Originally Posted by andyhoyt911 (Post 638784)

There are currently 5 competent people on our team, due to 12 team members just had to go and graduate on us last year. Does anyone else have this small of a team, and if so, how did YOUR team get the job done? All of our abilities are rather scattered, one of us can KIND OF program, one of us can wire, one of us can KIND OF machine, and yeah.

Are we alone out here?

Originally Posted by 114ManualLabor (Post 638894)

Our team has about 5 people that actually build the robot, and about 4 people that we use for extra hands (no mentors, sadly...). However, we still manage to produce insanely competitive bots each year. Over the summer, we had 2 meetings to plan on how to build the team, and here's what we came up with:

1. Video- Our school has video announcements every morning, and so we'll be making a recruitment video to get more knowledge of the team spread around.

2. Easy Access- Once we run the video, we'll be updating our website with a /join page, in order for students who are interested to sign up with their email or phone number, so we can let them know when meetings are.

3. Quick and welcoming response- Face it, we're students, we have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to scheduling. So what we're setting up is one or two people to be in charge of welcoming. We're going to get back to those people who sign up, most likely on the day after they sign up. Then we'll get them immediately involved, as we are constantly doing projects (RC electric full size car, in house VEX competition, tool and training sessions, as well as many other things).

4. Follow up surveys- Every few weeks, or maybe once every two months, we're going to send out a survey to members of both the team and random school students. The members of the team can give suggestions on how to improve the team, while the other students will let us know what they think of the robotics team, so we can work on our image in order to attract more students.


Due to the size of our team, and that fact that we're all seniors, the robot is actually taking a back seat to recruitment until we gain enough students to guarantee survival of the program.

Hope that helps!

Originally Posted by Bill Moore (Post 638833)

First off, DON'T underestimate your skills. No one expects teams to have a professional student programmer or machinist. Corry has produced some excellent robots during the past few years, and though your team is currently smaller, you have watched and experienced all that has gone into making those great bots. You and your teammates have more experience than you seem willing to accept credit.

As a school based team, the obvious first choice to build the team-base is within your own school. However, if you are not able to get to your "critical mass" of students, see if the administration will allow students outside your system to participate (private schools or home-schooled students).

One year at VCU, we met a home-schooled team who each built a robot component independent of each other. It was only immediately before shipping that all parts were brought together for the first time and assembled for competition. An interesting communications concept to deal with the large distances that separated the students, and a significantly more difficult challenge than most of our teams face.

Second, spend as much time as possible during the fall to improve your own skills and train new students. If possible, attend off-season events, even if you are not competing, to familiarize your new students to the FIRST culture. Walk around the pits, and have them discuss with teams about how their robot is built/programmed. Get SPECIFIC! Why did they use a dual lift instead of a ramp? How did they build their combo Ramp-Lift? Etc. Off-season events aren't just for gameplay, they should also be a training session for new students and rookie teams.

Finally, if you find that you do need assistance with skills, reach out to the FRC community. One of your neighbors, whom you have traveled with over the past few years, Team 291 CIA, is listed as "Willing to Mentor" on the FIRST website. Mentoring Teams are not only looking to help rookies, but also to help any established teams that need assistance. There are many programming questions that will end up here on CD, and often there are a number of suggestions/ideas to solve the problem. Your team's resources extend far beyond your school, make effective use of them.

CRT has been one of the fun teams to watch at the Philadelphia Regional the past few years, and I expect they will be again in 2008!

Originally Posted by dtengineering (Post 638890)

Pretty normal situation, actually. In our rookie year EVERYONE was in grade 12, so we were 100% rookies again the second year. This year we have just five or six people returning from last year's team.

I also infer that you actually have more than 5 people on your team, but that you aren't counting some of them because you have not deemed them "competent".

Originally Posted by andyhoyt911 (Post 638927)

Err...I didn't mean to seem like a jerk when I used the word competent. It wasn't the right word...the right thing would be "dedicated on a regular basis"

-Andy

Originally Posted by Bill Moore (Post 638833)

First off, DON'T underestimate your skills. No one expects teams to have a professional student programmer or machinist. Corry has produced some excellent robots during the past few years, and though your team is currently smaller, you have watched and experienced all that has gone into making those great bots. You and your teammates have more experience than you seem willing to accept credit.

As a school based team, the obvious first choice to build the team-base is within your own school. However, if you are not able to get to your "critical mass" of students, see if the administration will allow students outside your system to participate (private schools or home-schooled students).

One year at VCU, we met a home-schooled team who each built a robot component independent of each other. It was only immediately before shipping that all parts were brought together for the first time and assembled for competition. An interesting communications concept to deal with the large distances that separated the students, and a significantly more difficult challenge than most of our teams face.

Second, spend as much time as possible during the fall to improve your own skills and train new students. If possible, attend off-season events, even if you are not competing, to familiarize your new students to the FIRST culture. Walk around the pits, and have them discuss with teams about how their robot is built/programmed. Get SPECIFIC! Why did they use a dual lift instead of a ramp? How did they build their combo Ramp-Lift? Etc. Off-season events aren't just for gameplay, they should also be a training session for new students and rookie teams.

Finally, if you find that you do need assistance with skills, reach out to the FRC community. One of your neighbors, whom you have traveled with over the past few years, Team 291 CIA, is listed as "Willing to Mentor" on the FIRST website. Mentoring Teams are not only looking to help rookies, but also to help any established teams that need assistance. There are many programming questions that will end up here on CD, and often there are a number of suggestions/ideas to solve the problem. Your team's resources extend far beyond your school, make effective use of them.

CRT has been one of the fun teams to watch at the Philadelphia Regional the past few years, and I expect they will be again in 2008!

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain (Post 638842)

Along with what everyone said, you still have a lot of time. I hope the 5 of you can trust each other. Come up with a plan to recruit more people and decide on what you want to do this year. As Billfred said, if you don't have the man-power, don't submit WFA, Chairmans etc. However, if you have a reason to really really submit WFA, I'd say look around for someone who likes to write and wants to be a part of a team. I have found that simply putting posters all over the place is not always helpful. However, if you could spread the word of what kind of people you are looking for, and what is in for them, then you have a higher chance of recruiting people. Go on the USFIRST site and print out the different scholarships available. Make sure the college names and scholarship amount is visible. This surely will catch the interest of academically inclined students. If you end up with only a team with 10 also, and you all somewhat know how to perform each job, just do your best. You're in robotics, you are smart enough to figure out how to build, wire and program a robot. Just use common sense and you'll be fine. Good luck.