Application To Join A Team
 

Today, my girlfriend's little brother went to inquire about joining a FIRST Robotics Team. When he talked to the sponsor, he was informed there was an application to be filled out and turned in by June 6th.

I personally have no problem in having an application for statistical use or to keep a students goals for themselves documented. However, when I was shown the application, I was quickly appalled by what I saw.

The application was 6 pages long, the first three talking about the teams regulations and the application process. One of the lines read,"You will be contacted by email if you are selected to join our team." This is what began my investigation deeper into the application. No student, under any circumstance, should EVER be denied a chance to be on a FIRST robotics team. I thought that was the point of FIRST, to spread the STEM fields to the youth of our country, not just those who you think keep the image of your team you want.

I decided to keep reading, to see if it was just a misunderstanding. I was quickly reassured that my initial reading was, indeed, correct. The teams then began to list reasons why you can be dismissed from the team. Behavioural and grades were two of the things on there. This is expected on any team or organization in an academic environment. Then it began to list certain things such as being involved in other sports that may cut into the teams schedule, not being able to make it to summer training sessions, missing a single fundraiser. The list then went on and on. I was stunned that a team could have the audacity to deny a child who has other interests. During my involvement with FIRST as a student, I played golf as well. To think I could have been cut from my team simply because I wanted to do other things is simply unacceptable.

Another reason for termination, not being able to stay the entire session after school during build season. As a mentor now, I completely understand when kids have to leave early. Granted, sometimes it can become tedious, however I would never remove one of my kids from the team because they could not stay the entire time. Most of the time, they don't want to leave but they must. To punish a child because of their parents or prior obligation is a slap in the face to FIRST. Which brings me to my next point, the parent's section of the application. The parents section pretty much asks,"How much time are you willing to take out of your life so your kid can join our team?" I grew up with a single mom, who worked full time, normally over 40 hours a week, sometimes even two jobs. She couldn't be involved with the team as much the application would of liked. Why should a student, who wants to learn, be denied access onto the team because they have a hard working parent? I now work 40 hours a week myself, on top of Undergraduate Research and coaching Tee Ball, I can see where helping my team is becoming more and more difficult. But for a child to be denied because of that, is simply ungracious.

Finally, the fees. On our team, if you want to go to an event, you paid your way. Either through fundraising or out of pocket. The choice was yours. If the team wanted something in specific, we did a fundraiser for it. These techniques teach kids a good work ethic. However, a team fee does not. In a public school, how dare you put a fee on joining an EDUCATIONAL organization. The kids on your team are NOT I repeat are NOT a fundraiser. To exploit them for more money is simply outlandish. Children should have the opportunity to further their education in high school, middle school, etc tax free. No team has the right to turn down a child who is seeking out a better education for themselves because they can't pay a fee, or because they can't stay the entire time during build season or any other similar reason. If they are willing to work hard for the team, it should be left at that.

So I want to know, what is your views on team application and the refusal of team members?

P.S. No, I will not release the team that I am affiliated with this OR the team who created the application that sparked this thread.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

There is a point where a team could become too large. On a team of 50+, it gets to where extra people being around doing nothing becomes a distraction to the others who are working. IMO, that's why smaller teams like 1114 do so well. But you are right, it is sad when kids have to be turned away from a team like that.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

That's great for your team, but not all teams are the same, and all rules and regulations have their story and reasoning behind them. Every team has some rule or regulation that another team or person may find "outlandish," but every team has it's own unique situation that these regulations are put in place for, usually based on past experiences.

I don't see how we can answer the questions you have posted since we aren't the people who made the application. Instead of complaining about the application questions on here, why not ask the team directly?

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Did you ever think that the reason might not be to deny students but to ensure a quality experience for the students that are part of the team? I know on my FTC team we are having to go to an application approach not because we don't want to have the students but because our build space is too small for more than 15 students and because we don't have the mentors to ensure that every student gets the attention they deserve/need.

As for asking students to pay... I see nothing wrong with asking students to pay for their travel. As for paying dues, that depends on the particulars of the team, one of the things I feel would be important would be that the team works with the students to pay the dues through fundraising and other things. On 397 we had no dues but we required students to participate in fundraising. On the FTC team we have dues and require them to participate in fundraising (no way we can get support from a school due to being primarily homeschool students and I am working on finding corporate sponsors to help alleviate some of this burden from the students).

The part that bothers me about this is that you seem to think it is acceptable to anonymously bash another team and how they have decided to run without knowing all the facts about the team.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

The point I am trying to make is that kids should not be turned away from FIRST. I have had multiple people I know go through the same thing, and it has now finally got me to the point of wondering,"Why?"

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Above is the mission statement that is posted on the FIRST website. If you notice, self-confidence is involved in it. I don't know about you, but being turned down from a team is not that great at building self-confidence.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

The team application you have described seemed "extreme" compared to my perception of the application. Our team cannot support a large number of students (35+.) We resulted in using a short application form and interview to determine if there is enough interest to participate and make sure we do not over-extend on amount of members. Unfortunately, there are people that are not willing to do any work and just mess around as well. Limited ability to support a number of students and need of actual interest are my two main criteria for the use of applications.

I have never heard of requiring full hours in build season and a team fee. I hope we can use this as a good discussion on the nature of team applications.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Are you reading these posts before replying?

As Andrew said, teams put these rules and applications in place to provide as good of a program as they are able to and still be effective.

"to ensure a quality experience for the students that are part of the team"

Trust me, no team eagerly waits to cut students down in order to laugh in their faces. They do it to create a strong, sustainable program and to run a team to the best of their abilities.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Removal from a team because of inactivity is one thing, however, removal because you cannot be there the entire time is a completely different matter.

Our build space can only fit, comfortably and with everyone working, 10 people. Yet, we have 30 kids. We find things for them to do. We keep them engaged. We constantly challenge them to find ways to make our team better. And the kids learn and prosper. We have very limited full time mentors, I myself am not a full time mentor. Scheduling what kids can do is important if you want to keep large amounts involved. Get kids excited about FIRST, and believe me, you hardly need to watch them. Just let them go and prosper.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Sounds like your girlfriend's little brother should just join your team.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Different teams have different requirements and capabilities. Our team has 2 class periods, one of which you must be enrolled in if you want to be a member of the team. This caps us at around 55, even thought we get 80 or so applicants each year. It's not realistic to make FIRST teams different from all other organizations, where anyone can do whatever they want and still be a part of it. If a team decides that students who can't maintain grades while on the team can't participate, that's their prerogative. Sports teams do that all the time, in the interest of the student's academic career, not out of punishment.

Similarly, if you can't contribute enough time to be a valuable member of the team, is it really fair to expect leaders and mentors to spend their time training you, getting you involved, and then having you walk away? Of course this happens to some degree, its only natural for people in high school to not know exactly what they want to do, but maybe this team has found that they need to be a little stricter to be successful (I don't mean winning is the only way of being successful either).

There are things they do that I'm sure I'd disagree with, but if that's what keeps their team running, who are we to tell them that they need to accept more students, even if they can't?

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Having read this I can only say I am just as appalled as you are. I feel that something like this is the opposite of what FIRST is supposed to be about and would actually discourage people from even wanting to join.

As for dismissing people it may be necessary to have a clause somewhere in your documentation that allows you to kick people out for certain reasons but nothing that excessive. To the best of my knowledge from 4 years in this club we only asked one person to not come back due to an incident involving a flying 2x4 and a bloody nose. Other then them causing complete mayhem or being unable to keep their grades up (at which point they should be allowed back once they fix the problem) there should be no reason to remove a kid from the team.

The fees are what I am most annoyed about here. Granted every now and then our team does have to ask parents to hand over a little cash to pay for hotels and such when we are unable to (small team and a nationals trip last year drained our accounts completely. We have since fixed the problem and doubled our sponsorship input =D) pay it out of the club account. And even then we never excluded a person from going because they can't pay and always brought everyone who wanted and deserved to go. But to pay simply to participate on the team i find absurd. One of the key ideas behind FIRST is to get kids out and talking to big name companies to generate sponsorship. It builds professional communication and was that definitely something I took away from the year I spent as CFO.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

We require a $200 participation fee in order to join our team (Or they can get a sponsorship). In return students receive $250 dollars each year they are on the team. This money is put in a scholarship fund. Pay $800 dollars over 4 years, you get $1000 back. Students and mentors are not required to pay for transportation or hotels to any event during the official season.

68 also requires that students do not play winter sports. Band and Choir are the exceptions due to those being all year long. During the build season we require that you attend Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday meetings. If your on a build group such as chassis or manipulator, you must also attend 2 out of the 3 build sessions (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). You must also attend every competition (excluding off season).

We do both of these things because of previous experiences. I'm sure we would make exceptions in certain cases, and in no circumstances would we ever want to turn down students. Every teams experiences are different, and thus ever team has different requirements. Please keep this in mind.

Thank you for reading =)

Edits in bold.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

If my girlfriends brother didn't live so far away from me, I would love for him to be apart of my team. He is a good kid, who does nothing wrong. I took him to a couple competitions and he loved them. Because he has other interests, his possibility of joining the team is shrunk.

I can see I have upset many people, that wasn't the purpose of this thread. Perhaps I am just another student, who came from a poor school, who saw something so amazing that I wanted everyone in this nation to be involved in, then I saw teams telling kids they can't join and that is what provoked it. I know my team, no matter the size, will never turn down students. We will continue to embrace them as they come and do whatever it is we must to accommodate the new demand.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

As a edit in my wording of the grade policy.

I am in favor of that, if our kids cannot keep their grades up, they cannot miss class. It is important that they maintain at least a C in every class.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I do believe that every kid should be aloud to try out a FRC Team, but they should be able to kick you off because of bad behavior. On our team we have a kid who constantly vandalizes our tools, robot, game pieces, desks, chairs, and walls with sharpie, paint, spray paint, superglue, and hot glue. But because we have a no cut policy hew has to stay. I don't think you have any idea how much of a pain it is to take off hot glue from your electronics board.:ahh: Also his behavior antagonizes the other younger members to goof off too.
With the time commitment we are aloud to have one other competing interest such as a sport during the 6 weeks. We are also required to go twice during the week and every Saturday for those 6 weeks-its really not that long.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

That was bad wording on my part. Cut policies for behaviour and things of that nature are needed. However, cut because you have other things you do is just crazy. We have many students on our team who work, play sports and do this. If the kid is willing to work hard, they should not be punished.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Some points:

1) Anonymous accounts are not allowed in the ChiefDelphi rules. Use the FIRST-A-Holics Anonymous forum for situations where divorcing one's name is necessary. (That's my moderator hat on.)

2) I can think of many reasons to deny a student membership on an FRC team. Much like you mention, we have had students there who were acting a fool, whose grades weren't good enough, and so on. Other students, much as we'd love to have them, were just too booked up with other things to be considered full-fledged team members. Some teams may just not be as able to handle part-timers (for example, some teams build in restricted areas that require badges and special permission).

3) How dare anyone dictate how another team does business. I want to get as many deserving kids competing in FRC as possible, but FIRST is not a right. It's hard work to organize a team, especially if the district or primary sponsor has rules that must be adhered to. (For example, our team can't fundraise until August.)

If you've got an issue or a better way, take it up with the leadership of the team. Or failing that, find another team that's willing to take them in. Some teams have more flexibility.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

The answer to your question will very team by team. Each team is in a unique set of circumstances which dictates the policies of said team. If you feel strongly about this, then I suggest that you investigate this further. You will find that your opinion will evolve as you learn more.

Never judge a book by it's cover. Right now (with the information given in this thread) it looks like you have just scratched the surface. Talk to the team leadership and ask politely, without criticism, the reasons for their application policy. You may learn something :)


PS: Thank you for being considerate and not sharing the team's number.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I will, after this post, refrain from further comments.

I have seen through these posts that most people only wish to find reasons why to turn kids down. To me, it is sad. FIRST saved my life, if it wasn't for FIRST, I would have no future. I did not want to do this anonymously, however I did not want my views reflected as my teams views. They have no idea I posted this, nor will they ever know it was me.

My experience at FIRST has shown me the power it has on kids. If you get them involved in something they like, they will never let it go. I can see that has been forgotten. It is rather disappointing not to see more people like the leadership I had growing up in this organization. Leaders who were willing to find ways to make deals and work with the kids. We have plans for if the entire school were to join, and it would keep them all engaged.

To Chief Delphi, I bid you a fair well. I hope that one day, we will find a way to give every kid who wants to be a FIRST member to be a FIRST member and an application will only be used to show progress. Until then, I will be working with my team to continue recruiting and growing our team. No matter how large it gets, we will ALWAYS have room for them in our family.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

For what each team is, it depends on the interpretation of what FIRST is.

For some, FRC is a sport. For others, it's only a hobby or interest. For those who treat it as a sport, it makes sense to restrict entry and exit. I know some Michigan teams hold tryouts for their team. 1717 only allows the seniors in the engineering academy to be on the team. It really depends on interpretation. Heck, I would want to treat FRC more as a sport, and make it restrict. There's an inspiration in being rejected, because it makes you try harder the next time.


As for termination, FRC is a very time-consuming venture. I'm not surprised at the stringency of the requirements. I was nearly booted out of my seat as president of the Computer Honor Society because i couldn't attend any meetings due to the FRC season. It's very time consuming. It's not just 6 weeks, it's a year long process. During my Senior year of high school, I only had time for FRC and nothing else, because I took it seriously and wanted to improve.

As for entry fees, it makes sense. Band has them. At my school, all clubs and sports had dues. The Robotics team was no different. The dues were a way to weed some people out. We had over 100 members join, but only 50 or so dues paying members because we set the dues at $50. This weeds out those who just wish to write Robotics on their college app and provides the initial funds to register for the season. It's not wrong to have fees. All high schools in my county had them for each grade level.

Keeping an open-door policy is good, but sometimes it doesn't bring the best results. If you keep it a bit closed, efficiency and productivity goes up. It makes sense, and it's all interpretation.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I wish I could do this, I worked with an inner city team for years and saw the impact FIRST had on those students. However, there comes a point where the ratio is simply too low (mentor:student) to ensure safety for everyone involved.

[quote=JustAThought;1169945]Removal from a team because of inactivity is one thing, however, removal because you cannot be there the entire time is a completely different matter.
[\Quote]
Not at all, if I have 50 students and can only accept 25 but 12 of them know they can't be there but half the meetings they should not take spots away from the ones who can dedicate the full time. I think most of this comes down to simply informing students that it is a time commitment. However, I do agree with you that it is a little extreme. Perhaps the team had problems with it in the past. Again, we don't know all the situation with the team (you probably don't either). Making decisions on partial information is a bad idea.
No. You need to watch them. We build FTC in a persons house. A) It is their home and I wouldn't want children wandering around my home. B) We do work with power tools (even more so in FRC) and I have always held that any student that is using a tool that has a motor in it needs to at least have an adult supervising them (even if it is just watching out of the corner of their eye) in case they get hurt.

In my case I have access to a larger site that is slightly better suited to our needs and we are working on moving there BUT I will still need to watch students very carefully (this time for legal reasons). Which still puts a limit onto the number of people that can come in. Again, it comes down to how many people the mentors feel comfortable working with.



I don't want to turn away kids. I never claimed that and frankly I would never turn away a student that wanted to learn. There are simply certain limits that are based on hard facts. I cannot safely watch more than 15 students with the current mentor force. Furthermore I cannot ensure that each student is getting the attention that they need. If there is sufficient interest I will be attempting to approach these problems via other means. Ultimately, I can't tell them no. It's why I spend thousands of my own dollars helping teams every year. But there are certain things I can't control. Physical space... safety...money... I can influence them but frankly... there's only so much I can do. If you have ways I can scale this stuff infinitely let me know cuz I'd love to. 79 had, at the start of this season, 80 students. I'd love to see that number go to 160 and still have an even higher percentage of students participating. To have you say I don't care about students is, frankly, a huge insult and I suggest you not toss that around. None of us would be here if we didn't.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I think this can be turned around and looked at the other way:

If you* can't make it to enough (enough is subjective) meetings and team activities, then why should he/she be allowed to be considered part of the team? As Billfred pointed out, FIRST is not a right, it's a privilege, and to add on to JosephC about our team, you can't play winter sports and be on the team. It's not because we don't want you, it just doesn't work. There are always some exceptions to be made for special circumstances, but being on the team means being with the team. Plus, if you can't be at the majority of required team activities, are you even learning anything? It would be a sleight to FIRST and deceit on your part to claim FIRST experience without actually going through the whole process. Any other sport requires that you be involved and academically and behaviorally eligible. FIRST teams should hold their students to even higher standards. Our team put up a big list on the whiteboard in our main meeting room of priorities, to remind everyone that FIRST comes after school. They say FIRST looks good on college resumes, but you have to get to college (i.e. graduate high school) for that to matter.

*Obviously, you is not directed at anyone, but rather the hypothetical subject of this situation.

Sorry for my very long-windedness and disorganization, but I hate leaving out thoughts.

P.S. If it was my team that was the subject of the OP, I would feel attacked and hurt by this post. This was a scathing and unprovoked attack that is unquestionably leaps and bounds farther outside the ideals of FIRST than any acceptance/denial program any team has. Imagine your team being the recipient of a post like this. If you think you need to be anonymous so that your team is not aligned with these thoughts, what does that mean of your thoughts? To me, it seems to mean that it would be embarrassing for your team if the world knew one of theirs believes something like this, and therefore this information should not be public.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

My team has struggled with this issue a lot. We have had the policy where we let anyone join the team and be a part of it. That policy turned out to be a problem in that we had a whole bunch of people who would show up maybe once a week or a few times the whole season and then expect us to update them and make it like they had been there the whole time. If the team had sufficient mentors to make that happen I would be glad to accommodate this, however, when you have 35 kids at a meeting and 3 mentors that type of thing is unacceptable.

In addition to this, FIRST offers students a great deal of benefits in terms of applying to colleges and scholarships. I think its unfair that a student who shows up to 1 meeting a week to be given the same opportunities (in terms of scholarships) as the student who has put countless hours of work into FIRST. In my mind that is not fair.

I will add a final point about my own team. My dad was the main administrative, technical, and business mentor (basically the only mentor there all the time) for the past 4 years on team 691. He does all of this during what little free time he has left after doing his regular job, which is being the one-man patent department for a micro-device company. During the build season he has to balance work and an entire FRC team on his own. If a team member expects my dad to be at every meeting, yet they aren't willing to make the program a priority I find it offensive and disrespectful. Its like saying oh, golf is a real team, robotics is just a club.

I apologize if my post is offensive to you (or anyone else), but frankly I am really quite offended by your posts.
(Also your team application you described sounds a whole lot like my teams application)

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I can understand where all this is coming from. While we want to give this experience to as many people as possible, for two years now our team has been faced with the prospect of being forced to set a hard limit on the number of people in the team as we've grown to 60+ students. Luckily, both years the district has been gracious enough to donate the salary for an extra teacher to supervise us, and we haven't had to go through with any cuts.

Our process for handling this kind of thing is to conduct interviews with the new potential members. If we do ever have to perform cuts, the decision will probably be based off of what they could potentially contribute to the team and how much time they could dedicate. I'll admit that saying no to a potential member is an extremely difficult thing to do, but sometimes it simply can't be avoided.

The only "dues" we have for our members is that they participate in fundraisers and demonstrations during the offseason. We also have academic requirements during the season, though those are usually of the form "take half a week to cool off and catch up". We also require that students pay a part of the travel costs for any event they go to, though scholarships are available. Often we also have more students wanting to go to each regional than we can take, and in those cases the final decision is made based on contribution during the build season.

One related question I'd like to pose to the forum: In the recent years the district has been pushing hard for us to improve the diversity of our team (build a 50% boy/girl ratio, recruit more underrepresented minorities, etc.). How do your teams factor that kind of thing in when/if deciding who to turn away from the team?

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I ran this through google translate... it came out as:

"Since some of you dare to see shades of grey in what is clearly a matter of right and wrong, you are obviously unworthy of further attention. I will go be awesome now. Adieu, petty-minded deniers of opportunity!"

Ah, how I miss being young and knowing everything.

Jason

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

It's unfortunate you had to go through that, but every FIRST team does their own thing. I'm pretty sure there's no rule that states teams have to support STEM education (although I could be wrong). It sucks, it does, but there's nothing any of us can do.

Which team was this? I'm somewhat curious. If you don't want to share that, that's fine too.

And, as an afterthought, why doesn't your girlfriend's son just join your team?

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

That's all fine and dandy for your team. In fact, mine was very similar, in that as long as you showed up pretty regularly and didn't cause problems or slack off, you were on the roster. We did have to complete pre-season training and log a certain amount of shop hours to travel "with the team" to competitions, but it was overall pretty flexible.

There are two sports that we knew we had conflicts with, and students who wished to be involved with those were given the ultimatum of "us or them," because we knew, from past experience, that in the end both teams (and the student) suffered because of the student's split time. While I would rather not turn down a student because of time constraints, there are some occasions where it is the best way to go. I'll save my stories and examples, since there are already plenty given in this thread (necessary security clearance, school limitations, etc).


I feel as if I may know what team you're talking about, having both seen a lengthy application and talked to members of the team before. They had to add an application process because they didn't have the facilities, mentors, or teachers to support the amount of interest they were getting. Then again, I'm sure there are several MI teams that have this practice, and probably for the same reason. Not every team can run the same way, and I ask that you take a moment to consider that and be a bit more open-minded before you start claiming that there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to run a team.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Elsewhere on the Internet, I was reading about places that require applications to acquire a rescued dog. Although the conditions they set were reasonable individually, and the idea of a screening questionnaire was reasonable and even prudent, the particular mix of questions and the format in which they were presented was borderline offensive and almost assuredly counterproductive.

I think something similar is happening here. The team has legitimate interests, and probably has an extreme aversion to the kinds of risks represented by students with split commitments. It's just unfortunate that they feel their only defence is to be completely inflexible about it by insisting upon an onerous agreement.

I disagree with you (to some extent, at least) about a lot of the individual policies, but I think you've correctly identified a system that is flawed on balance.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I don't know what I can offer the OP here that others haven't already said.

I would perhaps highlight the fact that you have to start thinking outside of your box, especially if you're going to post on CD.

Take my team for example, this year, we pushed close to 30 regularly attending members. Our PR "squad" has been doing excellent work, and we're expecting anywhere from 20-30 new members next year. Now, we can neither sustain a team of that size (as of now) nor see fit to that kind of growth, so we're implementing a tiny application system to see what kind of students we're really getting.

Now, take the very innocent scenario above, and add a slightly more intense variables. A sustainable team of 45 or 50 regular members? An extremely successful program? I hope you can understand why applications serve the better interest of not only the current team, but also of the new members to eventually join.

- Sunny G.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

For 174, it is the school's policy that students with a grade average of 69 or lower are not allowed in extracurricular activities unless they get proper signatures and approvals. Not the team's policy, but the school's. Part of FIRST is learning and succeeding in school. If your grades drop too low either during or before FIRST season (and trust me they do) then you are taking the team too seriously and not your school work - which should be taken just as or even more seriously. It makes sense to encourage students to continue to work hard in school as they attend 3-5 meeting sessions a week for robotics. And if one of those ways is to give them an ultimatum on being kicked out if their grades are too low, then have at it.

Our team dislikes an application process, and because of our high mentor count and time given to use the facilities, we use pre-season meetings and lectures to determine which students aren't taking the little things seriously, and then cutting based off of that. Not all teams have this luxury.

Anyway, everything is a learning process - think of the kinds of applications these students fill out for their part time jobs and how they can word things right to get the job or word things wrong to get overlooked.

tl;dr - Every team is different. Every team works with their own system and that system is going to be much different than your team's system. That doesn't mean it is wrong, it just means it is different.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Every team that has been around for a while has a set of guidelines that works for them. It fits their projected team size, the school rules and population, the needs or resources of the sponsors, and the goals established by the team for the team. Although some ideas might be useful in your environment, they might not be in all teams.
For WildStang, we have long been a graded class in the District. It is considered a 'ninth period' class which can meet anytime outside of the normal school day. However, that also means you must register for the class, every year. Now that makes some implications that are out of our control...
1. You must participate to some minimum in order to receive a grade.
2. The grade you receive does affect your GPA.
3. In some cases, it may be best for a student to drop robotics in order to raise their grades in other classes or reduce the chance of receiving a failing grade.
4. All school rules apply, the District has a co-curricular code that is essentially a 24 hour/seven day policy for behavior even when not on a team activity.
5. There are certain grade minimums (both academic and team grade) to participate as pit crew, drivers or for travel team.
6. Students know their current grade (available on the school websites) everyday.
7. Our team size can be set by the District to what they believe is a manageable and realistic size.
8. Yes, there must be homework.

While I agree that we should strive to involve as many students as possible, it is a huge drain on the mentors of the program to do so. So all of us struggle with providing a balance of quality over quantity. We have migrated to a magic number of about 60 students and that fills everyone's needs and concerns. We have almost 30 mentors and teachers so that allows us to have students in specific roles/sub-teams. Smaller teams must have students work on several projects at once, i.e. Chairman's Award, animation, safety, strategy, PR, fundraising, etc.
If a student can somehow manage to participate in another activity and meet the minimums for grade on the team, we accept that. Currently about half of our students participate on a team, church activity, scouts or music. Many of them participate in fall sports even though we meet all year round so they can spend time during build season. On the electrical team alone, I have multiple students in band or orchestra (some in honors), one on the swim team, one on water polo, one in band and three other school projects, several on track or cross country or both, three working after school, and two heavily involved in church/temple. More than half of the mechanical and electrical teams are taking one or more AP classes. What is surprising is all of these students are exceeding class and team minimums, all are on travel, pit crew or drive team.
The beginning of this season, more than 115 students somehow were allowed to register. We had to cut students for the first time, ever. We were very up front about the plans at the first meeting in August. Everyone was told that there would be an essay, a series of evaluations, observations and participation tracking that would go into the decision that would take place in mid November (mid term). So we looked at grades, homework, participation, essays, etc. And for most it was easy. Nine students didn't hand in any essay, some wrote only a few sentences so they didn't meet the minimum requirements, some missed multiple homework assignments, some had missed more than half of the classes, some had grade problems, some even told us they didn't have the time and would quit anyway. The remainder became heart wrenching to determine. I don't want to go through that again. The lead teachers interviewed each student prior to the final decision. For the majority of students they felt is was just and they would try harder next year. If we had the funds and maybe a few more mentors and teachers, we would love to have a second team.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Just had to comment...

Are there many other classes in high school that can say that?!? 30 mentors/teachers for 60 students.

Just tell me that FIRST has not created something special.

And now back to the OP topic.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I love that Google translator. Very funny.

I know many of you are very passionate about this topic. I am too. I know you spent a lot of time to type in your well thought out response for the benefit of the OP. However I am going to ask the moderator to delete this thread. It is black and white :] that the OP violated the rules by creating a new account without team number and posting things like this. Keeping this thread is encouraging people to continue to do that in the future.

Is there a way to keep the excellent comments from others and just delete the posts from the OP? I would propose we start new threads to discuss specific things like Team fees and other team policies. Every team faces issues and there are multiple ways to deal with it. We can all learn from each other and put appropriate policies in place so we can put our energy into improving our program instead of dealing with energy draining issues.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

The Killer Bees have used an application and interview process for many years. One reason we do this is to get to know the students better - we know how the team functions and we know what type of skills we are looking for. We do this every year - returning and new students. We do exit interviews for our seniors.

Sometimes, students want to join the team because they think colleges are looking for "extra-curricular" involvement. Sometimes they want to join the team to get some extra days off of school when we travel. Sometimes they want to join the team because a significant other is on the team. The application and interview process tends to help them decide this is not the place to improve your resume, sleep schedule or relationships. This year, we had students who originally were interested in the team because of these reasons - and some of them really, really like STEM now that they have done cool stuff with the Killer Bees.

We also have students on varsity basketball teams in the winter. These students have to make the hard choices about what comes first (no pun intended!). There were days during build season where they did a full day of school, a full practice and then a full team meeting. Homework was done between classes, at lunch, in the car and late at night. As these students became more involved in the Killer Bees, they are re-considering what comes "first". As with any team, if you don't show for practice, you don't show on the floor or field. You show up on the bench.

We have fees to be on the team - siblings on the team pay 50%. The fees are enough to cause a person to think about what is important. And we don't turn students away because they can't pay the fee. We make it work.

To quote our friends from 51 " You get out of this what you put in to it" - Great Life Lesson for all.

Julia

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Many teams in Michigan - and beyond - that I know of (My team, Team RUSH included) use applications to separate those who will be dedicated, motivated, and timely, from those who are not. We also have interviews, after the application process.

If Team RUSH accepted every student who said they "might be interested" or had an "I guess so" attitude, we'd be far past our typical - and ideal - 30 to 35 students.

RUSH is not a robot only team. We meet year-round for fundraising, teambuilding, presentations to sponsors, and more - including the summer, when we host our annual Regatta - a cardboard and duct tape boat race that also serves as out #1 fundraiser, new student learning opportunity, and training.

I do understand your post saying that nobody should be turned away - and I agree - but with an added "if they are committed."

Also, I do understand your stance on dues and fees to participate. RUSH has a pretty hefty amount that each student must bring. In addition to that amount, our school considers RUSH a school club, so we pay the additional school club fee. But something you have to realize, is that FIRST isn't the cheapest thing to do. Our budget is in increments of $10,000, and in today's economy, getting sponsors and donors isn't always easy. So we have dues, to offset that huge budget. Our regatta last year raised ~$25,000 - not even half our yearly budget, and although we raise more every year, we also rely on a network of sponsors (over 100, if you include those who donate through the Regatta) to raise our budget. And it starts over every year.

For the time commitment, there is a vast difference in some teams time requirements. RUSH requires every student from 3pm to 8pm, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during build season. In addition to those mandatory meetings, we have 'advanced build' meetings Tuesday, Thursday, late Friday, and much of Saturday. We only have about half of our team working directly on the robot, with the other half on the business teams. Because of this, we need these extra meetings to make sure the robot gets done by week 6.

I guess my overall thought is this: If you want to join a team, and don't want to spend 100+ hours there, find a team that doesn't require 100+ hours. Every team is different, and there are teams that require less time. Applications are good to sort through students.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

This is obviously a fairly touchy subject, but I feel the need to rant on it a little :)

Yes, in an ideal world every student interested will be part of a team. But this is less than an ideal world. My team has around 20 students in it each year, and we can't safely manage that many students with any less than 5 mentors. There's simply too many things in a shop (with saws, drills, and other things that could cause serious damage) that can go wrong, and one person can't have their eyes everywhere at once. We accept everyone we can get, but our first and largest priority is safety. I'm not sure what we'd do if our team size suddenly doubled. Probably celebrate in public, and cry ourselves to sleep at night trying to figure out how to handle it all.

Yes, there is a lot of stuff people can do on the team. However, how many people can you really support with work throughout the season? Even if you go for all the awards and do all of the "side" work like animation and website, you get to a point where you simply have too many people on a task for it to go smoothly. You can only fit so many people in a shop or around a robot. Each team needs to be able to determine what the appropriate size is for their team - a size they can successfully manage and run. If that means they have to turn some people away each year, then that's tough. Really tough. How do you make that decision?

Well, you start with an application process. You put questions on it and list your expectations for the team. You do your best to design the application to ensure you have as many kids involved as you can manage, and that you're picking the kids who will best support the team throughout the season.

Lets play some hypothetical number games here. Lets say you've determined that you can only support 50 kids on your team, but you have 100 that apply every year. Well, if you require that they're not involved in any other activities during the build season, you can weed out basketball players, theater members, etc. Say that's 30 kids. Now, you require their attendance in off-season events, workshops, and summer camps. You've just lost another 10 kids. You require certain grade levels. There's another 5. By requiring these things, you're helping to narrow down the selection pool to a manageable level, without having the possibility of "playing favorites". This gives you something very clear and obvious to point to when parents complain, and you can have good, scripted descriptions of why each item is necessary. For example, "I'm sorry Mrs. Jones, but we had to deny Timmy's application because he plays basketball. As I'm sure you understand, Basketball takes up a lot of time, but so does robotics. We meet for about 20 hours a week, and many of those meetings conflict with the Basketball practice schedule. With so many students applying to the robotics team each year, we want to make sure that we can provide an environment for those who can be truly dedicated and get the most out of this opportunity."

So, what about fee's? Our team has a fee. A lot of teams have fees. There are fee's to play on sports teams, be a member of the marching band, debate club, or other organizations. They're called activity fees and are fairly common for a lot of different things at schools, especially those that cost money to operate. If you ask for a $200 activity fee each year, just tell the students and parents what they get for it - several hundred hours of interaction, teaching, and experience with professional engineers. You won't even get that paying tens of thousands of dollars each year at college. Most schools also have funds or other ways for financially challenged students to join teams.


In short, how teams manage who joins and who doesn't is really up to the team. There are way to many considerations to be able to look in from outside and say they're doing it wrong. We have some guidelines for students in terms of being allowed to travel with the team or letter, and it's really tough every time you have to give a student "bad news". Just making the decisions is tough. That's why we build our guidelines to be as black and white as possible, which appears to be what you saw.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Our team is built on interest. Our coaches founded this team based on the stance that everyone should get a chance to learn about machining, design, and programming as well as other skills that make a business work like public relations and media. It wasn't founded to win every regional or to win every award (although it is a goal our team sets and meets almost every year). If a person doesn't seem to be interested at all, they usually leave within the first couple days of our meetings, so it fixes itself.

Of course, that's what FIRST is all about: to spur interest.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I am noticing two main groups. The first group thinks that FIRST is about inspiration, from what I have interpreted their stance is that any student should be able to gain the benefits of the program regardless of competing time interests. The second group seems to be looking at it from a logistics and more pragmatic point of view. I see the first group as still believing in the more, for lack of a better term, "Utopian" interpretation of FIRST as an organization; as a result it seem that they strive to meet this goal. I believe the second group holds the same beliefs as well, and I also believe that they strive to meet that goal. However I think that what is forgotten about the second group is that a majority of them are people who have volunteered countless hours of their time to give these opportunities to students, and in my opinion asking them to do more than what they are willing to do is wrong and selfish.

I will use my team as an example again. This past season, we had issue with a student who felt as if he had been wronged because he was not given a leadership position he wanted, there were several reasons for this, however, that same student had not been to a single meeting the entire fall (they were in marching band which conflicts with the schedule). The student who received the position was a student who had been to every meeting up until then. I think that it would have been unfair to the student who did the work if we had given the position to someone else who hadn't been there. In a sense I think this situation is similar to the one the OP mentioned. From these types of experiences dealing with students (and parents) I have seen that a lot of them want to get all of the benefit of the program without doing any of the real work that it takes (many of them are completely ignorant of the time and money it takes to run a team).

When I first joined CD I would have been on the opposite side of this arguing about how terrible these teams are that don't allow everyone on the team who wants to be. I have since learned how naive and inexperienced I was to believe something like that. I feel confident saying that there is not one FIRST team out there that has the goal of uninspiring students.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

I'm going to go hypothetical for a minute. If I was a team leader, this is what I would have, either on the application or in a team handbook that everyone had to read before joining (and trust me, there would be a team handbook!). Turning away students would only happen if there was a severe need to do so (and in such a case, I would try to point them to another FRC/FTC/VRC team in the area).

1) Contact information/Emergency contact information. So I can get in touch with you, or call for your parents, should I need to.
2) What other activities you're in. (Who do I need to coordinate with on whether you should show up at robotics or take an excused absense?)
3) What part(s) of the team are you interested in?
4) Do you agree to the team rules laid out in the team handbook?

And the team handbook would include the following:

• Grade policy. Basically, if you're failing classes, you're going to be spending team meetings studying.
• Conduct policy. (curfews, expellable behavior, dress code at competitions)
• Attendance policy. In essence, attend a certain percentage of meetings, or have a valid excuse to not be at said meetings (other activity, medical/family emergency, major project in school)
• Travel requirements--take everyone, assuming that they aren't under grade/attendance/conduct restrictions, and if there's a major conduct violation, the offender gets sent home early.

Again, this is what I'd put in an application/handbook. Fees and scholarships and the like would ideally be dealt with by fundraising participation (set out in the handbook).



For the OP: the only things that I saw in that summary that I would object to were the strict attendance/commitment (can't leave early/can't have another activity) and the fee to join. If the attendance/commitment were on a case-by-case basis--that is, you can leave early if you have a good reason, and we have an issue with this activity you're in--I wouldn't have a problem with it. (If it's school policy that students can only be in one activity at a time... well, I don't think that school would be too popular with parents.) The fee to join I can see in some cases; it would depend on the fee. But by stating it as stated, it does seem a bit inflexible.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

You are wise beyond your years.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

If you were in Arizona, I'd invite him to join our team!

Back to the OP's question. Our club is based out of our school, and we therefore have to abide by school rules (like the school is completely closed on Sundays). The main rule is that, unlike school sports, "[our club] cannot cut anybody from the club based on qualifiers or tryouts." Our teacher/sponsor can ask people to leave and never come back, but only if he as a compelling reason (damage of property, danger to himself and others, etc.)

Club rules aside, I(club president) would never put restrictions on who could join our team. I have found that some of our best members have varied interests, and are often called away because of band, sports, or volunteer work. Anyone can apply to be an officer, or be part of the drive team. And despite being a lower budget club, we don't demand any payment. Although we do ask that club members take advantage of Arizona's school-friendly tax credit laws. (you give us $400, and get your money back from taxes.) While our nonexistent sieve for new members might hinder our chances of building the best robot, the important thing is that our members benefit from the FIRST experience and take something away that will help them in their future lives.

I hope your friend finds a team.

Disclaimer: the situation for our team is that we are understaffed, even with two schools feeding our team.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

It has nothing to do with building the best robot. It is all about ensuring that the students are safe and making sure they take away the right lessons from the program. I guess if you really wanted to sum it up succinctly, it's about building the best environment for students to grow.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Hi everyone,

To begin with, I am personally a member of this team whose policies you are bashing. I am here to address your concerns.

I have been on this team for 3 years, and never has anyone been removed because they were involved in sports, band, choir, etc. I have a friend that is greatly involved in both band, choir, and theater. The mentors understand and appreciate every single moment she can spare for Robotics. We never prevent anyone from joining the team because they are busy.

Rather, we let each member be the judge of their own schedule. One of my friends was balancing AP US History, Robotics, Piano, and Business Professionals of America. The team did not ask her to leave. She participated rarely, but we did not dismiss her. She eventually decided that it was too busy and stressful for her, so she resigned. Resigned.Not kicked off.

Also, about the long 6 pages, I agree, that might have not been necessary, but this was written by one of our teachers. She is a wonderful woman who does her best to stay organized. 6 pages suits her. She writes it like a code of conduct, I realize. And I hope you who are reading this understand that a code of conduct is meant for the good of the team. And be aware that many school districts' code of conducts are 50-100 pages long.

When you said, we should accept everyone,
I need to clarify something.
Our team comes from a huge public school with about 1700 students. Each year, we have many, many applications, far too many to be able to admit every student. Why limit? There are several reasons.
1) We have only a few mentors, and the mentor to student ratio would be unbalanced, if we were to let everyone in. Too many students, in this case, would not learn efficiently and the team wouldn't function well. (Imagine one mentor to 20 students! "mentor" itself implies a small group of mentees)
2) We do not have enough funds. You have suggested we find more sponsors. This is, unfortunately, easier said and done. As of now, our Public Relations team has been recovering from losing half its group to graduation, leaving them with half the hands they originally have. As for me, I would love to find more sponsors. Please don't judge the team in general; please consider the individual aspect. I really wish other teams would share their own business and entrepreneurship plans that they have; that is one area I admit we are lacking in. I wish someone in this thread would post helpful suggestions, rather than repetitive criticism.
3) We need to see who really has their heart in the matter. You all know as well as I do that there are far more people who do not care about science and math and technology that those who do. My team is eager to change that. But doesn't it make sense to change 40 students' minds about science and technology than hardly change 90 students' minds? Just food for thought.

Our mentors are extremely kind and patient. Last year, my parents were late to pick me up almost every night of the week. They waited and talked with me. Of course they'd reprimand me for being late to leave, but no one ever gets dismissed from that. Please realize that what you read on the paper is not how it actually is. We make exceptions. I'm genuinely sorry about how harsh that application may have come across. I had no control over how it was written as a member. I wish members were able to write it, because as direct participants, we know the real story.
As I said before, this is not true. We do not punish students because of their parents or prior obligation. We have emails requesting additional help for serving/arranging meals, or transportation to certain events. Unfortunately, our school does not support our team in such a way that we would be independent of parental help. It's nothing we can control.
Also, I have taken Chinese classes on Saturdays, for two years of my three years in Robotics. I had to miss the majority of Saturdays, the most important build day of the week. No one scolded me or reprimanded me. The mentors are very understanding. They know that we have other things that matter to us. It would be a folly to assume that Robotics took precedent over everything else in life.

Also, please don't interpret the parent section as you did,
My mom and dad have four kids including me, one who is autistic. All of us are involved in various activities, including piano, violin, flute, tennis, gymnastics, Chinese school, and dance. It is nearly impossible for either my mom or my dad to help out in fundraisers. This is no "punishment". To have punishment is ridiculous. The extent of how much my parents can contribute to the team has never been a limiting factor, and never will.

I do understand and empathize with your point of view on my team's application. But please pause for a moment and consider how you have handled your anger and frustration.
It might have been better to contact my team about our policies, rather than interpreting the application yourself. I have reread the application, and I can see how it must have sounded to you. I apologize. I wish I could have been in charge of writing the application, so it was more close to the true way we run things around here.

Yes, we fundraiser year-round, as much as possible, because we know how things are tight these days. We want to reduce student cost as much as possible. And to be honest, Robotics has indeed strengthened my work ethic. Some of the best memories I have are formed during team fundraising. It's a kind of team bonding that also gives us practice on teamwork. It's also really fun.

Sorry, but exploiting? I feel that is rather harsh for you to say, considering you do not know my team personally. The negative connotation you have used has me almost on the verge of tears. We can't help it if our school doesn't take Robotics as seriously as we do! It's not in our power, please realize that!

I am just so devastated that your girlfriend's little brother may not even try out for my team, due to the negative impression you have. Your impression is not wrong, I just feel you have have overreacted and judged my team just at the surface level. Please don't judge a team by its application. Have you talked to any of my team members? My mentees? Have you even looked at our website?

If it's not too late, please tell your girlfriend's little brother to apply for my team. It's an amazing team, the reason why I want to pursue engineering in college. It's allowed me to expand my horizons, to visualize, to dream, to see the world in an entirely new light. I've made some great friends on my team, friends that support me as we all learn together. If I could live a thousand lifetimes, I would spend it with Robotics, trying out every single department, trying out mechanical build, electrical build, field build, programming, public relations, CAD design, and more. I love my team.

I am also happy for your team, that you have the miraculous capacity to be able to accept everyone who applies. It breaks my heart when we cannot accept everyone who applies due to our lack of mentors and funds. It's not something we can change right away, but something we are working towards improving.

If you know of anyone who is interested in mentoring, please contact our team. I respect JustAThought's refusal to not release team names, but I feel that it would have been better to be straightforward and know exactly who is who. If you would like to ask me any questions, my email is kelly_yu_2013@yahoo.com.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

^ Euriiko: While you ask the OP not to judge a team by its application, that is an obvious first point of contact and it seems like you would agree that there were parts on it that 1) do not properly represent your team and 2) the OP understandably found objectionable. While I'm sure that the teacher who wrote that applciation meant well, is it possible that you might produce one that better reflects your team by bringing these types of concerns to her attention, and perhaps by having your whole team work together on a new one?

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Every team has the duty to strike the right balance between having a productive, respectful, and robot-oriented atmosphere and reaching out.

I won't lie and say that these are easy choices to make. Each team has to make these decisions for themselves – every team is unique. However, I would also be lying if I said that either unregulated team membership or stifling applications are the best routes.

With Team 20's 80 some odd students, we have a difficult challenge of promoting intra-team communication, and getting all hands on deck. We are expecting even more students next year. Don't get me wrong – it's great to have that challenge, and it's wonderful to have that many interested and committed students with us. Inevitably, though, by build season, we boil down to a core group of people who are willing to put in the time and the effort.

On one hand, it would make sense to have an interview process or to have them get letters of recommendation from a non-family member. But in my case, I might never have had the chance to catch FIRST-fever if that had been in place. There will always be some who will go the extra mile, and those that don't. Knowing that, making the balance will always be a challenge that no team should have the slightest degree of complacency for.

We have awesome mentors – and from my perspective, it would be the utmost disrespect and disservice to them to not be the most committed, dedicated, and ready-to-learn student I can be. I am amazed at how much time each of them set aside from their comfortable lives to spend time with a bunch of crazy teenagers. I think every student has a duty to be as involved as they can.

When all is said and done, FIRST is an awesome experience about a dedicated group of professionals and students setting aside something good for something far better and much more rewarding.

Re: Application To Join A Team
 

Since this is clearly a discussion that needs to be taken off-line between the two parties, and also a violation of the anonymous accounts rule, I am closing this thread. If anyone wants to have a general discussion about the merits of applications that doesn't involve airing dirty laundry anonymously, please do so in a new thread.