Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

I'd like to propose a different focus from a similar thread.

What are some things individuals, teams, and event coordinators can do to make the arriving public have a better experience? I'd rather focus on the things individuals and teams can do because those things can happen nearly immediately.

Consider this scenario: A parent with a younger child who thinks robots are cool, but there has been no exposure to FIRST. The parent hears there are robots down at the arena, and admission is free. That's all they know.

They come in, maybe get handed the program, maybe read it, but likely don't internalize it enough for it to have any lasting effect.

They find the stands, and look for seats. Instead of finding other folks 'like themselves' they find clusters of brightly colored t-shirts, with lots of empty seats between/near them, and maybe a kid or parent telling them not to sit there, those seats are 'saved.' If they come on Saturday PM, they have to head to nosebleed seats or end zone seats.

If they are lucky, they realize or know there are pits to visit-- in some venues pits are in a different hall, not just 'behind the curtain' making them harder to find.

I won't go into understanding the game rules as that issue is well known.

What can you and/or your team do to drastically improve this experience? I think the FIRST Stop idea posted here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=37 is a huge step in the right direction.

Thoughts?

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

Phase 1: Do not reserve seats exclusively for team members. If there's an empty seat, it's open, we'll move stuff as needed. (BTW, whoever put up those "We don't save seats, come sit down" signs at the entrances to the center section of L.A. seating, I want to thank you--regardless of if you're on my team or not.)

Phase 2: Wait for "uninitiated person(s)" to sit down and watch a couple of matches. (Works best if there's clear guidance to seating.)

Phase 3: Slide someone up next to them and ask if they want some explanation of what's going on/how this all works. Now that they've seen a couple of matches, they have a little bit of context to process anything you tell them. Bonus for providing pit escort, etc. Act as a "bonus" play-by-play announcer for the next match or two, to explain what sort of X, Y, and Z the teams are doing, how they designed their robots, what a team is, what different things mean... Basically, anything they want to know, at whatever level they need to know it at.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

^ I like this. Train everyone in your team to be able to do this. This sets a tone of friendliness and professionalism that will surely impress any spectator, and is a great exercise in communication skills, being friendly and outgoing, and overcoming any shyness for your team members. Also it trains people to be on the lookout for others -- who is new? who is confused? who can I help? All good skills to have as fellow human beings.

I would propose to have greeters at the entrances to the arenas that would hand out programs to newbies and give them a quick spiel of what they're about to walk into. They can simply wave through anyone in a team shirt, but newcomers, and those with younger kids, would be easy to spot and say "welcome" to.

Whenever I go somewhere "strange" I always feel like this is weird, this isn't "my" place, I don't know what's going on, should I really go in there... To have someone acknowledge my presence and say "welcome, come on in, let me explain what's going on" is always reassuring and helpful.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

Individually, I have done things in this vein; I'm not sure how much they can be implemented as a team, but I'm going to try.

First of all, most of the people in the situation described will show up on Saturday, so that is the day to make the big push on this front. In the case of teams attending local districts/regionals, this means that much of this responsibility will fall on the "junior varsity", that is, the team members who cannot get off of school on (Thursday or) Friday, but come to competition on Saturday.

The bottom line is to encourage team members to "Welcome, Teach, and Serve". That is, if you see someone in the area who is not obvioiusly part of a team, Welcome them to FRC and the xxxxx regional/district event. Share a bit about yourself, and learn what brings them to the event. Teach them what this year's game is, and at least the basics of how it's scored. Try to describe the main strategies. Serve is very general, and may range from the trivial to the extravagant; it could be as simple as directions to the bath facilities, or as detailed as providing directions to finding local teams on usfirst.org.

At Bayou, I spent most of Saturday down in the "tunnel" between the grandstand seats, ready to pop forward to the curtain to shoot video. I met a number of people who just sort of "wandered in off the street", and a few who had team shirts, but had no idea what this year's game, or a least scoring, was like. I got pretty good at quickly identifying the main scoring activities. I also directed several to the usfirst "find a team" page and in at least one case, told them who the closest team to their location was.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

Some good and constructive thoughts. We as FIRST teams must be proactive and positive at the events. Yes, many mentors and drive teams will be stressed out, but we need to start somewhere. We can be proactive and train our teams about event etiquette would be first step. We can have few team members as un-official ambassadors who can volunteer to interact with visitors, especially those who seem to be a bit lost (possibly very first FRC experience) and explain to them what FIRST/FRC is about. Explaining game rules is a challenge, save it for later and when you do, give a brief summary instead of all the rules. If you end up watching a game with them, point something interesting that happens, like co-op, can burglars, alliance team work (one team stacking and other team capping etc, the dynamic factors).

For our team, before every event, we talk about event etiquette, including not talking when a guest speaker is talking, greet volunteers and thank them etc.

There will be no perfect solution, but we all can start somewhere.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

My team works very hard to include spectators in what is going on and make sure that all questions they have are answered! The pit team asks everyone who walks by, "Do you have any questions I can answer?" and the number of people we pull in - who had no idea that you could walk up to the robots and explore them - is amazing. I believe that they see the robotics pits like IndyCar or similar pits where you can walk through and observe but interrupting is frowned upon. We want to make sure that everyone feels welcome to approach and be curious.

Especially children

We also invite all kinds of people to sit with us as well! By the end of the event you'll be one of us!

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

That's great PurpleInk! Those are all great behaviours that students would probably not think to exhibit unless specifically looking out for opportunities to do so. These are great people skills that you are teaching and will benefit the students in addition to the added exposure and positive goodwill you are bringing to FRC and FIRST in general.

I was recently mulling over the problem of students at competitions who felt like they had nothing to do -- now I can see that there are specific things in addition to "pit crew" and "scouting" that we can be asking students to do. Be intentional about welcoming others and asking questions. I like it.

Teach the students to treat every visitor as if they were the latest addition to your team!

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

As one of those stressed out mentors, sometimes I am distracted especially in the pits. But all it takes is the sight of a child walking through to get our team smiling and moving. We keep aside special treats for the younger kids to make sure we still have some by the end of each day including our buttons, wristbands, and our robot heads. The little kids really like them and the parents appreciate that we are reaching out to make the day a little more special for their child. It also encourages the shyer kids to ask a few questions. As long as we do not have maintenance going on with our robot at the moment I encourage the kids to come closer and look at the mechanisms up close... and even touch them. It is awesome to see how their eyes light up when they see how the robots are made. Sometimes all it takes is a moment of your time to effect a change.

I agree that it is even more helpful to do this in the stands when you see new people coming in without a clear team affiliation. If I am sitting near these people in the stands I like to offer to share some explanations with them. But often the saving of seats preclude them even finding a place to sit.

This sign is such an awesome idea I want to have them printed and placed in every section of the arena at every event. It can be very intimidating to take seats in the middle of a team even if they appear to be willing to let you sit with them. A sign stating clearly that you are WELCOME can make the difference.

This thread is a great idea! I think we can all do a little better with just a little bit of effort.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

Here's an even better way to phrase it: "What questions can I answer for you?"

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

Yes, I love that this thread is full of practical, easily achievable ideas that will go a long way. It's not difficult to do, we just need to be a little more intentional in how we teach our students. And it's not like the students aren't willing or able to do these things already -- they just sometimes need to be reminded to make it a priority focus rather than an afterthought.

I volunteer with a summer camp in the FRC off-season (or is it that I do FRC in my camp off-season?) and one of the things I work on is training staff to establish a similar culture among the kids there. We say things like "camp is a great place to make friends!" but then we shove our kids into the environment and say "Ok, so go make friends!" without ever actually stopping to teach them HOW to do it. The shy and introverted kids might not actually know how. We need to teach them and give them opportunities to practice in a safe, fun, non-judging environment.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

My experience (may be cultural by region of U.S.) is that this works for some people, but for most of those that are truly uninformed about what is going on, they know so little that they don't even know what type of question to ask, so they simply answer 'No thanks'. You have to be more proactive and answer some basic questions without them asking them.

"Hi. Did you know that all these robots were built by high school teams in six weeks?" (No, really?) "Yes, the first Saturday in January ... "

or

"Hi, have you ever been to a robotics competition like this one?" (No.) "Let me tell you a bit about how this competition works... "

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

With the seat saving everyone is talking about, isn't that explicitly prohibited in the admin manual? We had an incident at our first event this year where a rookie parent told members of another team that "this is our area." Anyways it got around to the event coordinator or somebody and they came to talk our lead mentors in the pit. We apologized and not much happened, but eventually in the internal team discussion about the event, someone quoted the admin manual for a rule on seat saving, and brought up these lines:

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

In my experience at the two regionals I attended, teams would designate general areas where they wanted to sit, but were pretty easygoing about having those areas shrink and grow as needed as team members from their own team, and their neighbors, came and went.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

They should have ambassadors assigned for the general public as much as they do for VIPs. There is a need to attract more people to the program as much as there is a need to attract money.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

FIRST Stop works extremely well. The committee is consistently improving it to meet our needs and working out what the "ask" is for each individual visitor. For a person with children it is usually finding/founding an appropriate team for their child. VIPs have different asks depending on association. It can also be an opportunity to recruit volunteers for other events.

The big thing to recall with this system is the follow up with the individuals after the event which usually takes some sort of admin support.

Re: Petition to start things that inform, inspire, educate and de-confuse the public
 

At a lot of events in Ontario there are volunteer tour guides that take school groups or others that want to learn about FIRST and what is happening on the field or in the pits around and explains it to them as they go. Bringing this type of concept to all of the regionals, districts or various championships would go a long way to helping the public understand what FIRST is.