For those who lack dedication...
 

This year has been quite frustrating for myself and other members on the team. We have several new members, which is good for our team. Many are freshmen and sophomores. The problem is that some of them do not come to meetings and build sessions or, if they do, they sit around, argue with each other, mess around, do their homework, or sign in and leave. Now I don't tolerate such behavior and I try to get them to work as much as possible, but there's only so much I can do.

We are considering not allowing members of the team go to competition who we feel have not contributed enough to the team or don't show up enough. Is this a good idea? I realize it may be harsh, but we're starting to find it necessary.


PS: I realize there are other threads regarding the lack of dedication of team members, but I didn't feel that they addressed this specific issue. So I did search and I apologize if I didn't search hard enough.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Looks like you're having a problem that's affecting many teams this year. My team had the same problem, but it (luckily) fixed itself, we have a good group of dedicated members, but there are still some students who aren't as dedicated (like what you described above).

I was talking to the team leader about the idea of restricting members from coming to regionals. It's harsh, but it isn't such a bad idea... if they want to go to a regional, they have to show that they're part of the team, not just show up once in a while.

Anyways, before you start laying down the punishments, try motivating them first... now how to do that is the difficult part.

Here was an old thread that I started, maybe it can help: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=31592

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Our team policy is you must attend 75% of meetings in order to go to competitions, regardless of how much you participated at each meeting.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Short answer.. yes.

A regional is a lot closer to your hometown usually, so if they decide they have a new found dedication, they can always show up on Saturday.

The Championship event is a different story. Those who know they have earned it, usually go, and those who did next to nothing, usually know why they don't go. And if they don't understand why, sometimes you have to spell it out for them.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Our team too is having this problem. Tonight i took some work home to finish it on my Bridgeport, and i just got done (11pm). Thats dedication lol. But most of our freshmen dont bother to show up and we try to keep them busy with tasks that need to get done, but dont require too much accuracy. To my dismay, we will be allowing anyone who wants to come to the regionals, but if they didnt help build the robot how can they help fix it? Im thinking were gonna have some people in the stands this year lol. So thats my advice, let em come and root on the team!

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

If kids are there to argue and make a nuisance out of the team, I personally feel they should not be allowed to go to the competitions. However, cut it off at the point where they are being disruptive. If they at least stay in the meetings without doing much but have an OK behavior then I'd say its OK to let them go. Unless you feel you want the team to just be about 10 people. The idea is that you get those not so active to be inspired at the competition and you never know, they may be the greatest contributor next year. Your team is not the only team that faces such problems. It's the same with every team. In our team, those who come in, sign-in and leave generally stop coming to the meetings altogether and are cut off the roster. We let only those travel who are active in the team. If they're at the meetings we generally put them to perform some task, although there are always slackers. It's the story of almost every team. I would highly suggest making up a membership criteria for your team and follow that. For example you can look at our Team Handbook and derive your rules off there. Keep the questions coming.
-Bharat

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

We are having a similar problem (although it seems to be getting better recently), but we live in Alaska, and we are traveling to Portland for our only regional and I personally am saying that if any non participating members want to show up at the competition that is fine, but they need to provide their own transportation, and find their own place to stay. But then I am not the team president, and they have been participating and showing up more recently so if they wanna come I guess that would be ok with me.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

to prevent that sort of problem, our team enforces specific requirements that need to be met in order for students to go to comepetitions. for each competition, there are a certain amount of robotics related hours, community service hours, and fund raisers each team member needs to have in order to go on a trip. ex: this year, in order to go to both regionals and the championship event, a student needs to have dedicated at least 90 hours to the robotics team itself (either helping design and assemble the robot, working on chairmans award or on the spirit comittee, or whatever), 10 community service hours elsewhere (its his/her choice), and needs to have participated in at least 7 fundraisers this year. sure it may seem a little harsh to impose restrictions on who can do what even though they are interested in FIRST, but it ensures that the people truly involved and dedicated are allowed to have fun, and gives the slackers something to work for. i'd suggest having some sort of system to get people really dedicated

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Team 461 has a few policies on regional attendance.

1) They have to sign a form stating their commitment to the regionals they're chosen for. This means that they can't back out the day before if they decide they have a hot date and building doesn't sound quite as fun. Sometimes lack of commitment rubs off onto competition. Members of the team fill out a form about which competitions they're able/want to attend in week 2 or 3, and give it to a team leader. From there, the decision is based on various participation factors.

2) Attendance is a huge issue. On our team 80% of meetings is what you are required to have in order to attend competition. If you have a local regional, team members should be allowed to attend that at will, becuase it is no cost to the team in terms of hotels or transportation. If you have a distance regional, you have a different story. Those with good attendance are the ones that know what is going on. They get first pick on which competitions. You should have a field team (driver, operator, human player) of 3, and those 3 can also help fix in the pits. In addition to them you should have at least 1 mechanic student and 1 electrics student and 1 programmer working in the pits. A pit crew of 10 isn't too shabby.

3) Tell them they can't compete if they don't dedicate themselves. Sometimes that's all it takes...

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

We don't have enough money to fund our travel fees, so we have to have the team members pay for the hotel/transportation. That's enough to chase off those who don't commit themselves - only the people who care are willing to cough up the money to go.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

The NEW Apple Corps have many requirements for students to be able to attend competitions and participate on the team; most of them revolve around meeting grade requirements, attending meetings (especially during the build) and some mandatory fund-raising. This came about after the 2001 season, when we took 50 students to Nationals - crazy for us; we didn't have nearly enough for them to do, and many didn't do much on the team as it was! Honestly, it was hard to adjust to at first, but it showed who really was dedicated and who was just there for the "trip to Florida" (yes, that was some students' sole reason for being on the team. :()

Check out 93's handbook for more info: http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/tesla/firs...AChandbook.doc

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

we have a policy that if the rest of the team feels you havn't done enough, you can't go. Now with everyone paid their £150 flight ($300 ish) deposit, we will try and refund anyone who we deem can't go. I believe we have a letter that we show any member doing nothing, that we threatent o send to their parents, explaining the situation. Usually that does the trick tbh. Last year we had no policy and got stuck with 2 useless people going just for hte fun of it and doing absolutely nothing all year.... and they would admit if you asked them...
We also keep note of certain tasks that we ask people to do , to provide evidence and to keep a track. Such as fundraisers etc... if you dont turn up, you get a mark on your name in the black book of doom.
One of our kind sponsers gave us airmiles for medium class tickets (ie not cattle class ;) ) on the plane, and the 5 most dedicated are getting them .

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

it is our team policy that the most dedicated team members get to go to the regionals(/nats?). we have a sign-in/out sheet where students clock their hours. the more time one spends at robotics, and the more done while there (determined by mentors), the more regionals one will get to go to. so even if a rookie goes every day, if he just sits in the corner and does nothing, he doesn't get to go.

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. It seems like you're all doing what we've been considering and that's very comforting to hear. Hopefully we wont have to cut too many people from regionals.

Thanks,
Alex

Re: For those who lack dedication...
 

Try leaving messages like the ones Zac Hitt, our captain, left on my machine. www.geocities.com/jakethebrikhed/ZacGayness.mp3

Seriously, try assigning important jobs to each person, and call persistantly. That way, you know if they are still part of the team, or if they quit, so you can stop wasting your time and energy calling them. That in itself should do it. Good luck.