How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

if i get annoyed, i threaten that i will take some body parts and use them on the robot. a ciberneticx robot has tro wwin soimething. go seniors.:cool:

I definitely try not to let our freshies talk. I make them run errands too. This one time in Florida, i was thirsty, so i made a freshie run to the place where the sodas were and fill the cup.. so he went.. filled it.. and came back.. then i drank it, and it was goooood. They carry stuff and do the jobs no one else wants to. Its all fun and games.... well.. as long as i don't have to do the "freshie jobs.." haha... One time, i was talkin to another team, and their freshies were there. And they were sayin something. I was like.. "Feel lucky man, we don't even let out freshies talk.." It was amusing...

That's Cold
 

Just remember there was a time when you guys were freshmen too and you'll be freshmen again when you go to college and you'll be a rookie when you join the workforce. Personally life is too short and too stressful to be wasting on looking down on or be looked down on because of your seniority.
It's just lame.

Well, if they're smart and can contribute, we allow them limited speaking priviledges:D Most of them, unfortunatly, are recruited from...well, with without going into tooo much background, I'll say they are from a "limited" talent pool. The kids that just goof off, we get them to either run errands, like Quain does, or we let them to things like filing own rough edges, and putting in bolts: stuff that does'nt require oo-tay uch-may rains-bay.:D

Overall, they just don't have the mental horsepower and/or experiance to do anything very meaningful. Of course there are exceptions (i was one! CD's Driving Tommorow's Technology, J&J, 2001, hoo-yah:rolleyes: )

I'm not rude or evil too them, but most need a year to get a feel for how things work. No one plays with Mindstorms here:( , which translates to mechanical cluelessness (righty tighty, lefty loosy:p )

Personally, I'm quite nice to them, but some test even my patience, which is really saying something.;)

Hmmm...typical.

I was one of the new kids on the team this year, and a fresh. :( It started out pretty bad, but I think it ended pretty well.

A note to anyone who will be joining a team sometime soon:

1. Do not do errands for anyone, unless it is a coach (an adult, not some senior who thinks...you can finish the sentence in your own way) or someone and there is good cause.

2. Ignore comments. (I did!! It seemed to work)

3. Find something your good at, focus your time on that, you may have a better time.

4. Remember, it is only 6 weeks. By the time the next season comes around, you'll be a sophomore (and now get the chance to terrorize us "stupid fresh").

Just my two cents!!

like freshman
 

i treat them just like they are freshman.:D thats the one good thing about being a senior.

Everyone on my team this year was a freshman - well, in terms of expirience atleast.

I remember a while back I read a post about how one freshman on some team was getting annoying, so the team member dragged him in to the back and ducktaped him so he was hanging on a pole =D I sometimes feel like doing that.

We always have a huge team to start the year, but by the time January comes around we lose 2/3 of the newbies...


If the newbies can make it to January they deserve some credit....


This year had some really strong freshmen....i hope next years are just as good..

We normally have no freshman at all. The reason is all our students go to a governer's school (or a votech school in the same building) that is normally only for juniors or seniors. Well, last year I was one of only a few freshman at the school and the only one on the team. I was treated just like anyone else really, but then I probably worked more than most of the people on the team. I was a programmer, and already knew a lot of stuff, so it wasn't like I was stupid and didn't know what to do, plus I was very enthusiastic and learned most of the stuff on my own. I agree with Ben in that some people are mechanically/electrically clueless when they start. The people that really annoy me, though, are the people that have no drive to learn anything, and those aren't only the freshman!

Stephen

do we have to have seniors?
 

As a teacher my motto has long been "a day without seniors is like a day without a sharp stick in the eye." And "the only thing bad about freshmen is that it takes so many of them to make a meal. "

Just kidding. Mostly. I am looking forward to the seniors graduating though. They finish before the rest of the school.

I can come up with similar comments for sophomores and juniors if I try. There are pros and cons to all grades.

We had freshmen in key positions of the team this year. They made up half of our pit crew for example. I have given orders that every important sub team must have at least one freshmen next year. The team all agrees that training freshmen is important for making sure the team improves year after year.

The mentors on our team decided we actually had a real team when it got to the point where noone seemed to be aware of what grade a kids was in. They just cared about what they did for the team.

Team 48 tortures our freshmen...
 

We even let one of them drive our robot during the competitions.

GASP! What a horrible fate!

Paul (aka Paco) did a great job as Xtremachen 5's robot pilot this year. He didn't cause *too* much damage to our robot, other robots, or the field, and he didn't get anyone (including himself) killed. Based upon this assessment, we have decided to let him live and come back for another year of "torture". Time will tell if he gets another chance to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting FIRST masses next season.

Be nice to the freshmen - you were all one once. They may be annoying at times :-P, but they are the future of your team.

Re: Team 48 tortures our freshmen...
 

You're right, i once WAS a freshman.. and they treated me a lot worse than i treat the freshies now.. i consider myself nice.. i generally treat everyone the same... till they act dumb... o well... i'll be a freshman next year again, and i expect to take a lot of crap.. its all part of growing up... its makes you a stronger person... :D

refeering back to T. Hoffmans reply... i am that freshman. this year was great. i didnt get the usual freshman beatdown too badly. i did survive with a few bruises... i think i can recall one of the senoirs administering this 'initiation' saying,"we'll teach you to drive with your feet!"

i personaly think my freshamn year (this year)was the best. i personally had quite alot of fun at the parties... especially canada. and our team didnt do too bad either... we placed seventh in cleveland, second in toronto, and fourth in the curie division at nats.

I'm a freshie.

I didn't really get bad treatment from anyone else... sure, they kind of ignored us for a while, but now they love us. So it's all good. :D

we love u? who ever said that?? j/k you guys aren't too bad..better than the freshies we had last year (the whole 2 of 'em)..there are just SO many freshies this year that we kinda had to except you for fear of you all revolting and taking over the team..lol..but..yea..we're usually really cool to freshies b/c we usually have cool freshies

Freshmen....
 

Normally we are nice to our freshmen, other than a few jokes about stuff here and there..

We also had quite a few freshmen this year and if they ever all showed up at once us upperclass men would have to flee the state in fear of a revolt...lol

After an anointment of cows blood and fat, we are then taken away to the final immunity challenge, where each newbie must stand on one foot, hop, balance a glass of milk on their head and on their raised foot, sing I am a little tea pot in spanish, backwards, outside, in the rain, and doding a wild bull. After we win immunity, we take a shower, then help build the robot.

Incase your wondering, I'm joking, excluding the last part about the robot.

Well.. hot freshies always get special treatment...

LOL :D
Very true....

We treat our new people pretty well... they get to participate and everything. I'm new (but also a senior), and this year was a lot of fun. I even had the privilege of going to nationals.

There is this one freshman on our team that is very... how to say...
God like.
I worship the ground he walks on! I do!
He looks like a God
Smart as one
And even blesses me by living within a mile of me.
I will never be worthy of you Replic!

That seems a little out of character mike...

eh, we have one easy freshman to take care of, we ban him from speaking, so he duct tapes his own mouth during meetings, we don't even have to do it for him anymore : )

we love the freshman!
 

Hey now Rob, we love our Freshman, Tom Bigelow. We don't call him by his name though, and we certainly wouldn't ever let him know that we love him. Anyways, the freshman is great. He's fun to poke or make fun of when you're bored. Also, he knows where absolutely everything is. Maybe next year we'll let him touch the robot. :p

Hehe we give freshman a hard time sometimes when they are acting like the little kids they are, but usually we are nice to them. They do get the highly undesirable jobs such as filing which is the most evil task ever invented. (Come here little freshman and file this round piece of metal into a cube!) This year both our driver and operator were new members, (one freshman and one junior) and did very well.

One freshman on our team....oh boy. Since FIRST is a class at Berkley High School, we see eachother everyday. So FIRST is held in this "design studio" of ours...it's actually the old autoshop, divided into 3 sections ( plus a meeting area ) by cubicle walls.....some of us eat lunch in there every day, and since this freshman is the younger and normal sized brother of our 6 foot 7 senior....he is always running errands for us. He goes to the nearby gas station ( less than a quarter of a block away from the school ) and ( with our money ) picks us up our lunch food from the gas stations mini-mart. He loves it. We really like having him around, and he knows next year, when he is no longer a freshman, he will no longer have to endure our riddicule! We love ya Kyle.

Our team welcomes new members with open arms, that is because the new members are carrying around all of our things. It's pretty cool b/c they think they don't have to do anything their 1st year besides make buttons and scout, and then they get to skip school and go to NATS. But in all actuality they have to do everything for us plus they have to learn all about the engineering process.

I am a Senior on my team but I am a girl so I AM AND WAS treated differently. Last year our team was mostly upperclass men but this year it is ALL underclass men. We dont seem to mind too much. The only requirement that I have is a backrub. We "ask" the freshman guys to give us back rubs. They normally agree but we return them. Even though we dont all get along on our team we all expect each others "unique" qualities.

Heck, they accepted me!!!!:D

Freshman will have there venegance.

I feel like a dog...........

I personally treat freshman as i would anyone else. It just happens that i treat idiots like idiots. And when we have dumb freshied i chew them out. Like when useless-boy kicked a soccer ball into the school's digital overhead projector. He got a heated reaction from me. But the rest of the programming cell were freshies -- and i treated them well because they learned and cared about the robot. If they chose to sit on their fat asses and play freearcade and break stuff -- my reaction is their fault.

Frosh
 

I am a senior on a team. There are about 30 members, and 3 of them are seniors. We're mostly comprised of freshman and a couple of sophmores. At first i felt like "what am i getting myself into!" But i ended up becoming friends with the underclassman just like i would anyone else. We totally depended on them to be knowledgeable on the robot and to fix every part of the system from machining to regular electrical, and maintanence. They came through and ran the team. I guess you can argue that we must have been a pretty unexperienced team. But this unexperienced team managed to build the 2nd strongest robot in the nation(270 lbs. pull in the National pulling Contest at Epcot.) Lookout when these guys are seniors and they can actually get into an R-rated movie.

I don't know
 

We have a couple of cute girls on our team, but they either are not flirtatious....or already have boyfriends....although none of the girls are freshmen......we treat them all the same.

When our freshmen get annoying...we use our good old friend Duct Tape.
Seriously though, we only did that once. And he was REALLY annoying. Other than that, we treat our freshmen well, as I feel I was treated well as a freshmen. I feel part of the mistreatment is justified. As freshmen, they really don't have much life experience or common sense(REALLY GENERALIZING HERE) and sometimes when they do dumb things cleaning them up is time consuming. Also, just the fact that they are young decreases their respect and pretty much stops them from having an extreme involvement unless they join up with a group of friends. However, they will have their chance, just as everyone does, to have a large role in the team.
I'm not saying that all freshmen are dumb, just that as a whole they lack experience, and obviously, as new members, they do not know how the team works.

Just treat like freshies.. dood.. they know jack.. they're immature... and are treated as such. One day, they're be the smart juniors and upperclassmen... then they can yell @ the new freshies. I think the most amusing part is that next year, I'm gonna be in college and the rest of them are going to be wearing uniforms.. hah.. lamers..

from the top to the bottom in one easy step
 

I think the most amusing part is that next year YOU will be a freshman.

I treat freshies on how useful they are,

For Example

Frequent Poster, Greg McCoy was very very very useful and he is a freshman, well he got a lot of respect....

on the other hand

There have been freshmen that are total screw offs and mess around, well they don't get respect until they change their ways...


Same thing with the non-freshmen

Its not the age, grade, or sex, its how useful and how you work is what I judge

In Refferance to PACO & T. Hoffman's Posts.............


The freshman on our team don't get teased to badly, yes we may get alittle bugged out at 2 in the morning and they ask something stupid and you have to start yelling at them. Paco was a great driver this year and being a freshman and walking into shoes that have been filled by almost all upper class man, he did great. I think all the frehies this year had a great time....

Paco...... I think everyone had a great time in Canada, including myself...... ::wink::

um...no
 

i'm actually a sophomore in highschool but it was my first year on our team. Myself and three of my friends kind of took over the building and repairing of the robot. granted the main driving was left for the upperclassmen, the four of us (all first year members) really took to our own and became a force to be reconned with. we were the ones there at two on a sunday morning and the ones there till eleven. we were the ones who lived on mcdonalds and taco bell for six weeks of our lives. i in no way want to belittle the upperclassmen of our team, i only wish to say..."a freshman is only a freshman if you let him stay as one" so make something of yourself, freshies. it's your team too.

After reading over this thread, I have a few things to say:
The people on our team, be they FRESHMEN or seniors, are all treated equally. Some of the things I read, like FORCING them to go get drinks, making them carry things, and "not allow them to talk" make you sound like animals! Everyone on our team is made to feel welcomed and is allowed to do anything they please to help contribute to our teams success. We are, as many of my team members have said, a family. Being in FIRST, and Cybersonics, has been the best experience EVER for all of us, completely undependent on grade/age, experience, or sex.

And you know what... I myself am a...*gasp*... FRESHMAN who has taken over updating the website(www.cybersonics.org if you want to check it out), writes newsletter articles every month by choice, takes pictures for our team, filmed for chairmans award, and did so many other things (BY CHOICE) to help make our team the best it can possibly be... and look where it has taken us! I hope all of you who treat your freshmen like dirt are ashamed because you know what, it's welcoming them into your team that helps make your team the best it can be!!! Thanks 103!

Freshman Year........ wow!!
 

My freshman year was the year after our team had won Nationals and most of the people on the team the year before had been seniors, so they were all gone. As a freshman girl, non the less, I became very well known around the shop. I knew how to work and opperate all the machines in the metal shop and most of them in the wood shop. No one my freshman year tormented me or hazed me, just because I was a freshman. Maybe being one of only 5 girls that was on the team then helped alittle, but still they gave me a job to do and I took care of it. My Sophmore year I walked into a captain position as the AV team captain and still maintaine that rule today. As a girl on the team I'm also Metal shop speacialist and our head teachers thrid arm and leg at times. He hates doing paper work and things are always in piles everywhere. I'm a complete neat freak.... AHHHHHHH The insanity!!



To all newbies that are joining a FIRST team........

Hold your heads high and don't let anyone tell you to shut up, sit down, and tell you your ideads don't matter. You are the future for FIRST and the future in science and technology. Live up to your fellow team members standards and walk into the seniors shoes that are leaving. Girls espically get in there and help those guys out, they'll respect you more when you know what you are talking about. Alittle dirt has never hurt anyone. Remeber what FIRST stands for and remember upperclassman you have people under you looking up to you and taking notes, don't act a fool!!

there was only one freshman i liked! she was really cool and not even compare to the others. the others were annoying, i really did give them a bunch of opportunities but they just don't seem to change. but in a way i guess they brought some fun to the group and made it a little more challenging.

"All your off season comp are belong to us"

It seems to me that there are two types of newbie

The first type joins the team and actually does work, makes contributions, and earns the respect of the senior members of our team.

The second type just joins for the heck of it. They don't do much on the team, and often end up quitting the team.

When I joined TJ², I was definitely a member of the second group. As a rookie, I had no idea what I was doing, and subsequently, didn't travel. My second year, I did contribute, then finally became useful in my third year, co-leading the administrative team.

So anyway, the moral of this story is- don't give up on newbie failures. They can still learn.

"Firewolf....its ok...theyre are many like u and quite honestly the hardest working kids tend to be the freshman...its just that well theyre newbies and get hazed...nothing against u"~purplehaze357

wha? me, huh? i havent even posted on this thread!
and i'm a jr, and a girl, and i've gotta say, i hold sum amout of power over some of the ::ahum:: males on my team...
and it doesn't have to do w/ looks (believe me), or expereance...
but its all about attitude, how much of ur self are u willing to put on the line? How much of ur meger mental power are u going to put into positive Robotix movement...
and how much of it are u gonna put into that game ur playing in the back of the room on the comp?...
i mean, i can NOT give respect to those people, disregarding rank, who waste the time of the team... as well as our air...
so if ur gonna walk around w/ ur tail between ur legs, and ur head so low it's touching the ground, ur not gonna get good treatment...
and i'm not one of positive self-esteem,
but u gotta know who to talk to, how to approch them, ect.

I personally treat EVERYONE by this rule, bigger (most of the team) smaller (.... um... ) and if ur going to be useless, and not willing to work, then ur prob. going to get the bad treatment from the team, no one wants dead weight... u'll put is over the weight limit, and when we gotta drill the holes.. u'll be the 1st to go...

but on norm cases, i'll stand up for the freashies, the R new, and they gotta learn the ropes.. sure it's fun to push them off the tightrope once in a while just make sure there's someone to catch them one the bottom,
cauz in a case like that, and it's just 'i wanna be mean... b/c ...i'm bigger'
i'll end up being ur karma...

there IS a reason i'm called '5 feet of fury'
:p

((*Mr.Volcano... u could never threaten to eat me.... 1) if u ever did u'd get indegestion.. and 2)... i can just ask for a hug
:D :p ;) ))

sorry firewolf
 

no prob bob,
i was just a lil confused, like, "uh-oh, did i post on this and i don't know 'bout it?"
but it's aite, don't sweat it

Although i am a freshman and i am not fluent in english i had one AWESOME year in FIRST and Team 118. I don`t remember anybody treating me bad, never. Well of course there are always people who try to make you do things but ...:D we got to live with that right?!... There were 2 more frehsmen on the team:).. i believe it was the same with them or at least with one of them;)... because the other guy was responsible for the batteries and ... you know... WHAT!? there are no charged batteries!!!?... BATTERY BOY ,,, where are you:) ?..

I myself, even though being freshman, don`t like freshmen;).. hehe... the thing that i hated is the fact that i didn`t get to go to Nationals, that`s all.. the other two freshmen stayed here in Houston, so did i,... we had to watch TV and online... blahhh... ;(...

I have no idea how i will treat freshmen but i won`t be 100% nice ,hehe...

When underclassmen get out of hand, I use a little move I invented, called the "skyhook". just the mention of the term is usually enough to close even the most obnoxious mouth. ask anyone from team 247, its legendary.

Other then using our "NEW" team members as Crash Dummies we welcome them by interviewing them. Some of teh things we look for is if they are dedicated, they have a potential to learn, the ability to improve the team and the way it can improve the school, Basically we're looking for a grade 65 Student with a brain. Thats very hard to come by in my school but we manage. No passing grade. No team. Fail a class = suspension, Fail the same class twice in a row = complete termination from the team. If they pass the interview we then use them to handle dangerous robot equipment and tie them to the field and continously run them over to judge how high our robot can climb. "Hence WILMA's treads" Took alot of people to test her height.

Freshmen & sophmores
 

Nashua Possibly has the wierdest school system ever. Ours goes like this K-6 , 7-9 , then 10-12. Pretty funny huh:rolleyes: Any way this mean when ever new people come to school they are all ready sophmores. During Orientation day we have about 120 people sign up for the team, After we get through team buildings and stuff we have weeded out about 50 or 60 of them. That leaves about 60 brand new people which the vets have to contend with to deal with this we run through the first two weeks giving them the worst jobs that we can think of we dont make them get drinks or anything just stuff dealing with the robot like clean the mech room and start deburring parts when them start coming in. By the end of the six weeks we have shrunk the team to almost 60 total including vets and engineers. Its seems to work good for us. Got to go now I would type more but I have to go rock climbing.:D

That system isn't too weird. It isn't as common as the K-5, 6-8, 9-12 anymore, but it used to be the most common format. I know some districts in my area use such a system.

Stupid freshmen
 

This is an interesting story for you. Last year (2001) I was a freshman, 1 of 2. Naturally I always got told to shut up and all the usuall stuff people do to feshies. This year I'm the team captain. Also this year, we didnt compete officially, we modified our 2001 robot to use at some post season competitions this year. It has been really fun, considering we have done more work on the bot than students of the past 2 years combined. Heres the bad part. MY TEAM IS 90% FRESHIE!!!!!! We have 2 sophmores (myself included, and 1 junior, then everyone else is a freshie. Some freshies arent that bad, i have one who has done more work than many people of the team, and is more mature than our junior. Every other freshie simply sits there, wastes time telling "your mama" jokes, goes on the computers and plays games etc. Thats mainly the reason why it took us 4 months to design the bot, missing about 4 mini competitions. So then the other day, my advisor told me to start chossing drivers, HP's, etc. So every freshmen that spent the months wasting time, not helping in any way, not coming to even half the meetings, all come up to me and ask me to be drivers. Gotta love the stupidity of most freshmen.

How do we treat them???
 

Well on my team, we kinda ignored them at first, but after we got to know them a little better it was all good. They learned a lot from the older kids. After all they are the one's who are gonna be leading the team when we go, so they need to be taught the right way to do things.

Talk to everyone later,
Katie

Re: Stupid freshmen
 

I have the same problem on my team. I wish I had found these forums to discuss this stuff in before this year's build season. Does anyone know what to do about this? You have a team with all freshman, around 3 sophomores, and 3 Juniors. We had no sinority on the team. There were only two on the team, one was in PR and the other, when he showed up, was more entertainment. (I don't think I saw him work on one part this year.) To top it off, we had about 8 people (Seniors) who wanted to join the team, but to only be with their friends.
My dilema... what do you do with a team that was like this, and 90% of it was unproductive all the time. Now, when the new season begins in the fall, all of those freshies will be sophomores, and there will be even more freshies. How can myself and the other two seniors get our sinority back? There was no sinority or structure on the team this past year, and you have soon-to-be-sophomores who think it is ok to walk up and grab the controls of a running robot that you are working on.

Seniority should be determined by who knows what and not by what grade people are in. The idea that a senior automatically knows best is just plain silly.
I like a plan where students select leaders based on experience and knowledge. Mentors should supervise elections only to make sure that ballot stuffing does not place unqualified people in charge just because they are seniors or bullies.

weedie,

as far as drivers, operators, and hp's we do what a lot of teams probably do and that is have tryouts.

as far as the rest of the stuff we each have to fill out an application with our 1, 2 and 3 choice of subteams to be on.

if too many people want to be on a certain subteam, some would get their second choice. i don't think anyone had to take their third choice.

leaders usually rise to the top on their own. slackers fall by the way side. survival of the fittest. and hopefully the leaders can delegate to keep the unproductive time to a minimum.

To me that sounds like wonderful advice, however, right now it seems like only in a perfect world. I have definately noticed the survival of the fittest. However, what do you do when the adult advisors don't enforce anything, and then the engineers get cranky. Our team has always done well with sinority, and my first year, if you even looked at the robot and the driver saw you, you ran, and kept running. Then this year, for the first time, both myself and the other driver were Juniors, and with no sinority, we lost all control of the team. Now, my brothers class (soon to be sophomores) think it is all a joke, and that we (the 3 seniors) are all pushovers.

short answer...get new ones!!!
jk
sometimes it takes one of those student leaders we were talking about to step up to the plate and tell it like it is.

"Ya'll either get with program or get lost."
"Dig in or shove off"

i'm sure a little peer pressure can get those little bodys contributing. and actually i think that is all a part of the learning process. not everyone is going to learn how to build a robot. someone is going to learn how to relate to people, lead people, and inspire people to really want to be a part of a great team.
that's why i think being inspirational and motivated may be more important qualities for a student team leader than electrical or mechanical abilities.

One of the great moments of the BeachBots happened in a design review meeting. We were running over the list of requirements as a group and checking off which were high, low, and no priority.

All of a sudden there's this voice from the back of the room, "Excuse me, but I don't hear any students saying anything". It was the young lady who was student lead for the electrical team, and she was right. So we went back over the whole list, this time the engineers could only answer questions and the students did the ranking. There were only a couple of minor differences in the list as a result, but a major change in attitude.

Notice: she made this challenge in a polite and respectful way (or was it Graciously Professional?). She was also an experienced member of the team and therefore had credibility.

There is a need for the students to keep us engineers in line. We tend to get wrapped up in the technical details and ignore the people issues until things explode, and then we wonder what happened. It isn't because we're mean, sometimes we're just clueless.

Kind of like giving a colorblind person a pile of blue and green socks to wear and expecting him to come up with a matching pair. Can he do it?, generally if he's paying attention and looking closely. But probably not if he's just throwing stuff on because he woke up half an hour late. Because differences that are obvious to a person who sees in color are not obvious to him, he isn't equiped that way. ( A color blind co-worker of mine did this regularly. )

SO if you don't like the way things are going, speak up. Do it politely, and in a non-threatening way, be obviously trying to help. Mention the PROBLEM in a general way, don't talk about the PERSON, at least not at the first go.

For further guidance I suggest the book of Matthew, Chapter 18.

Well, we're all rookies so and how people were treated was determined entirely based upon their desire to learn how to do things and work hard. However the older members handled some of the more technical work because of their [generally] higher level mathematical aptitude.

I'm officially First-sick now. I just need to design one circuit, please?

My junior year was our teams rookie year so in a way we were all freshmen... but we weren't yet a robotics team that year, we were still part of the schools science club which allowed for the upperclassmen to still have seniority within the club itself.

With that said we treated freshmen very well, almost equals.... That is until they proved there capabilities. Those who were less willing or able to work were givin more menial tasks and although not formally required to be quiet, learned that there input wasn't usually taken seriously. Those who proved to be very willing to do work, even if they weren't the best at it, were givin more complex and more important tasks, of course, under propper guidance and monitoring depending on there actual ability level.

I should add that this went for some of the upperclassmen to. Simply put. If you wanted to work and didn't know how we were willing to take the time to teach you. If you didn't want to work and had all the skill in the world you would usually become a gofor (go for this, go for that, etc.).

Last year one of the rookies on our team decided to suggest we build a hover-craft with a turret on it. He was serious.

We then locked him out of the school....lol

Some freshies can have good ideas, and we encourage SERIOUS ideas from everyone...but the youngins sometimes get carried away, at which point they need reminding that this is a serious competition that (for the most part anyway) requires serious thought.

Actually now my team is different then what it was last time i posted on this thread. We treat people on how hard they work, what their attitude is like, etc. IE: we have one freshmen from last year (now a sophmore) who always worked hard, and had a great attitude. I treated him like my assitant captain. Then now we have this new guy (sophmore i believe) who has the most horrible attitude, he thinmks he is the greatest member on the team (keep in mind hes been on the team for about 3 weeks now). He thinks he knows more (not possible, I'm the only official year veteran so basically i know a great deal that no one else does, not trying to brag, its the truth, plus i have the most experience), and that hes the best driver. Our junior from last year (now a senior) is just like that too. So it depends on your productivity, attitude etc. Most freshmen are really immature, its rare that we get good ones, so most of them are treated like one would normally treat freshmen. The good ones are respected though.

Basically for this year we have
1 senior (that really arrogant cocky one who always fools around, and yes, its a guy)
4 juniors (myself, 2 guys, 1 girl, all are into it and have good attitudes and almost never goof off)
5 or 6 sophmores (1 is the "assistant captain" i described above, the others are fairly into it, they do their share of goofing off. all guys by the way)
3 freshmen (1 guy who is really into it, and pretty much never goofs off, 1 guy who is into it, but is at some points, way to hyper, and a girl who is usually quiet, but is into it and has a good attitude)

The good thing is over the summer we lost most all of our slackers (they were freshmen, now they are sophmores)

grunts
 

I don;t care who you are or how good you are, Every newbie goes through a 2 year grunt program. Its not the best treatment but everyone has to go through it to learn.

My team is suffering heavily this year, becuase we are down to about 2 trained leaders left. We see hope for few grunts, btu the process is long and hard. Like many of the posts I have read we have only a handful of members who work, but about 20 who travel to regionals and nationals.

I'm considerably nice to the newbies who do work (whether being filing edges or being informants). I'm normally incredibly easy-going but some of the freshmen last year really irked me. We are normally working our bots off the last weekend so we don't even bother going home. It used to be that just Seniors or Juniors stayed. All of them did work. This year, there were freshmen there. It would have been okay if they worked...but they were just bogging down the T1 with pointless games. *sigh* I think I bit my share of heads off :P (All my pent up anger comes out in random bursts at things that annoy me...I have been told that it's scary. I personally find it humourous :D)

Oh yeah...when I was a Freshman, I don't remember being allowed to look at the robot. I got to make buttons the ENTIRE YEAR! 3 hours of making buttons every monday, wednesday and all day friday and saturday. Did that for two years. Needless to say, I nearly quit robotics. I'm glad I didn't though :)

Im kinda "assish"(sorry) to the newbies on the team. Ok im not that bad but some of the rookies just arnt normal looking and im not saying any thing bad about them but i would be kinda embarrassed if i went to nationals with some of them. Others are fine and im sure i will be able to get along with them.

hmmmm
 

I started with 247 in the team's second year, as I became a freshamn. I was one of 3 chosen (it had just become a class at school as opposed to a club)

I, and the other two, were all welcomed and appreciated.

Second year, there were more freshman, and their acceptance was based on merit. A few refused to work assuming FIRST was a blow-off class. The rest earned their keep.

Third Year.. Newbie Catastrophe. Very few of the new kids wanted to do work, and with a new teacher (Huskie Brigade's Mr. Goldberg) made for many tensions. As we all settled in through the year, Charles Darwin watched over us.

Now we have another 20 or so new members and almost all (less maybe 2 or 3) work their butt's off.

Hooray for survival of the fittest w00t.

I was once a freshman...
 

I was a freshman last year on GRT and after taking that much flak from the veterans, I personally decided not to do it again. I never took it personally, but towards the end of build I hated the veterans and everything they did. Don't harass rookies or freshman cause they'll be there next year and remember what you did/said.

If rookies either know a lot to start with, or ask for help and try to learn stuff, we welcome them in. If they just show up and don't do anything or (even more common) do negative work, we tend to pretend they don't exist. Then again, after being awake for 42 hours (36 of which were spent building the 'bot), I begin to think no one really exists....

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

Most people seem to have close to the same story. Last year i was a freshmen but i knew most of the senoirs, i was still stuck with simple tasks(check out "Freshmen Positives" for more on that). generally the whole team was run by 3 tyrannical (shall i say triumverate?) senoirs. This year a whole lot changed (and not just the fact of no longer being a freshmen). The tyranny is gone and all that is left in its path is a working domacracy(spell check please). It's taken us some time to get us back on our feet but we are a more efficient working machine(in my eyes). Anyways, i hope to see you guys at nationals next year as i plan we will qualify once again(does this guy use too many parenthesis or what?) say hello when u see team 701!

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

Several years ago the culture on our team was freshmen did all the menial jobs. Not anymore. Everyone pitches in on menial jobs, and everyone can work to their capacity and everyone can learn.

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

this year I am the only member on our team with experience. It's hard to have to go through the whole brainstorming, design, and building process when you're the only one who has experience. It's a slow and painful process having to teach people how to use a mill or a lathe. especially having to show them again and again because they keep forgetting. There's also the other problem. A lot of them don't realise how much effort has to be put into this in order to succeed. I'm trying to get at least 50% attendance from everybody, but so far i'm the only one who has been there more than 50% of the time. so nobody knows what's happened to the robot designwise and what changes have been made. The Freshmen on our team were usually ignored on the earlier years until this year (since they're all freshmen except for me) so they were a little more involved and take a look at what they accomplished. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

That's truly an awesome paintjob from our freshmen.


moral of the story: don't judge a book by it's cover?

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

I treat people by there maturity, dedication and skill level. I feel that if you are mature and dedicated, you can gain skillz in the shop. I feel that if you are mature and have skill, you will naturally be dedicated. If you aren't mature, then go work on your project in a corner..(I'm not always mature). I will always crack freshman jokes...but the freshman know that if they work hard they have my respect.

There is a rather annoying freshman on our team and she always gets picked on. Today someone hid her project when she wasnt looking, and she over reacted so the teacher told us to find the missing part in 5 min or we are leaving. We all scrambled around our huge messy shop looking for it, and finally found it. Nobody admitted to doing it and i feel it is probable that she hid it so that she could get the attn. Who knows who cares?

That is why i feel that maturity is the most important factor. Whatever

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

we have no freshmen!! i love it because i dont have to deal with them at all. our team is doomed though everyone with skill is graduating. although there is this one kreepy kid who just shows up rondomly and speeks in a soft voice.

Re: How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?
 

Depends on the freshman, most of them on our team are pretty cool. We only have like three actual freshman, and like 1 6th-grader and 1- 5th grader.... I think.... yeah... :D