How to deal with lack of participation
 

Our team gained many new members over the Summer and Fall season, something us senior students were excited about. Everyone was bright eyed and full of amazement as we explained what we did and what we will do, and we thought that we finally grew from our team of 6 then juniors to a group of 20 students essentially overnight.

However, that was not the case.

Before build season, we said many times that we will spend many hours in the classroom that we operate out of, and that the team requires the utmost dedication. This immediately scared some students away, but that wasn't an issue because we still had a lot of students interested. These students claimed they would be committed to the team.

The week before build season we lose a handful of students because of sports. That's not a big issue, because that was a prior commitment made before they joined robotics and was understandable.

As build season started, we were a little disappointed that we didn't have as many students as we started with, but that was not the biggest issue. The new members who were dedicated from the start showed up frequently and stayed for the majority of the meeting. They contributed to design ideas and potential strategy.

Two weeks later, student attendance starts dropping. This was when the heavy labor started. Those who were interested in programming stopped showing up regularly, and didn't really like the idea of robotics anymore even though they haven't even started and those who were interested in building left at 4 (school gets out at 2:19 and the meetings go to 9, we allotted a 1 and a half hour time to finish homework so you do the math).

This isn't to say that they lost interest, because when the robot was almost complete attendance started rising again. They wanted to know what the robot did and how we built it, which they shouldn't even need to ask if they had shown up for the past couple meetings.

Obviously, this is an extracurricular activity. There is no obligation to show up but when you say you are dedicated we expected them to uphold that promise and show up when asked. It's understandable when you're sick or that you can't come in for one or two days, but when you go missing for weeks only to come back when all the labor's done it's not cool.

The worst is that the majority of the people actually showing up to every meeting and contributing will be graduating this year, leaving the fate of the team in the hands of flakes (some offense may or may not be intended).

With that being said how does your team deal with lack of participation? What incentives/motivations do you give to new members to stay and actually work on the robot?

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

This should have been your first sign that something was wrong. Rome wasn't built in a day; why would you expect the same of a budding program?

Why not?

Three years ago, I joined FRC 1648 and the team was much like yours. We had numbers, but we didn't have dedication, we didn't have buy in, so we changed a few things around.

Joining the team required that you fill out an application and go through some tryouts. This meant that the applicants had skin in the game and attending robotics was more than simply showing up. You earned the right to be on our team.

When on the team, there were attendance and training requirements. Why should a student who only showed up a few times during the season represent our team? That's the question we asked ourselves and answered, "He shouldn't."

Finally, we had a solid plan for new members. People are interested in robotics; that is given. But don't expect a rookie to come into the program and just "pick up" robots. Don't expect rookies to come on board and enjoy watching you build a robot. You need to have a plan to engage, train, and grow rookie talent and leadership.

- Sunny G.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

We definitely had a plan. The senior members were supposed to act like mentors but the students dropped like flies before we could even implement our plan. We had team building exercises set up over the off-season and the works.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

Our competition is only an hour drive away, so all of the team is welcome to come on Saturday, but only the varsity members get to take the field trip on Thursday and Friday. Participation and quality of work are the main factors feeding into varsity and officer selection. In recent years, we have also "selected" for the team, even at the junior varsity level. This year, we had massive initial interest, largely due to our air cannon, so we held formal "tryouts" up front. Programming, controls, and mechanical department student leads and mentors set up a number of challenges ranging from building a tower from blocks, to drawing an out-of-scale drawing with labels to scale, to programming a couple of servos with an arduino. The key was that we were really scoring on attitude and care in craftsmanship more than aptitude as far as being selected for the team; aptitude and requests were also factored into department assignments. By the end of tryouts, about 1/3 of the people who started had already dropped out on their own, then we culled out the team members who had shown a lack of engagement, poor quality work due to lack of trying or attention, or poor attitude (especially whining). Even after selection, if a team member misses several meetings without advance notice and importance of cause, (s)he will likely be demoted or cut. Our school also allows students to "letter" in robotics. We had letter pins custom made with the team logo: . To qualify for a letter, a team member must meet three of four criteria: fund raising, selection for varsity, participation in a (non-robot) committee, and service hours.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

They left because they had committed several weeks to building a robot and weren't engaged at all. You said it yourself, they hadn't even started after weeks of work. I know programming can't start right away, but you need to engage people all season, especially the ones with only a minor interest. Maybe other programming challenges, like writing a scouting program, would be a good idea.

People who aren't inspired yet are going to be flaky to some extent. There will always be a few people who are truly flaky despite your best efforts, and you just have to let them go, but most of these students are failed opportunities to inspire. These students are the ones FIRST is supposed to be about recruiting - the team exists to inspire them, not the dedicated students who are already inspired.

They're probably not contributing because they don't know how, or they have been taught but they don't have the confidence to do it themselves yet. Robotics is really intimidating, even after your first how-to-lathe or how-to-prototype lesson. This is where mentoring is extra important. You've got to engage groups of new students specifically, walking them through tasks at first, then backing off bit by bit. Before you know it, they'll be doing things on their own and contributing in ways you never could have imagined. And the true flakes, they won't stick around anyway.

You speak as if these kids owe you something - that it's a privilege for them to be there, and their obligation is to make the team better. And in many ways this is absolutely true, don't get me wrong. But really, FIRST teams exist to take these passive interests and inspire the students into working hard, becoming contributors to the team, and eventually pursuing STEM education after high school. The goal is to get them to that level, and while some students might just not want to try at all, it sounds like many aren't at that level yet and they don't really know what to do. That's why they left at the tough part - where they feel least useful - and came back for the cool part, what got them involved in the first place.

Mentoring is tough. With just 1 or 2 mentors you may not be able to give these kids the attention they each need to be inspired, and it's rough. Having the older students begin mentoring to some extent really helps - older students are more relate-able for these kids than the mentors, and you should have plenty of them.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

It's one of those "nothing succeeds like success; nothing fails like failure" situations. Reversing a decline in any group activity, whether it's a government, business, team, church, or club always requires a lot of hard work, communication, and leadership, as well as a sufficiently sized corps group who buy into regrowth and contribute.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

Actually, our programming did start right away. As soon as we got the KoP with the new RoboRIO and downloaded the new WPIlib and eclipse, the programmers were engaged in setting up their programming environment and learning about the new control system. The controls group built a control board right from day one, not knowing exactly what the robot was going to look like. So what if we have an unused talon on the board, and took off the pneumatic module later? The programmers could practice on some basic motors and sensors to learn the new system by the time they were ready to do so, and it was only a couple more work days before we had the drive platform going.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

As far as incentive, our team has very defined rules about attendance and associated team activity -- for example, you are not actually considered a member of the team if your attendance is below 60%, and you will not be able to attend competition as part of the team. Additionally, to be a driver or officer, your attendance must be above 85%. This tends to keep attendance up.

We also try really hard to engage our students from the get-go. We built a practice drive train to keep the mechanical rookies busy before build season, our public relations team did a lot of outreach stuff with other teams and worked on raising funds throughout the offseason, etc. Coming up with little projects for your freshmen to work on prior to build season keeps them from getting bored. I think we even had a few kids design, build, and decorate a new battery box.

Finally, we keep it going with the little things. Movie night here, Super Smash Bros tournament there. Every once in a while we all get together and get a sense of camaraderie going with the new members, so that meetings don't feel like a chore. It's a treat -- you get to go hang out with your friends and build a robot.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

we saw similar issues with our teams this year. one thing that we do is to be eligible to go to the regional event the top 4 hours getters from each team are guaranteed to go. the rest of the team members need to write a paper explaining why they think they should come along on the trip. the Mentors and the top 4 hours getters from each team use a decision matrix to select the remaining students for a total of 16 students between the 2 teams . nobody is guaranteed to go unless they put in the hours

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

Our team allows anyone to join, but only "committed members" (usually based on hours/work done, but our attendance thing screwed up this year, so IDK how they are determining that) are given financial aid in finding hotel rooms at the events to which we go that necessitate that.

The team also offers a lot of training, and we have created a culture in which working hard is appreciated, and the students are masters (there were multiple occasions where I saw mentors learning from the students).

In the end, you can only control so much the direction in which your team goes after you leave, unless you come back as a mentor. enjoy it while you can, and do your best to make the future as good as you can as well

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

This is something I've dealt with through both of the teams ive been on. I was the media student now media mentor also was a dedicated human player. I did what some teams would call useless but there not. I participated in chairman's and made really cool videos which set an image for the team, i made and managed our social accounts and also designed shirts and buttons. All in all I had loads of fun doing all this and for the most part I was barely involved in the making of the robot. What im saying is there's more to a FIRST team than just building or programming on an robotics team. There are students on our team that come everyday to help make buttons or handouts for competitions or help make videos of your team and what its doing to make FIRST loud. Now as a mentor Im now put to the task of getting other students involved with all these things i did cause i know there useful for the team and some kids can have fun with it.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

This can always be a problem. Much of what was previously mentioned above are great suggestions.

We start the year with roughly 100 students. We run a difficult program and by the time FRC comes around our number are down to roughly half. The veteran students are partnered with incoming students during the year, they are tasked with eventually finding their replacements by the time they graduate. The veteran students feel vested by that time and really help us mentors by identifying potential stars and help the rookies to find a niche for them that the mentors might not see.

We have been a year round program for the last few years. We compete is roughly 20 different STEM competitions throughout the year not just robotics. Probably more, I have lost count. We host two, week long, STEM camps a year that is run by the veteran students for grades 3-8 inspiring the upcoming students and eventual replacements.

This approach allows many different opportunities for rookie students to find what peaks their interest. Who you thought might be an excellent programmer, and showed desire to become one when applying, turns out to be the best fabricator.

You never know what can cause the inspirational shift in a student so we try to have as many different STEM projects as possible. Some years half the team does not do robotics at all and gets involved in things like science fair, TARC (Team America Rocketry Challenge), West Point Bridge Designer, 3d printing, Science Olympiad and many more.

The students are required to fill out an application and go through an interview, just like applying for a job. This helps them feel a sense of commitment and add some real world pressures. Many times we have students for only half the year as sports and other activities call to them. This is perfectly acceptable, and having them feel welcomed to return is important.

We know that rookies can be overwhelmed with the difficulty of FRC. Many new student do not want to put in the massive amount of time it can take from their own personal time during build season. This is normal and can cause some issues. I find, especially to a first year student to the program, that FRC is hard to “get” and intimidating. We have many work sessions prior to FRC to help build up the skills they will need. This also can help identify what roles sparks their interest.

I have found that taking the semi flaky student (as your example, starts strong then leaves just to return when the hard stuff is done) to a FRC regional can cause much more inspiration than you think.

Many times our rookies come along and basically cheer us on and watch the awesomeness that is FIRST. We will have them walk around the pits, and if interested, will help with minor pit or match scouting or even just picture taking. They come back from a regional in awe and many times very inspired to come back next year and really get into it from then on.

The energy at regional competitions along with talking with so many excited and committed students from other teams, that do so many different roles for their teams, can help generate inspiration and future commitments.

Our program is now in its 5th year, I feel we are on the right path, with 3 Engineering Inspiration and a Chairman’s Award under our belt we will continue to bring along the newbies.

Being from the big island of Hawaii our closest regional is several islands away and the cost of taking them along is high. Many of the students here have never left the island and being such a rural place have never seen a city. So the trip ends up being a real big deal to them. If we manage to have just one student change to appreciate STEM and eventually pursue higher education then it is all worth it.

The main thing to really focus on is INSPIRATION.. It is what we are all here to do..

As said so many times, it is not the robot…

Feel free to message me and I am more than happy to go into much more detail of our programs approach.

Good luck this year.
Aloha!

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

That wasn't really our issue. Our programmers were really excited for the new control system (as was I, I love new toys :p), but the rookie students were disengaged from the idea.

First Bold: Yes, we do this too. You need hours logged to be considered a member, but the issue is that some kids don't seem to care about being a member or not.

Second Bold: We have been trying to do that, we plan to get them engaged mostly in CAD and building over the summer. Hopefully they'll be more engaged and 2016 will be the year where they can really excel without us seniors coming back as college freshman to crack the proverbial whip.

Third Bold: We have not considered that, but I can definitely see how it would bring the team together. The senior members are all already friends so I think that's why we show up, because our friends are there. This is definitely something I'll bring up in our next meeting.

We did that last year. Unfortunately, we cannot hold that above their head this year because it's a week 6 event, over spring break. Since we're all out for break, we cannot stop them from showing up Thursday/Friday. We can say they are not allowed to represent our team because they weren't logged for many hours, but they just seemed so excited to be part of the team I don't think they'll listen.

Well said, we're trying to train the rookies and sophomore members of the team so that they can better handle it when the senior members graduate but obviously it didn't work out so well. Can you post some methods on how you train?

I can definitely agree with you there, different strokes for different folks. However our issue was that those who claimed they would be committed to build/programming ended up flaking, just as it happened with media/marketing. I really want to point it to disinterest but it's not because when they do show up they seem inspired by the work that those who have regularly shown up have done. Maybe it is an interest problem?

First Bold: This is interesting. I see your point in that running multiple STEM operated events will help guide students into what they want to do on the team.
Second Bold: We did this for leadership positions and it didn't work out too well, however I think we will be willing to give it a second chance if it means that we will have more active members.
Third Bold: This definitely worked for our sophomore members. When they were rookies, they left early, didn't show up to some meetings, etc but when taken to their first FIRST (heh) regional, they saw the dedication that the team had to the program and come their sophomore season stayed late working on the robot and having fun while they're at it. I definitely believe this will inspire them to work harder, but we were looking for solutions to keep them engaged before taking them to a regional. I like the idea of STEM events though.


Thank you all for your help. I will take these suggestions into consideration and talk with the rest of the Team Admins about it and hopefully we'll have a stronger team next year.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

One thing that has worked well for us is this. Very early in pre-build, we take the Rookies and spend a lot of time doing team-building with them. We get them to get familiar with the tools, working 1:1 with veterans and mentors.

We have 2 barriers to entry into build season - sort of selection process. 1: skills tests. They have to demonstrate they have some rudimentary understanding on safe use of the basic tools. They have to know a little bit of history of the team; and they have to know a bit about FIRST. 2: We take them to off-season events. There, they see how our team works at a competition. They also see how the other teams work. Teams that are better than us in terms of motivation, funding, spirit, etc. ... They see why they are spending all of those hours during build season.

We found out much earlier on that in previous seasons that students that don't know the basic things about our team, about our history, about FIRST... and if they haven't gone to off-season games - they are just lost and not very motivated; every single one of them stopped coming soon after.

Re: How to deal with lack of participation
 

Easiest way to get interest is to take your students to an offseason competition in the fall. Seeing a competition live for the first time is an incredible experience that always has people coming back for more. And assumimg you're already competing in said offseason event, a good thing to try is making a basic rookie bot that you have the new members build in the fall and compete with in the offseason competition. We did this back in fall of 2012 and got one of the biggest rookie classes ever.