Re: How do team select new members?
 

In general there are two ways that FIRST teams attract students to be on the team:

1. The team conducts an application process and screens the students
2. The team accepts any student who wants to join

I am a big proponent of #2.

For instance, there are two teams. Both have student application processes.

Team A conducts an application process and only accepts lathargical slackers who don't seem to have a direction in school. This team wants to reach out to under-achieving students and try to turn them around. This goal is very ambitious. Many students may not succeed in this program, but the ones who are impacted are huge sucesses.

Team B conducts an application process and only accepts high achievers who have much ambition and above-average GPA's. The goal of this team is to challege these students and provide an opportunity for them to shine in a field where they can excel.

Call me crazy, but if I had to implement an application process on a FIRST team, I would choose to do it the way Team A did it. The students on Team B already "get" the fact that they need to go to college, get advanced degrees and make an impact in the world. The students on Team A don't "get it" and need direction. These students are obviously un-inspired for many reasons and FIRST can make a big impact on their lives.

So, if a kid has low grades, they cannot fill out an application very well, or if they cannot interview very well... why keep them out of FIRST? What is the goal of FIRST? - to INSPIRE.

This is my case for letting anyone on the team. Let them on... give them a chance to participate. Then put requirements on them and set goals for them to achieve in order to travel with the team. Sure, some students will still slack off and not meet some of the requirements, but the ones who do turn things around are very proud of their accomplishments.

This is just my opinion. I'm interested to hear why teams conduct application processes like Team B above. If you are really stringent with your application process and your team only lets in the "best of the best", then I challenge you to loosen your requirements to let in some students who need to be inspired.

Andy B.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

I agree 100% with Andy. (Surprise, surprise ;) ).

This may surprise some people, but my Sophomore year of High School (1999 season), I applied to join the Shenedehowa FIRST team (they had an application process back then), and was rejected!

It was a terrible experience, I had the toughest time trying to figure out why I wasn't good enough to join our FIRST team. The next year, I reapplied and was accepted... but... I missed out on a whole year of this robotic-fun we all know and love simply because some committee decided I didn't meet their needs. In my opinion, this shouldn't happen to ANYONE.

FIRST is about inspiration, simply being there is often good enough. Not everyone needs to be a super-active participant on the team to benefit from the team. Heck, the first time I was inspired by this program was when I SAW Shen's 1995 robot sitting in the shop. Any involvment is GOOD involvment.

Take everyone. (resources permitting).
You never know what positive impact you will have on a student's life.

$.02
John

Re: How do team select new members?
 

We do an application process and select our students. We used to accept anyone that wanted to be on the team, but thanks to budget problems, we have had to restrict the number of people that can be on the team in the last few years.

We try to be a combination of Team A and Team B that Andy mentioned above. Our reasoning is that we try to mix in the underachievers with the overachievers in hopes that the overachieving students can guide the underachievers toward inspiration. This has worked fairly well for us over the years. In fact, one of our senior students this year is poised to be a very good student leader. In fact, he is now involved in a program they have at his school aimed at helping younger students that are having trouble fitting in. He's now a very popular guy at his school. When he started on the team, he was more of an underachiever struggling to fit in at school. It appears that his participation on the FIRST team helped to guide him to where he is.

Our feeling is that if we choose all underachievers and the only role models are the engineers, the students might not be abel to relate. We're hoping that they have some student role models as well.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

FIRST off, I applaud and admire Andy's views. Without a doubt, he and 45 are a class act and represent what FIRST is all about year in and year out. I've had the pleasure of meeting Andy and talking with him and it remains one of the highlights of my experiences in FIRST.

103 does use an application, recommendation and interview process. While this is exclusionary in a sense, it also helps the prospective students to understand what FIRST is and the different opportunities that exist in the program. Through the process we try to help the prospective students find where they would best fit in on the team - animation, design, manufacturing, programming, web design, etc. This process is a valuable one for the officers that help conduct the interviews as well. There's learning on all fronts and the goal is always to educate and inform - not to find reasons to leave people out.

Also know that our team is like most that don't use a "selection process." We always wind up with close to 40 at the start of the year and the numbers dwindle by build season somewhat. We also have a diverse population on the team, including some of those aforementioned "need to be inspired kids".

During the season interested middle school students travel to competitions to see what it's all about. In addition, every spring after the Championship, we travel to our middle school technology classes and introduce the program to every seventh and eighth grader in the building. We do demos in every aspect of the competition, let the students run the robot and troubleshoot simple circuits, distribute applications, and do our best to inspire as many as possible.
In the end, those interested step forward and take part. Many of our new members take on "exploratory/introductory" roles at first to help them find a place on the team that fits them.

At the end of each season the advisors also do an "exit interview" with each student to learn more about their personal experiences and how we can help make it better for everyone in the future.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

This makes sense to me. It's good that teams are letting in kids that need some direction, and I can see a need to limit the number of kids on the team. We just don't have the luxury of many students in Kokomo High School wanting to be on the team... so we can still accept everyone who wants to be involved. Every year, it suprises me that although KHS has 2000 or so kids from 9-12, only 25 or 30 are interested in TechnoKats. This year, we had a strong recruiting push, so more kids are interested.

Here is our situation right now and how we are dealing with it:

We currently have 60 interested students. That number will probably dwindle between now and March. From our experience, there is no way that 40-60 students will be fully active on the team. But... it would be nice to allow this number of students to attend the competitions, while being fair to the students who put in much effort.

As an answer to this issue, we will be keeping a point system to track student's involvement. Students get points if they show up to activities and are involved. The top 10 (+/-2) points getters will have their way paid to all competitions. The next 30 students will need to pay 1/2 of their way to all competitions. If any student past those 40 meets a minimum amount of points (in our case, 40 points), then they can go with the team to a competition, but they have to pay their full way.

All students can still fundraise, but they are not required to do so... they just need to pay their share. For the top 10, their payment is through their effort (working in shop, doing demos, mentoring FLL, etc.). This plan has these benefits:

1. It rewards the kids who put in much effort
2. It provides a means to be a part of the team for students who are also active in another activity (part time job, sport, etc.)
3. It places a finite dollar amount on our travel budget.

As Clark said above, this system is highlighted in our team handbook, at TechnoKats Home Page, under "Resources". I hope this new system works... I'll post some opinions at the end of the year about how (or if) it worked.

Andy B.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

Granted, not every student is meant to be in FIRST, and not every student's interests can be cultivated. But even if you can't inspire a student to love FIRST's ideals, in a lot of cases you can teach them to appreciate it.

What about those kids? The 'leeches' for a Florida trip, the ones who haven't touched pneumatics beforehand, those who don't know how to use AutoCAD?
Why do we, as mentors, have any right to choose which kids to inspire?

Look at 45's method of traveling to competitions. Many teams have students raise their own money for travel, or only pay half their way. Some teams only send the drive crew because they can't afford to send everyone. But that doesn't mean that 30 people couldn't have worked on that robot to get it where it is. Maybe they didn't get to compete, but they designed it, built it, and got it to competition. Granted, 100 people can't work on the robot. Limits are needed. But there are ways to cut corners and get many more people involved than the bare minimum.

I don't know that I would have a clear conscience knowing that I turned a student away from their interests, or chose someone over them because of prior knowledge. Students should not have to compete for their position on a team. We're here to inspire them, not hire them.

Every team is different, and no team is ideal for everyone else. Just please, keep in mind whom you are turning away. Neither JVN or myself, or a couple other hundred FIRST kids, would have gotten the opportunities we have without someone accepting us.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

Team 596.

We Just announce a sign meeting, early in the school year where anyone is welcome to join, and we explain the game and competitions. We go over team building, brainstorming, gears, programming and the rest of the fun stuff. Around December we have the Sign up as either a primary or associate memeber. Primary Members attend almost all the meetings and Associate attend about half. WE have benifits for each of the members. Early off we also explain that a winter sport will make it extremely difficult to attend our meetings.
We're divided into two main groups, Mechanical, and Programming/Electrival.

We have not had to any problems with our team size. Our school is fairly small.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

Andy, I agree that Inspiration and Recognition is more important (hence For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) than just giving kids who will alread be inspired a chance is best. But I still see it that even if the kid is a math whiz and already has MIT and others banging at the front door, he still should have the opertunity to discover something through FIRST.

FIRST proves that BOTH classes of A and B Teams could operate together and lean a lot from eachother. One of the great things about FIRST is that unlike sports, we have no tryouts, so if you suck at gears, no one will boo you off the field, instead you'll learn and get better. The real world isn't full of just people who excell and those who need to be inspired, but both working together.

Re: How do team select new members?
 

Team 108 chooses the new member on their performance in performance in academics.... you have to have atleast a 2.5 gpa to get into the team (which is very easy part)... also the new members writes an essay on a certain topic which is given....