Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

Well any team can easily lose themselve to the dark side. The dark side being that the team folds under due to those who do not feel like participating in the program anymore.

Sometimes, a team must result in a in forming their team into a business. A business solution is a fantastic idea. You give 1 share of stock for each year a student attends. The shares of stock can be used for voting and other business related functions.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

don't let the programmers know they have rights, because then they might just get up and leave

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

i don't agree as a freshmen i find that i come to meetings more than many other students older than me. organizing the team this way would be unfair to those who are new but still motivated

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

Well yes, of course you would not award stock for freshmen. The stock may be rewarded on a special system your business may have. Going above and the call of duty may result in one share. Your business may issue or de-issue them at anytime.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

We have the hours cards...
We try to make sure everyone did SOMETHING on the robot or team...

But to really hold the team together, we have found that it has to be fun. Can't bark orders at people. They have to want to be there.

So you say - the team doesn't want to go play laser tag. OK, start small. See what everyone is interested in. Maybe they like to play cards - OK, set up a card night. Or a card playing meeting during some down time. Or maybe they like movies. Play a movie clip on a laptop at the beginning of the meeting. Or have a movie night at someone's house. Or get everyone out to the movies. I know - it sounds weird not working on ALL ROBOT ALL THE TIME, but it's a good thing.

This is something our team looses focus on - the "fun" part. So we have remind ourselves from time to time.

(And yes, building robots is fun - but so is the short movie "troops")

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

We record hours as well. I've noticed a certain "working minority" on team as well. Maybe i'm being ignorant, but some people don't seem to be doing work or being very productive.

I'd say if their blatantly being apathetic towards the team, yet still demanding the same respect as a member, then you should ignore them until they realize they are blocking themselves from participating. You have to stress to all members that people have to find their own work and it will not come to them (and usually work coming to them is honestly not the most um... exciting).

If they do not choose to learn or participate with the team, they are not taking the experience of FIRST seriously and are in turn, not contributing to the team and adding a burden to the dedicated members (dead-weight theory). Dedicated members usually are self motivated, wether its satification of building a robot, ownership of the team, respect, etc.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

The 0ne thing Ive found with team 573 is most of us do most of the work. we've done team activities such as lazer tag, tailgating and team driving practice. We all seem to get along but inevitability there is 1 or 2 members who are rude to other members (who listen to them quietly) when we are having group strategy and/or brainstorming meetings. Nobody has quite figured out how to deal with them yet but unfortunately enough our logging of daily hours worked too well and inspired them to come but not really do work.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

I definitely agree that it is seen on all teams where there is only a handful of people who build the robot. I completely put this thing together for our team, 295 and it was quite a ton of work and effort, but it was worth it. This year, we had a grand total of five members, no school support or other adults, besides my dad, and we actually ended up building it in my garage. :cool: Just curious, but did we make the record of having the smallest team ever?

It was quite funny at competition when alliances looked up in the stands and went "there's are team!, where's your's?" and I'd reply "we are all on the field, right here=)" :p But back to the whole "team building" it is a very, very hard thing...I found that you do have to make things fun so people will come, which in my case I really needed, include everyone, haha that wasn't hard considering Whit and I basically built the whole robot, Matt had programming, Mike did pnuematics, and Lucas did the odd jobs when asked...

Keeping things fun always helps too, I made that a goal of ours from the beginning, as obviously with four other people I wasn't expecting to win the SacRegional but it was for fun and learning. By the way anyone who is interested we did finish the bot in time, without a shop and in my garage, five people and all, ended up 17th which made me very happy! :D

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

if you're having trouble with keeping a team, a good talking to is always good. if the team spirit is low, then someone has to take charge, just randomly. that's what i did at the sac regional in 2003, and the fembots ended up winning the spirit award. i can almost guarantee, that by someone just taking charge and pumping up the team, you can get them into it and who knows? you could win the spirit award.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

Our team, born 5 years ago, started out with these problems. Too many people showed up at a minimum number of meetings for the opportunity of a free trip and a chance to throw the words "FIRST Robotics" up on their college applications.

Two years ago, the mentors decided to have "try-outs" for the first time. Students had to fill out an application about what they were interested in, and they had to write a resume to show what they have been involved in and their high school history of extra-curriculars. Finally, they had to undergo an interview with a group of mentors.

That year (the first year there were tryouts), our team worked amazingly and placed 1st and one regional and 3rd at another. However, this was because out of over 50 students, it was easy to narrow it down from 23 because the mentors knew who/ they were getting.

Since then, each year has become more difficult with this process. Newer students do not know what they are getting into untill they are "stuck with it" while students that are not selected, end up caring more than some of the non-shower-uppers on the team.

I think selection is a good thing. After all, 6 weeks is extremely short and robotics is an extremely expensive program to fun. But I don't think that this is the way to go because like I said, wit this selection process, you end up with people who don't care, and miss out on people who do.

So here's my proposal. Have a mock build-season in the fall right when school ends. Let anyone be a part of this who wants to be, and propose a challenge (even designing a universally themed robot within 6 weeks as a prep to the actual build season). Have some way to evaluate who worked hard and was involved, and who only showed up once in awhile. Then have a selection/elimination right before the Kickoff and that's your team.

What do you think?

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

I don't agree with the try outs for a team, it should be open to everyone. But A good idea could be to use a point system, based on attendance and just general shown interest in the team. All you would need is a chart where every student has to mark/sign in at each meeting, students who don't show up much, are considered a non traveling member, unless they pay all for them selves. And i understand there are always odd cecum stances that could make people miss time and such but those could be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Having a application is a great Idea, MOE uses one since we are part of 12 schools we have to have a way to sort people out. Here is MOE's student application I hope the best for your team and for you to be able to come together as a team, so you can continue to be a FIRST team.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

I fear interviews...

We had 65 sign up this year. We send them all through a little interview, not to cut people but to see what they might be interested in.

As a mentor, I can say that we would have keep some people that were not too interested in the team, and cut some of our best people.

We decided we'll let people's interest fall were it may. MY mentor (a manager here at work) has always said I should worry about the hard working people, and let the non-interested people decide what they want to do on their own.

And out of those 65 people, about 45-50 do quite a bit. I'm impressed.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

Hi, our team never really had a problem with this, but maybe I can offer some insight about why we never did and some suggestions so that this problem can be fixed. First off when the students want to participate on the team, they must go through an application process as well as get a recommendation from a teacher. They must sign an agreement saying that if they choose to join they commit to being at all mandatory meetings throughout the season. If they cannot, then they cant be on the team. A team needs support by all its members to be successful, thats what being a team means.

Before the season starts, I would suggest having some mandatory meetings just for team building and to get to know each other. If you really know your team mates and everyone starts to see that coming to meetings is enjoyable, then they will be more willing to come. Make sure everyone on the team has a role, split the team up into different sub-groups. Give them responsibility. If they are responsible for something and know that their time will not be wasted while at the meetings then they will come. A fun thing that my team likes to do is have "theme days". Every Saturday meeting that we have we have a different theme to dress up as. It keeps the team spirit high and they can have some fun with it. Think of different ways to keep the students interested, find out what they want to do on the team and pair them up with a someone who has been on the team before to show them the ropes.

Being a leader for anything is never an easy job. Whether it is FIRST, or your job, the leaders often are doing a lot more things than you ever see to make sure the team is successful.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

Another good idea is to give all the team members a questionnaire at the end of the season and get them to give their input. They will tell you if there were any problems or things they didn't like to help better the program for others. It's also good because it gives the adults the students perspective on certain issues.

Re: How do you keep your FIRST team a TEAM?
 

On our team, we come together because of the sense of fraternity. We all know what has to be done, and we split up and work. I think that many of us are propelled by the urgency and emergency of it all. Since our school, district, and city don't really care about us, we feel that in a way that we are proving ourselves. If you stop showing up, or fail to do anything useful, you leave. The key to staying a team is to establish very early that yes, this will be a lot of work. However, it will be fun, useful work that you'll carry with you to your college applications, your children, and to your grave. I would like to think that our team builds more people than robots.