I don't see a problem. Document and make public the requirements early on, regularly emphasize that those who do not meet the participation standards do not travel with the team, and stick to the policy regardless of any complaints when someone fails to make the cut. You might have a tough first year, but it will perhaps weed out those who aren't serious about the goals of FRC, and it will definitely impress on everyone else the fact that actions have consequences.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Thanks Alan! I'll talk to my lead mentor about this.

[AdamHeard]

Thanks Alan! I'll talk to my lead mentor about this.

I've worked with children with autism before, and nearly all the parents would actually be disappointed in the team for letting their students get away with such poor behavior.

[Andrew Lawrence]

I've worked with children with autism before, and nearly all the parents would actually be disappointed in the team for letting their students get away with such poor behavior.

The parents on our team think otherwise.

[Akash Rastogi]

The parents on our team think otherwise.

I too have worked with kids with autism and similar disorders and I agree with Adam. It is sometimes insulting to let things slide and I definitely would disagree with a parent who thinks otherwise.

[Tassemet]

To be completely honest, I haven't seen an issue with this for the team I used to be on. 309 did FTC (and this may vary because it's FTC and not FRC) but we had about 20 people on the team. of those twenty, about 10 regularly attended meetings and those intent on staying put in the effort after school and the long night sessions we often did when last minute parts came in.

Several times, our team won the spirit award, especially the competetion where one of our cheerleaders found a sharpie and a stack of sticky notes in her purse. So saying you have to put in a lot of work to get the spirit award doesn't seem like a logical excuse to me, you need to cut members.

Now I won't lie, it was nice when those who didn't touch the robot where around, just socializing. Sure it was distracting, but during the long nights when working on a rig went from a 1 to 6 hour job due to finding some new innovation, it was nice to take a break, and roll out with the team to the nearest dunkin' donuts for coffee and a donut. Now, those who were interested in art made up our engineering log, and we had one kid who was good with CAD. Again, these didn't compose more then 10% of our team.

We didn't have to enforce an "hours to travel rule" but it was generally understood that if you didn't pull your share of the work, you weren't welcome to come. However that being said, we did make rare exceptions to those who had real life committments come up first (like my brother and his mandatory (aka show up or you don't get credit) AP afterschool classes, who despite that would text me ideas based on feedback I gave him about 300 feet away in a classroom), and for those who came to the afterschool sessions but couldn't stay late. they were welcome too. Again, it was also nice having extra people incase we had issues (a programmer lost his USB drive and had his car break down- thank god the other programmer was there with a copy of the program) and during the competetions, some people did double duty of pits/coding or PR/scout/ you get my drift.

But 50 people on a team for spirit? I like the idea of incorporating an application. Just watch that sometimes these people join up as a clique- you lose one or deny one, you lose 5-7 others- which according to you might not be so bad after all.

[Imperium283]

To be completely honest, I haven't seen an issue with this for the team I used to be on. 309 did FTC (and this may vary because it's FTC and not FRC) but we had about 20 people on the team. of those twenty, about 10 regularly attended meetings and those intent on staying put in the effort after school and the long night sessions we often did when last minute parts came in.

Several times, our team won the spirit award, especially the competetion where one of our cheerleaders found a sharpie and a stack of sticky notes in her purse. So saying you have to put in a lot of work to get the spirit award doesn't seem like a logical excuse to me, you need to cut members.

Now I won't lie, it was nice when those who didn't touch the robot where around, just socializing. Sure it was distracting, but during the long nights when working on a rig went from a 1 to 6 hour job due to finding some new innovation, it was nice to take a break, and roll out with the team to the nearest dunkin' donuts for coffee and a donut. Now, those who were interested in art made up our engineering log, and we had one kid who was good with CAD. Again, these didn't compose more then 10% of our team.

We didn't have to enforce an "hours to travel rule" but it was generally understood that if you didn't pull your share of the work, you weren't welcome to come. However that being said, we did make rare exceptions to those who had real life committments come up first (like my brother and his mandatory (aka show up or you don't get credit) AP afterschool classes, who despite that would text me ideas based on feedback I gave him about 300 feet away in a classroom), and for those who came to the afterschool sessions but couldn't stay late. they were welcome too. Again, it was also nice having extra people incase we had issues (a programmer lost his USB drive and had his car break down- thank god the other programmer was there with a copy of the program) and during the competetions, some people did double duty of pits/coding or PR/scout/ you get my drift.

But 50 people on a team for spirit? I like the idea of incorporating an application. Just watch that sometimes these people join up as a clique- you lose one or deny one, you lose 5-7 others- which according to you might not be so bad after all.

This is one of the most reasonable ones most of all. I wish our team had that tone, that building is the priority, but we don't know how to set that tone. And when we try, it backfires on us socially

[Tristan Lall]

If we try to do this sort of thing to them, they can essentially sue us for discrimination, or worse, have the team broken up! :ahh:They can always sue you for anything; suing and winning is the tricky part. Besides, although it's not quite clear-cut, the odds are very good you can't personally be held liable, even if you did personally discriminate on the basis of a medical condition. Employment law doesn't apply because you're not an employer, you're not an agent of the state so you have no constitutional duty not to discriminate, and you're presumably a minor. (Your teachers and school administrators, on the other hand, have more limited protections—but I do know that in California, some state agents are shielded from personal liability in the course of their work.)

So I think a reasonable policy, equitably applied, would be at virtually no risk of exposing you to liability, even if it was necessary to treat the autistic students somewhat differently. (There might be grounds for striking it down, if it was official school policy.)

Unfortunately, whether the team breaks up or not is an administrative decision at some level. That's certainly something to be concerned about, if you believe that those in positions of power would not side with you.

[Nomadic Mentor]

This is one of the most reasonable ones most of all. I wish our team had that tone, that building is the priority, but we don't know how to set that tone. And when we try, it backfires on us socially

I've been thinking about this problem for a while. I have a couple of suggestions you might try. First set some ground rules but more importantly enforce those rules. Secondly comes from a judge at the last regional I went to. Find ways to communicate with them. It's hard and takes a LOT of patience but once you figure out how; it will work wonders for you and your team. One thing that's help me a lot has been complementing the people who are doing good work regardless of what that work. One student did an excellent job with painting the numbers on our bumpers, it wasn't mission critical but by mentioning how good of a job he did, it got him more interested in the rest of the robot and overall he ended up making a make larger and better quality contribution to the team than he otherwise would have.
Another method is to intentionally split up the cliques that form. Ask a few students to come help you with something, like replace a wheel, and while your doing it start teaching them how to fix the chain, or properly space a wheel and whatever else you needed "help" with. Rotate who your asking and as you fix or make other parts you'll come to know how to place the team members effectively so you get a great robot and a happy leadership, and well satisfied team as a whole.

Hope my $.02 helps

-Joseph

[Isaac501]

I'd give my left kidney for a 50-man team with that much enthusiasm and drive.

10 students for build? You could build a championship robot any day of the week with that.

You're blessed. FIRST is not just about Robots, you have 2 Very Important People telling you that every year at Kickoff. Maybe you should listen.

[Molten]

This is one of the most reasonable ones most of all. I wish our team had that tone, that building is the priority, but we don't know how to set that tone. And when we try, it backfires on us socially

Doing the right thing always comes with a consequence. You simply can't expect to get something for nothing. Whenever faced with this type of dilemma, decide whether or not the goal is worth the consequence. I can't really say if your social life is worth it. For me, it would have been. I often made unpopular calls when I was a student on the team. Honestly though, I never really had a social life to begin with.

I'd give my left kidney for a 50-man team with that much enthusiasm and drive.

10 students for build? You could build a championship robot any day of the week with that.

You're blessed. FIRST is not just about Robots, you have 2 Very Important People telling you that every year at Kickoff. Maybe you should listen.

I know what your trying to say, it just doesn't seem to fit. Yes, there are other parts of a team then just the robot. There is funding, planning, scouting, off-season projects, spirit, award submissions, and many other things. That does not mean that there should be people on the team that just do any 1 of these things. Is it unreasonable to expect team members that are already in the stands to take scouting data? Not everyone on the team has to build the robot but they certainly should contribute more then a set of lungs in the stands. I definitely agree that 10 students is enough to build an amazing robot. Those same 10 students also managing to get funding for 50 students to go to a regional as well as all the planning involved is another matter.

Jason

[Andrew Lawrence]

They can always sue you for anything; suing and winning is the tricky part. Besides, although it's not quite clear-cut, the odds are very good you can't personally be held liable, even if you did personally discriminate on the basis of a medical condition. Employment law doesn't apply because you're not an employer, you're not an agent of the state so you have no constitutional duty not to discriminate, and you're presumably a minor. (Your teachers and school administrators, on the other hand, have more limited protections—but I do know that in California, some state agents are shielded from personal liability in the course of their work.)

So I think a reasonable policy, equitably applied, would be at virtually no risk of exposing you to liability, even if it was necessary to treat the autistic students somewhat differently. (There might be grounds for striking it down, if it was official school policy.)

Unfortunately, whether the team breaks up or not is an administrative decision at some level. That's certainly something to be concerned about, if you believe that those in positions of power would not side with you.

It's not me I'm worried about, I'm safe. It's the team I'm worried for. Some of these people are nice, intelligent students, who benefit our team greatly. It's just that there are a few that don't do anything, and make us look like a bad team. Even worse, they invite their friends over, who don't want to do robotics, and end up using our computers to play minecraft the whole day. This has meant a major loss of productivity over this past year, and it made our already small building room seem more crowded.

[Imperium283]

I'd give my left kidney for a 50-man team with that much enthusiasm and drive.

10 students for build? You could build a championship robot any day of the week with that.

You're blessed. FIRST is not just about Robots, you have 2 Very Important People telling you that every year at Kickoff. Maybe you should listen.


About that? I agree its good to have a team with a lot of people and with drive, but when their drive is on one particular aspect and they ignore ALL the rest and don't even want to try to give it a chance, it's a problem.

I like doing the work myself, and I'm not worried about next year when I'm a senior, I'm worried about all of the rest when they're will be no builders left. I just wish you read my post clearly before you came off with a snoody comment

p.s- When I see my scouting sheets wrong, blank, full of incoherent words, or swamped with zeros, ill be thinking of you and say "At least they have the drive to hold up pretty pictures and dance around in costumes"

[Andrew Lawrence]

I'd give my left kidney for a 50-man team with that much enthusiasm and drive for their area of work.

10 students for build? You could build a championship robot any day of the week with that.

You're blessed. FIRST is not just about Robots, you have 2 Very Important People telling you that every year at Kickoff. Maybe you should listen.

See bold words above. I'd love to have 50 people working with a drive to work, but only to do their separate jobs on the team. If everyone wanted to do the same thing, then I wouldn't care if I had 5 people or 1,000 people on my team.

[Hawiian Cadder]

I wish our team had the team spirit you describe. At our competitions the scouting forms are perfect, almost everyone in the stands with more than 1 year of dedicated work goes in the pits for a bit. But our team doesn't feel as much like a Team so much as a couple different groups of people sort of working together.

While you are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I don't think that is too big of an issue. I would design a prototyping project that is also VERY spirit orientated, in an attempt to overlap the two main areas of your team and do both well. An example of this would be when teams incorporate designs into their sheet metal lighting patterns.

[JuliaGreen]

I agree with this, but our team has an issue with this. You see, around 50% of our team is autistic, which for the most part is a very good thing, as they are bright and help a lot, but the problem is, with their autism comes some difficulties. One of them is that they don't/can't work on something very long or don't ever show up to practice, and the second one is a few of them don't like the idea of "Gracious Professionalism", and try to drive the robot like a battle bot while being extremely rude to our alliance members and the judges. If we try to do this sort of thing to them, they can essentially sue us for discrimination, or worse, have the team broken up! :ahh:

Some of the points you bring up here about the difficulties of working with team members with autism is directly related to the autism itself. People with autism have an extremely difficult time understanding gracious professionalism - because gracious professionalism is all about the situation and how you respond to a certain situation. What is gracious professionalism in one situation is different in another situation because of other factors that are present but invisible.

Those who are socially aware can implement a flexible response. Those who are not socially aware due to autism don't even know a response is required, so where the socially aware person is expecting a reciprocal response, the person with autism is unaware a response is expected. Some of us neurotypical types think of this a rudeness.

Those with autism can also experience trouble with staying on task, due to a low tolerance for frustration or a higher than normal level of distractibility.

However, these members do bring a benefit to your team in their intelligence and willingness to help you. It sounds like you need help - so ask the school social worker or a special ed teacher to help you help the persons with autism. They can give you specific ways to "call out" the behaviors that can help the person with autism interact with you, judges, alliance partners in a different way and increase their social awareness.

Autism is a disability when viewed through the lens of the neurotypical - but is also one of the most interesting and fascinating forays into how the human brain works.

Feel free to PM me with specific questions about working with people on the autism spectrum -

Julia - Mom to one of the coolest kids with autism.

[AdamHeard]

Those with autism can also experience trouble with staying on task, due to a low tolerance for frustration or a higher than normal level of distractibility.


It's interesting how the same person with autism can behave like you described with some tasks (usually ones they wish to not do), but have some of the most intense and dedicated focus on other tasks (usually the ones that interest them).

[Tom Ore]

I agree with this, but our team has an issue with this. You see, around 50% of our team is autistic, which for the most part is a very good thing, as they are bright and help a lot, but the problem is, with their autism comes some difficulties. One of them is that they don't/can't work on something very long or don't ever show up to practice, and the second one is a few of them don't like the idea of "Gracious Professionalism", and try to drive the robot like a battle bot while being extremely rude to our alliance members and the judges. If we try to do this sort of thing to them, they can essentially sue us for discrimination, or worse, have the team broken up! :ahh:

I have an autistic son so I appreciate the struggles you are having. I'd love to hear more about how your team came to have so many autistic kids on it.

It can take a lot of energy to work with the autistic kids - trying to keep them on task, modeling good behavior, trying to cope when their behavior is not the best. It's a big undertaking and all this is in the middle of that other thing - trying to build a robot in six weeks. Very impressive.

[EricH]

It's just that there are a few that don't do anything, and make us look like a bad team. Even worse, they invite their friends over, who don't want to do robotics, and end up using our computers to play minecraft the whole day. This has meant a major loss of productivity over this past year, and it made our already small building room seem more crowded.
That's somewhat of an easier problem to solve:

Make sure there's a team policy that team computers are ONLY for TEAM use, or for use on TEAM stuff (CAD, programming, marketing, that sort of thing). (Schoolwork use, too.) Games don't count as a team activity unless expressly given permission.

That will keep the computers clear, or allow non-essential uses to be stopped any time something essential needs doing; it may get the non-robotics students out of the area; it may also deal with any "slackers" on the team.

[DonRotolo]

We have a strict "no gaming" policy during work hours. We enforce it reasonably well - not perfect, but we call it out when we see it (and we do look for it).

[Chexposito]

get the entire room on one Ethernet connection, then if they are gaming or not being productive, pull the plug. this usually clears out the room within a few min.

[plnyyanks]

we only give out wifi to those who absolutely need it, all others have to use an ethernet connection or a team computer. we find this keeps unproductive things at bay without sacrificing productivity

[Tassemet]

This is one of the most reasonable ones most of all. I wish our team had that tone, that building is the priority, but we don't know how to set that tone. And when we try, it backfires on us socially

To be totally honest, we were a hardcore team that spent any spare time we had holed up with a laptop or the robot. We made it as far as we could considering the resources we had, it's unfortunate we didn't have more time. And, for a small team that basically taught oursevles robotics with no sponsors and a mentor who was learning with us, we did a hella good job.

We have a strict "no gaming" policy during work hours. We enforce it reasonably well - not perfect, but we call it out when we see it (and we do look for it).

We allowed it seeing as how the programmers would sit bored for hourrrrrs while the engineers fixed something. Then when the programming came, 2 second fix and they went back to magic or minecraft.

[EricH]

We allowed it seeing as how the programmers would sit bored for hourrrrrs while the engineers fixed something. Then when the programming came, 2 second fix and they went back to magic or minecraft.That means that you weren't giving the programmers enough to do. Have them develop the skeleton of yet another automode if you have to--but if you're allowing gaming, and non-team members are taking advantage of that (as well as team members), then you may need to impose it--and find something else for the programmers to do while they wait.

[Andrew Lawrence]

We allowed it seeing as how the programmers would sit bored for hourrrrrs while the engineers fixed something. Then when the programming came, 2 second fix and they went back to magic or minecraft.

There are times when our programmers do have free time (which I don't see why there would be, unless they can do their work in less than 6 weeks). During this "Free time", they play some games until they're needed. Our programmers are for the most part responsible, and in the end get their work done. One of the major problems here is while they're responsible and do their work, the games distract everyone else, making the team unproductive.

So while your programmers somehow have hourrrrrs of free time, I can tell you from experience that sometimes it's best to cut the games for the team's sake, and for the sake of productivity. Anyways, they're programmers for robot's sake! Tell them to go outside for once!

Bro tip: Tell them outside has really good graphics!

[Tristan Lall]

We allowed it seeing as how the programmers would sit bored for hourrrrrs while the engineers fixed something. Then when the programming came, 2 second fix and they went back to magic or minecraft.Your next major purchases need to be a kitbot and a cRIO. (Even better if you've got spare cRIO-based robots lying around.) That will give the programmers something interesting to play with, which also happens to benefit the team. Induce them to go wild with the spare robot, and build their skills that way.

[Laaba 80]

There are times when our programmers do have free time (which I don't see why there would be, unless they can do their work in less than 6 weeks). During this "Free time", they play some games until they're needed. Our programmers are for the most part responsible, and in the end get their work done. One of the major problems here is while they're responsible and do their work, the games distract everyone else, making the team unproductive.

So while your programmers somehow have hourrrrrs of free time, I can tell you from experience that sometimes it's best to cut the games for the team's sake, and for the sake of productivity. Anyways, they're programmers for robot's sake! Tell them to go outside for once!

Bro tip: Tell them outside has really good graphics!

You seem to be underestimating the job of the programmers.

For the past few years our programmers have had all the code written, waiting to be tested before the robot is completed. This was the case my senior year. I needed to test my code, and one of our lead builders kept telling me it would be done in 1 hour. Well that hour turned into about 10, so I ended up sitting there waiting.

You can also say play with a spare CRIO, but there is only so much that can be done on something that isnt the actual robot.

Programming is unlike building, because sometimes something wont work, and all it takes is to add a ; as opposed to building a new part for the robot. At the same time, something that should be an easy fix can take hours because you miss that ; or added an extra one.

As a programmer it is very possible to have free time, yet I still probably would not have been playing games. Have them research what other teams are doing, or talk about game strategy. If they know that they have nothing to work on that day, just tell them not to show up.

[Techhexium]

Having read the last several posts about programmers, I find that programmers can have multiple roles for the team, or do things related to FIRST that isn't exclusive to programming, like strategy, scouting or programming software like scouting apps (or try to get Sundial (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69730) working for your team)

Also, having mechanical knowledge of the robot can help because it can be of use when you are deciding how to place the electronics or sensors on the robot.

Despite the glut of leisure programmers may get, it's still very easy to get off-task.

[Andrew Lawrence]

On the topic of programmers and somewhat continuing on from my last post, I was sort of a programmer this past year for my team, but since there was little for the team to do until the robot was built, I spent most of my time building. As a side note, I did a little bit of everything this past year, since we started the season with 10 people and ended with 20 people who didn't know what to do. That being said, I think that like mentioned before, the programmers should have more responsibility. I don't mean that they don't have enough work to do, but I'm just saying that they can only program so much without a robot, so they might as well aid in the building process so they can finish the robot quicker and in turn be able to work on their code more.

[Tassemet]

There are times when our programmers do have free time (which I don't see why there would be, unless they can do their work in less than 6 weeks). During this "Free time", they play some games until they're needed. Our programmers are for the most part responsible, and in the end get their work done. One of the major problems here is while they're responsible and do their work, the games distract everyone else, making the team unproductive.

So while your programmers somehow have hourrrrrs of free time, I can tell you from experience that sometimes it's best to cut the games for the team's sake, and for the sake of productivity. Anyways, they're programmers for robot's sake! Tell them to go outside for once!

Bro tip: Tell them outside has really good graphics!

To be totally honest they had the code already ready to run before we even got into the build session. I'm talking FTC so hang with me :P But we had the same issues with one hour becoming ten and them waiting is not a good thing. To be totally honest as well, these were the kids who couldn't advance any further programming wise in a high school setting, as the three we had already were making their own games and using programming to do whatever they wanted/needed. I mean these guys finished AP classes worth of programming in 3/4 the time required to do it( since ap programming is self paced at our school) so the games were there to keep them occupied. Nowm that didn't distract the rest of us, because the rest of us were worried about the next bloody finger (yeah guilty) and getting our building part done on time.

[Tassemet]

On the topic of programmers and somewhat continuing on from my last post, I was sort of a programmer this past year for my team, but since there was little for the team to do until the robot was built, I spent most of my time building. As a side note, I did a little bit of everything this past year, since we started the season with 10 people and ended with 20 people who didn't know what to do. That being said, I think that like mentioned before, the programmers should have more responsibility. I don't mean that they don't have enough work to do, but I'm just saying that they can only program so much without a robot, so they might as well aid in the building process so they can finish the robot quicker and in turn be able to work on their code more.

Sorry for the double post but I just saw this and had to quote reply it.

You can only fit so many hands on an area 18x18x18 before there's no more room for hands, or they touch something that cuts them (ie sharp sheet metal underneath that we hadn't gotten around to filing yet).

[Molten]

Sorry for the double post but I just saw this and had to quote reply it.

You can only fit so many hands on an area 18x18x18 before there's no more room for hands, or they touch something that cuts them (ie sharp sheet metal underneath that we hadn't gotten around to filing yet).

There are many hands-off ways to help a team. Programming is of course one of them. Drafting being another(my focus as a student). The two have similar traits in their function within the team. There are times that something needs modeled immediately and then days when nothing seems to need done. That said, I never sat around and waited. I actively saw what the other people were doing(from a safe distance) and helped keep things on track. I worked to help keep communication going between the different parts of the team. I discussed what the electronics people needed by when and pressed the machining team to meet those deadlines. If there were good reasons for the machining team taking so long, I could explain them to the electronics. This is just one example of how a person can contribute to the construction of a robot without ever getting in the way. Another way is to work on the non-engineering side of things. Someone has to plan the trip to the competitions. Someone has to design the team shirts. Someone has to manage the budget. Someone has to fill out the forms for various awards. Someone has to do alot of things. Why not them? There really is no need for a student to ever be sitting around playing games while they are "on the clock". Not only does it limit their contribution to the team, it also suggests that this might be acceptable in industy. Randall Munroe(xkcd writer) has made many jokes about what happens when the code is compiling. Lets not perpetuate this mentality by making excuses for it. Programmers are smart people capable of many things more then just programming. Encourage them to branch and try different things. They will gain alot more then a high score in solitaire.

Jason

[JaneYoung]

Reading the initial post and reason for this thread, I think you have a few great problems. Meaning - yes, there are problems but they can be worked through and problem-solved. That process of problem-solving will strengthen the team in a lot of areas such as team organization, communication, time management, and expectations regarding members' behavior and attitudes.

I may have overlooked it but I'm not seeing anything about the mentors of the team. I'm also not seeing anything about consequences, expectations, or rules in place - established before recruitment and build and enforced during build and competition.

It's good to have so many people that are creative and energetic. The trick is to channel that into positive impact on the team and the community. One thought that I have is about members who have no idea of how the team is organized or run and what the rules and expectations are. An example that I can give is a couple of soccer players that joined the team. Early in the build, they came in with their soccer balls and were kicking them and headbutting them around the metal shop where the robot was being worked on. It created mayhem and could have damaged the robot. Very quickly, the balls were put in time-out and the new members were taught that the those types of games were not allowed in the shop. Period. Same with the lacrosse equipment that followed and the pool noodles that appeared for the purpose of bumpers not bopping.

Each year is different but if you have a consistent approach to how the team is run and the members know the rules and expectations up front, it is very helpful when situations begin to get out of hand. And, the mentors are key to making sure that does not happen by enforcing the rules and keeping the expectations present and current during the process.

Jane