Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Our team's student handbook: http://www.redalert1741.org/go/handbook/

Before build season, we have minimal requirements of participation in our outreach events. We also offer training opportunities, and attendance at these really helps sort out who are the committed team members.

Realizing that some students are able/willing to commit more time than others due to various reasons, we have a tiered system of requirements. A general team member is required to meet 60% of our scheduled time during build season; sub-team captains 75%; main captains 90%. We officially meet for 24.5 hours per week, though in reality it's somewhere between 30 and 40.

During competition season, we meet less time per week, only scheduling 14 hours, and the percentage requirements are reduced as well.

There's also an academic requirement which is stricter than the school's policy on extracurricular participation. We stress that academic success is paramount and if they aren't putting in the effort in the classroom, why would I expect to see the requisite effort in the shop?

Lastly, we offer varsity letter opportunities. This is more of the carrot approach rather than stick. The criteria put emphasis on participating in all the integral parts of our team: outreach, build season, training, and competitions.

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

During the preseason, prospective team members participate in workshops run by older and more experienced members in each of our divisions (Design and Manufacturing, Energy Systems, Progamming, Strategy, Marketing&PR and Administration). This is usually a Wednesday afternoon commitment from 2:00-3:30.

During the Build Season, team members on average commit to about 22 hours of time per week, which is the average taken from a google form when they applied for the team. We very rarely look at how long they spent physically in the lab, but more what they're doing while in the lab. A team member that contributes and works hard for 2 hours on a machine is clearly more committed than the team member that is in the lab for 8 hours, but spends most of it sitting around and using his phone.

When applying, we stress that we're a robotics TEAM, and as such all the usual commitments apply, like showing up for meetings, being on time and showing earnest effort in the lab. This also means that if people are misbehaving, or not putting any effort into what they do, we can remind them that they were selected to join the team, and that their performance this year affects whether or not they're invited back to the team next year.

After Build Season ends, most people are told to take it easy and catch up on schoolwork, while a small group of people stay to work on Withholding Allowance stuff. These members keep the build season mentality and time commitment even after build season ends, and they usually end up being the people who put in the most work during Build Season as well. As for the rest of the team, we have a weekly Wednesday meeting to talk about competition preparation, but the time commitment drops significantly.

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Our team consists of about 25 members with a core team of about 7-8. Being a small team we make up for it in the time that we put into Robotics. During build season it is 3-9 Monday through Friday, 12-9 on Saturday, and 1-6 on Sunday. This tallies up to 45 hours per week in which we generally get around 10 people every day. Students are encouraged to finish their homework before proceeding into robotics. After build season not much changes and we start improving our practice robot before the competition. Like most teams we also have a preseason where we train up new members on the different machines and design process in which we meet around 2-3 hours per week.

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Before asking EricH's question, I think the question to ask of yourself and the other mentors is whether the robotics team is going to function like a club or a team. A club is going to have different expectations of time/involvement than a team. Once the adults determine that, it will guide where you want to take the member participation level.

I've been on one team that operated as a team. Attendance was required three days a week and on Saturdays during build season, and eventually became a class with those hours. During the non-build season, the class did not meet on Saturdays.

The team I'm on now operates as a club. We encourage students to attend, but if something else comes up (such as bowling tournaments), we just ask to be notified to allow us to determine when/how something will be accomplished. This team also stresses that schoolwork comes first, so students may come sit in the classroom and do homework or stay home to do so. Again, communication with the mentors/teacher allow us to handle whatever needs to happen with those that do show up.

(On a side note, we've tried to do journals where students write what was done that day, what needs to be done, etc. We will be working with them in the off-season to show them what a journal entry really needs to contain since many of the entries this year were inadequate in the details provided. "Drill holes in arm" doesn't say how many, where, or size which are required to do the job correctly.)

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

We're a new team further complicated by being a community based team (no school or shop to call home base). Our team is about 2/3 rookies though the remaining 1/3 have done at least one season of FRC before and know the commitment levels required.

Our build space is the local community center/gym/pool. Our build time is limited by the hours this building is open - we booked 6-9pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday evenings and 9-5 on Saturdays during build season. One additional complication was that since we were using open hallways, lounges, and storage areas to build, we had to build in setup and takedown time to every meeting. Tables, chairs, robot parts, drill presses, saws, all had to be torn down and put away each time.

We had a team meeting just before build season where we stressed how often we were going to meet. We did not introduce any rules about minimum commitment levels, only that we were tracking attendance and that leadership roles at competition would naturally be given to the people who have the most hands-on knowledge and experience, and that only comes by actually showing up and working. We also used the hockey/sports team analogy.

Our parents were very supportive and worked out carpools and other arrangements for students to come in multiple times a week. Attendance was generally good, but I think students were disappointed to sometimes arrive to find not much for them to do on a given day. This is offset eventually by the huge amount of work for them to do later, of course, but we will work harder next year at making sure projects are well defined so that we can schedule things better.

I think by the end of build season everyone was just plain getting tired, but everything sprang to life when they experienced their first regional!

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Hey, thanks Meg! I opened this to post it and noticed that you beat me to it. :)

The thing that keeps our workflow in the best shape during build season (and other projects like our events and offseasons) is collaborative communication & organization - email chains and Google Drive... and then for build, our Engineering Notebook, which I'll have our kids work on hosting on the website ASAP.

We have 110 kids so we have to split them up among subteams, and then further divide those subteams - and they don't all meet on the same day. That puts the weight on the shoulders of mentors & student leaders to make sure records are kept of every major conversation and decision that leads to our completed machine.

Notebook entries have to be on GDrive before the next meeting, so the group coming in after them has a chance to review & understand what's going on for the day - with the help of the leaders & mentors who overlap between groups.

We also make sure 1 day per week is an all-hands recap meeting where each subteam talks about what's been done, what needs to get done, and anything else we have to discuss & get out to everyone.

Hope that helps!

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Our team is going through some growing pains. We have always had a rule that said: for the team to pay for trips you needed 50 hours of logged time and $200 of sponsor dollars collected.

The $200 isn't that hard, we have a list of sponsors that usually give us money and the students just need to go to them and we will work with them with fundraisers, etc.

This year though we are enforcing it more and we are losing a lot of kids. The thing is, money is about the same and the robot is still being built at the same rate. Just less kids. I am still not sure if this is a good thing or a bad one.

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

During build season our team meets Monday through Thursday 6 until 9 PM
We try to keep to those hours so that team members can adjust their study schedules around them. We have a parent staffed study hall these same days from the end of school to 5:00 PM which is not required but highly recommended. We meet every Saturday from 9:30 until 3:30. This means that our base hours during build season are 18 hours per week.

We usually also work Fridays and many Sundays depending on what is going on. Some of the subteams also will meet on their own at other times.

The requirement to maintain satisfactory status for competition is to have 80% of these hours.... Academic requirements at our school are pretty high and students need time to complete homework and assignments.

Students may stay on the team but will not be travelling to competition if they do not meet the 80% time requirement or if they are failing in any class.

Like any other team, we have some members that work much harder both in effort and in time than others. If students are seen not working on robotics projects during scheduled time they are asked to leave and go home. These student can become a big distraction pretty quickly and they don't realize that they are bringing the productivity of other students down by their actions.

Repeat offenders are counseled by mentors and if the behavior continues, parents are brought in for a conference.

Our team is also a class and grades and credit require us to show real work and project accomplishment.

With our schedule an individual student should be putting in approximately 100 hours during build season. I have some students who do twice that.
When I hear that student team members have put in 300-400 hours I really question how they could do that and still attend school and achieve academic goals as well.

Someone who puts in 400 hours would have to work 50 hours per week which would amount to 24 on the weekend (12 hours each day) and over 5 hours each weekday. (from 5 - 10 each night) As a coach, teacher and mentor I think that this is excessive and will lead to academic and other issues. Students need to learn about having a full life that includes time for family and other things.

Planning the work and maximizing the time is what gives good results. We spend a great deal of time in the off-season doing just that so we can be more efficient.

We usually build pretty decent robots and have a fair share of success both on and off the field.

Of course, your mileage may vary.

Re: Team Member Expectations
 

Team 250 meets in a local high school however since we are not directly affiliated with said school, we are somewhat limited in our meeting abilities. The only dedicated team spaces are closets for storing carts, tools, machines etc. This means that every night we have to pack up everything and put it away so classes the next day don't have things all over their rooms. Again because we are not a school team, unless there is a school break we don't start our weekday meetings until around 7pm. With all this in mind I ended the build season with around 200 hours logged. My grades did not suffer as a result. Our team does not expect everyone to put in this much time however due to our small size, some of us have to step up and do so or nothing will ever get done.