Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

What exactly would you call "robotics type" people? I've never understood this from other teams.

The more you treat this or think of it as something not everyone can do or enjoy, the harder it will be for you to get more people involved.

Our school has very strong support for the team. The students in our school are very supportive as well and are always interested in regional and other competition results and ask how everything is going. We have a diverse mix of kids. All of the subteam captains for 2011 are varsity athletes (hockey, football, track, and soccer). Maybe we're just lucky enough to have a student body that doesn't care much for difference between "cliques" and everyone gets along with everyone. Where the popular kids respect the "nerds" and join them on the robotics team. Hell, half the time the jocks and popular kids are the most intelligent ones too.

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Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

what is a "robotics" type person? I try to find people who are willing to spend time to try and see where that gets me. Though that involves telling people "you don't need any experience or expertise" quite a bit when you talk to fellow classmates.

I will try wearing my team shirt again May 17, 2010 and see where that gets me. (Team does a presentation for school Board yearly so I could say I don't want to change clothes or something for it.) I must talk to people! :ahh:

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We have gotten more involved in the Marist FLL team. A large handful of our current crop of freshman and sophomores came from the Yellow Jackets, and have a passion for mentoring them. Hopefully we can keep this going and grow the program some more.

We also invite them to our FLL Summer camp.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Well after confirming that Team 85 is recognized as a club I am going to attempt a push for us to be recognized as a team. I do not know of any benefits of being recognized as a team besides the fact that we are indeed classified as an actual team.

Does anyone mind giving me advice on pursuing this? I never have done any activity relating to petitions before so I am going to learn along the way.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

What do you mean slow down your team? The poin of your robotics team isn't to build efficient and successful robots, it's to get these people involved. I you turn a kid away from inspiration because it'll take time from the team, I think you're missing the point a little. I don't mean to say welcome all the slackers everywhere and let them get away with doing nothing, but if you don't extend the olive branch you're not doing much to inspire people to pursue STEM.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I don't think there is one. :P

I mean, if we look at the scope of presidents in the past years for my team. It's included all from someone who loves playing music with his band to someone who loves playing the wii and ultimate frisbee in the park.

There is a "robotics" type person in all of us. The key is to introduce that person into an environment where this "inner robotics person" is unlocked.

- Sunny

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

i know ive already epressed the lack of support of robotics at my schools but after yearbooks were distributed the other day all i have to say is wow...my school's auto club (which i didnt even know we had until just the other day) received more attention than robotics. Robotics and Auto had to share a page in the yearbook, the auto club got about 75% of it...because of this i definitely support and enforce the previous claim that deans homework next year will to get FIRST to become more recognized in schools

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Wow not even one entire page to the robotics team? I regretted that in the page in my school's yearbook it didn't include the team picture. The page had a picture of our robot in competition, the playing field for breakaway, and a random picture of a mentor & student.

It seems entirely plausible that very well could be Dean's Homework. I feel a little pain every time I sit through announcements that spends an entire minute for talking about last night's soccer game yet only 3 seconds for the robotics team getting our first Chairman's Award.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

at least your team gets mentioned on your school anouncements, my team doesnt even get mentioned at all, and we have people from robotics that work on my schools anouncements

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

:yikes: Could you try and convince the school's staff to listen to a presentation of the importance of this team? I don't know how much that would change minds but them not being told anything about robotics won't do anything. Though it is easier said than done.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

About half the kids from our (Janelle and I) school know we have a team. Of that, 75% don't know our name or number. The administration is pretty supportive at both schools. At the school that hosts the pep-rally, the teachers and administration are interested and supportive. At the technical school, the administration is very supportive (they have said they wanted to help as much as possible), and we have 50/50 teacher support.

Students at both school are under the misnomer that robotics is for "geeky" kids, which is one our biggest recruiting problems. Both of the schools are big schools though, over a thousand students each... its hard to get everyone to understand the procedure for a pep-rally, none the less that we have a robotics team.

Chris, I think they mean that they don't want a student that is forced on the team (by friends or whatever) that doesn't want to be there. That means they don't care about the team/robot. This means they are unmotivated. Students need some internal motivation to be helpful.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Let me start this off by saying the average size of a graduating class when I joined FIRST was 30 students at my high school. We had great support from both the school and community. We had around 20 students on the team, which was quite a feat. We had a huger percentage of involvement and this was based on 3 things: motivation, scope, and social.

Ironically the reason out team succeeded in spreading FIRST was because we didn't have a robotics club. FIRST became a whole different beast, and the robot honestly only brought 5 or so members to the team. So what did it for us:

Motivation- at the end of the year we got to take a trip to Houston with all of our closest friends

Scope- FIRST was not robotics (at least not in our high school), it was almost entirely business.

Social- Friends and couples made up our entire team.

Now this story even though I may sound optimistic is actually a tragedy. Because of the mixture of motivation and social, certain things occurred that were inappropriate and immature. The consequences of these actions killed our team. It killed the team because first the motivation when away, no more long distance trips. This killed the scope, as the we didn't need a business side (school sponsored one event). Which went on to kill the social side, even our closest friends weren't attracted to the program.

I believe that the teams that are able to integrate these three factors in their teams and are able to avoid the gfbf pitfall we ran into, have much better support from their schools and communities.

...another chapter in my business sells FIRST better series :)

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Exactlly what I was trying to say

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

It took 7 years but success at last.

Team news is covered in faculty meetings and also covered on the student run school news channel. Teachers support the team and wish them well in their endeavors.

Our front hallway prominently displays the FIRST banners we have won. The team will be recognized (for the 2nd time) by the district board of education in a recognition ceremony. Our district is the 2nd largest district in the state.

There were two or more mentions of robotics at the graduation baccaluarate ceremony and several mentions at the graduation. We also have cords and letters.

Our current roster at the beginning of the summer after dropping graduating seniors and adding new recruits is already at 51 students, 54% female.

There will always be student in the school, any school, every school that don't know or care we exist. It's a teenage thing.

But for the most part I'm very pleased with our team and school progress.

Now for the hard part. Making our gains consistent and sustainable.

Ed

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Very few people actually know about the team. The day before the competition we all got to wear our shirts, and most people were asking the 20 kids what the shirt was for. We get one classroom and part of a hall, plus a closet (about 20 square feet) to work on the robot. Most people in my school have no clue that there is a pretty successful team there, or even that three working robots reside in school and three more from my team reside at Boeing (in St. Louis).