Am I the only person with this job?
 

I got to wondering the other day about something. It seems like most team have your standards duties for team members: drive team, animations, etc...my job on my team can be simply put as whatever no one else wants to do. Mainly, I do my team's newsletter. Do other teams even have newsletter and, if so, who writes and creates them? I just wonder if maybe I'm the only student with this job. If any other student does work on their team's newletter, let me know. I often have no clue as to what to include in it. Thanks!
~Angela who got chosen to do the newsletter b/c she got a higher grade than Ben in her one semester of journalism this past year

Our team does not have a newsletter. We do, however, have individuals with unusual team tasks. For example, as far as I know, I'm the only guy in the entire FIRST program whose job it is to show up at every meeting and stand around cracking wise until one or more of my team mates feels compelled to injure me with any of various shop tools.

Everyone has a good job on the team.
 

Like Karl said, our team doesn't have a newsletter. It really depends on how large your team is to have a newsletter. Most of our people show up consistently and we know whats going on. If not, we just fill them in when they come back. If they are gone for a long time, thats just tough for them, they catch up on their own. Karl, you make funny wisecrack jokes that bring humor into the program. If it weren't for that, we probably would have had horrible moods all the time. Everyone who shows up has a part in all teams. There is a lot to do. Just one's presence can make a difference. If you don't, find something to do, that goes for every team. Please don't be on the team just for the trip. That was one of the reasons I joined, then I got hooked to it and love FIRST, thank God I have two more years of it. Thats why I stay on ChiefDelphi all the time, I have no life. Is anyone else that way?

Odd Job
 

Our team has an email newsletter, it's written by one of our advisors. It comes out basically every week summarizing what is going on. We have emergency editions such as-
"ALL HEAR THIS: at 2AM the robot was handed to the drivers for testing...that is all"

Another weird job on our team is that of the HSG.
Head-Senior-Guy... this is just an honorific (unofficial) title given to a High School Senior on the team... Usually someone who just eats/sleeps/breathes FIRST... You get the weirdest look when you put that on a resume...

~John V #250

Our newsletter isn't really for our members..more for PR purposes in the community. I guess it is needed to show our sponsors that we really are up to something all of those weeks spent in a building of power tools, computers, and crazy engineers and students. Any announcements for team members are done via email and those who don't have email just kinda find out from their friends at their school (our team has students from both of our high schools in Martin County).

Re: Everyone has a good job on the team.
 

All I have to say is ---

Life == FIRST

~ lora ;)
FIRST-a-holic for life...and prolly after death too :p

Re: Everyone has a good job on the team.
 

My morning goes like this: check my email, check Chief Delphi, check the hits on our team's website, then look for updates on the FIRST site. I have a bock of student assistant with our main teacher sponsor and all we talk about is cows and robotics. My friends outside of robotics get angry cause all I do talk about robotics. I think that the true FIRST-a-holics, like me, have NO LIFE!! And I'm proud of it.:D

what a coincidence! i have that same job...me and my cronies all do that: me, mike corliss, jeff wong, joe cronin, andrew kostka.

its funny: cuz of that people dont take us seriously...like when our group of friends came up with the concept and design of rambot 2001, the wedge and stuff people were just like no thats a bad idea bla bla bla

yeah me either...im on cd wayyyyy too much...
chiefdelphi is my life too pretty much

No one on my team has your job at the moment. However, now that you mentioned the idea of the newsletter SOMEONE will next year. ;) Any volunteers? ;) Actually, I'm thinking that could be a good job for the high school student leader of the team (who we need to pick at some point in the near future...). Thanks for the idea Angela.

Matt who's team is going to hate him after he comes up with all these new ideas for stuff to do....

Not unusual...
 

Littlefish and other posters-

I don't consider having all the unusual tasks such a terrible thing. I have always felt like the band-aid- or what Norm on my team calls me- the "X-Factor". I just kinda jump up and do whatever anyone needs help with. Even when I was captain in 2000 I was putting tape on the rumble sticks, showing other teams our animation and finding misc. parts from other teams. Sometimes being the band aid can be a team's lifesaver. And oh yeah, I tried doing a newsletter after 2000 and then I just gave it up...there was just too much else to do :)

x-factor
 

We have a team full of those!!!

most of them are the most unassuming people in the great and then they have therese awesome falshes of brilliance and stun the living bejesus out of the team and we look a t them for the rest of the comp- day ect with new respect and awe


i however am still wainting for that moment


dahl

We had a newsletter like what you describe in '98. We distributed it to all the team members as well as to important people at the school and our sponsors. Each week we had a seperate student write it. This required that everyone know what was going on for at least one week ;)

We haven't done it since then, but I don't know why.

We have a newsletter for PR purposes and it is written and published by our Chairman's Award group.

They put in FIRST's mission, then it gives the community an update as to what is going on during the Six Weeks of Hell. Thats our newsletter (well...the last one I've actually read :p).

Newsletter...
 

Hm.... newsletter... good idea. Too bad we were so increadibly unorganized this year, we barely even had a contact list for the team throughout the year. This is the first year the team has been at Bellarmine and we only had 2 students who had been on a team before, it was just nuts. Anyway, a newsletter sounds like a great idea, not only to inform team members about important dates but also to advertise our team in our area and school. We haven't really had a chance to do much of that.

All jobs in a FIRST team are important.
 

I think every position is important in a FIRST team, so don't say writing a newsletter isn't a "standard duty" for you team. There are all kind of position in a team: from the people who work on the robot such as the different components team, to the electronics team, to the animation team, to the chairman team, to the organization and public relation team... etc.

There are all kind of people who have important duties. Even if they are only cleaning up the shop by picking up nuts and bolts or only designing signs and banners for the team, or photographers who take pictures of the team, and even news letter writers such as yourself have something important to contribute to the tea.

So don't think your job isn't a standard duty in the team. You are as much of a FIRST person as your team leader or drive train leader are. FIRST doesn't just help the growth of engineers, but also help raise the general quality of all kind of people who participate in it. I know people who will never become an engineer, but they benefited from the FIRST competition a whole lot.

Now back to your question about the newsletter. You can always include daily progress of the robot of you team, and add some general reminder of the schedule your team leader decided. Talk about what's going on in the FIRST community as well, things like team updates, and topics that came up in the forum. Finally, include stuff going on in other teams, and include outside resources such as other team's database and scouting system, and report what happens in the regional competitions.

Those are only some of the ideas I have...

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

as my signature indicatates, i handle communications on my team. one thing i was looking at for next year was a newsletter. it's not such an unusual idea, i know the Thunderchickens have a newsletter, which they distributed each day in atlanta.

i don't think that you should consider yourself an oddjob on the team. you have a job, and when you are available you are given the extra little things that come up. that is how things go on my team, and it works pretty well. i do random jobs and scouting at competitions because my job is like yours, done away from the competition itself. so don't get down about your job, make the most of it! the newsletter is what you choose for it to be, use your power to make your job fun!

PS: I'm a journalist, JOURNALISM ROCKS!!! :D

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Team 188 has a newsletter that we send out to sponsers or potential sponsers. Lots of logos and info on team. If your team doesn't have one they should. Just think how much easier it will be next year when you approach a sponser and ask for money. They have been kept informed and they see their logo going around to other sponsers. Is this job important? You bet!!!! Never look at any job as if it were not important. Even the relished task of sorting screws, nuts and bolts is important. You can even learn from those jobs.

Someone find me a 8 - 32 x 1 1/4 bolt please. :rolleyes:

Re: Everyone has a good job on the team.
 

Hahahaha. I went to the dining hall for breakfast this morning (An unusual occurance, I'm normaly in bed) and ran up to one of my friends and said "I got a story, It's really cool, wanna hear it?" Her Reply "If it has to do with robots, no." Oddly enough, for the first time in about a year, it didn't have to do with robots (it had to do with mushroom clouds and chevy blazers :yikes: ).

We don't really have a newsletter, because (at least on my rookie team) there's only 10 of us. We do have some other interesting jobs though..
>>Power Cord Hoarder - Makes sure that the power cords for the computer speakersare well hidden because otherwise our productivity drops about 300% because all they do is argue about what kind of music to listen too)
>>Ant Killer - Self Explanitory (there's a nest of them in the wall and the school doesn't seem to mind, but I find it annoying)

And on 226 ---
>>Filing - I was always in charge of filing (like getting rid of sharp corners filing, not paper filing). I cam out of every other meeting looking like I had been painted with three coats of silver spray paint

A newsletter would be a really good idea for 226. It would give another of those 60+ students on the team something interesting to do.

Allison

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Replace "shop tools" with "hand tools" and you've got what I do when I'm not programming. I'm surprised that no one on the Electronics team has killed me yet. :D

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

I know ChellyZee93 did a lot of 93's newsletter - talk to her, she's good at that stuff. :)

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Well, our team is working on creating a newsletter for next year, right now we have email blasts from our mentors. On the team, my job is essentially anything that does not directly relate to the robot :p ie. Web design, graphic design, video, etc etc.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

As Captain... I do or lead in the doing of the "dirty work" fundraising, sponsor relations, some communications, promo items, banner making, etc...

We used to have a newsletter, but that was discontinued after we moved to a two part website. a public and a private. The private is for team members, mentors. families, and sponsors. We have all news and a calendar there.

It has made information much easier to get out.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

We have a newsletter on our team. It is sent to the families of team members (we don't get to see them a lot, so this way we can keep them in the loop), sponsors, and our school. One person on the team does most of the newsletter, but if individual students want to submit articles, they are welcome. We try to have our newsletter come out regularly, about once a month, but, as i'm sure you all know, this is frequently impossible.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

A senior on my team sent out an e-mail newsletter this year and it was great. He talked about the teams progress, what would happen at the next meeting, and made sure everyone knew about all the logistics of trips. I really appreciated the newsletter because it really helped to organize the team. They may not tell you but i'm sure your team appreciates your work so don't feel like your jobs not important.

Ben Van Selous

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Wow, this goes back to 2001!.
I do monthly targeted email newsletters. Communication is a big challenge and these help. One gets sent to the school system people (principal, head of Tech Ed, school board, etc), one to parents, one to the team, one to sponsors. Sometimes they are all the same, sometimes vary. They are short, bullet format, easy to read, clearly labeled in subject line. They can also be printed out. We get positive feedback from these. I learned the hard way not to include all audiences in the same email, as there are many who don’t understand basic email manners, such as you don’t hit “reply all” to complain about something petty and send to the superintendent!

During the build, a student does engineering updates every other day, sent to the engineering mentors.

For example, the May newsletter will list the seniors and their plans for next year and any FIRST/technology/scholarship awards they received (the school system is VERY interested in this), the new officers, fundraising update, summer plans, and info about our visit to Lockheed Martin, a sponsor.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

One of the complaints we've had in previous years is that there was little communication on the team. This year I became the self-appointed "communicator" for the team. I take the minutes from each meeting and e-mail them to the student members and all adults (including parents) who wish to receive them. I forward the FIRST e-mail blasts. I send out the agendas for upcoming meetings. I send out anything else of interest to the team.

In addition, I send info on a regular basis to our sponsors, school administrators and local politicians.

I create a newsletter (tried to do it monthly) and e-mail it to our parents, sponsors and school administrators and also post it online because some of them have e-mail accounts that cannot read HTML e-mails. You can look at an issue here.

I have informed the team that I am gladly giving up this role next year and that it's an opportunity for one of them to step up and take (as I feel it should be done by students who have a different viewpoint than mine). So far, no takers...

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Me too!!! But I'm not holding my breath :)

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

our team is small, so we don't have a newsletter. actually, like the entire school doesn't even know we exist or that we were building a robot. anyway, i do everything. i mean everything i can... so just keep bugging ur teacher about ur skills n maybe u can do other stuff...or u can just hang out n touch shiny stuff. hehe! :D

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

For those teams that have the haphazard system of sending out emails to their team members and all, perhaps you should consider getting a forum? If you go to http://proboards.com you can register a forum - already setup, hosted, everything - for free. It takes liek 30 seconds.

Our team has a forum of sorts and it works wonders. We do a lot of communicating on it since not all the team members come out to meetings (and some of us are alumni working :P ) We try to make participation in it mandatory, but it doesn't always work. :P

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

If our team had a newsletter, it would be used primarily as kindling or casually discarded with the rest of the preachy trash that people recieve today in the mail.

We do however, have an email announcement system that notifies members of important events and news concerning meeting and such.

As for interesting jobs, we have most of the normal administrative positions. When it comes to component and system teams, it all starts in some sort of ideal structure, but this has a half life of about 24 hours and slowly the team turns into about 13 dedicated students working on whatever part they have the ability to help with.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Don't worry, you aren't alone. I do the newsletter for the team too. Now one of the mentors wants to put it on the website, (grand more work for me) Generally we include what each sub-team is doing (electrical, programming, animation, machining, ect.) and maybe a current event that has to do with NASA or robotics. other than that we have a little spot near the bottom that has all the parent info like meetings, due dates and stuff like that. Good luck on you newsletter!

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Our team doesn't have its own newsletter. We get most of our information from each of our team meetings which are every day after school and from 9:30AM - 3:00PM on Saturdays. As for a person who does whatever others dont want to do, we have one of those...at least, he says he WILL do anything... :)

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

We don't have a newsletter, persay, but last year we had running info emails.

This year we're trying something new, where we have full team meetings every weds and try to colaborate between building, electric, programming ETC so everyone's on the same track. It's like a verbal newsletter.

Also, hopefully, we'll do a newsletter type deal at Reginals/Nat's to inform other teams about what we do, statistics, etc because last we came in 23 at Regionals, and we were about 16 in our division at Nat's and didn't get selected as an alliance partner... I guess we need to make a name for ourselves!

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Our team has a newsletter called, "The Wo-Bot Wire." That we're supposed to get every other day but we get it more like every other week. The ones who do the newsletter goof off more than work and they enjoy bugging the build team at the more crucial moments.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

whoo... a newsletter would be nice. we get e-mails sent out by our coach, thats about the closest thing. last year i'm not sure what i was... i worked on Chairmans Award and helped out with the robot and took some pictures and made our trading cards and helped out with spirit.. i even wired the prototype! so i kinda got a taste for everything, and i didnt really have a set "job"... although i wouldnt mind doing a newsletter, thats kind of cool. i've already got too much on my plate this year though... ^^; chairmans almost killed me last year. try not to do everything at once. at least thats kind of an easy job, you know whats going on with the team at all times, and you write to tell other people about it. :) hurray for spreading the word of FIRST

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Our team used to have an email newsletter written by the coach. Now that the season is in full swing and we meet alomst daily, writting one everyday would be pointless, so we used random news postings and updates on our websites MB and main page ( http://www.bedfordexpress.com ).

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Cybersonics Technology Team 103 has been producing a newsletter, called Tech Talk, since 2000. Typically, members in the communications/pr/marketing department produce the newsletter. I have been the editor for the past two years, though I am now training a few of our new kids to do this task. The articles are written by numerous individuals in all of our departments, though primarily communications/pr/marketing kids write them. If you want to check out our newsletter, you can find them on our website: Tech Talk

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

MOE 365 made team and sponsor newletters last year we are probly going to do some more this year also.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

this is a really old thread. it has been revived several times. does anybody realize that the person who started this has now graduated and is not on a team anymore? besides, there is a category for that stuff now: communications. that was added last year. (actually, i was the one who asked brandon to add that :D )

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Our team writes a weekly update for our county's newspaper. That is close to a newsletter.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Actually, there's one guy on the team that everyone hates. So we make him be everyone's slave. It's not too graciously professional, but everyone hates him, and we 'can't' kick him out. But he comes in handy sometime when you ask for a tool, chances are he's playing around with it. Actually, that's one of the reasons why everyone hates him is because he's ennoying and plays with the tools when we need them. Sometimes, our teacher yells at us how we should treat people with respect, but it's funny telling him to go find a tool that we have and he spends like an hour trying to find it.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Not everyone will "like" everyone else on a team. But a team is just a mirror of what you'll find in any work place. You'll have to learn how to work with people of all types, including ones you 'hate". Maybe if someone asked him what he's interested in, he could be given meaningful work to do so he isn't always sitting around playing with the tools you need. Find out the reason he joined the team. He may have talents that you are overlooking (everyone has some area they excel at) - maybe he can be your Public Relations guy, or the Spirit person. Or the Team Safety Captain. Maybe he's figured out a different way to look at the game, strategically. Maybe he's just got one of those personalities that rubs people the wrong way, but like it or not he's still part of your team. It's time to make him feel a part of it.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Well, I don't think our team writes newsletter(s), but we do make newspapers every year. On the other hand, though, it is a subteam. This subteam has a scale of 5-10 people in it that helps write about a certain topic for the newspaper. I'm not quite sure, but I do believe that it is somewhat similar to having to write a newsletter. It is pretty fun since you get to jump into your own team's history in detail!!

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

our team has a newsletter, and i'm the editor. three times a year i bother people until they agree to write an article, and even -then- i only get three people, who write one article each and leave me to write at least three myself. then i put everything together, and edit it, and add pictures, and print copies, and fold/label/mail each newsletter. hahahaha i love my life. :rolleyes:

our newsletter is basically for public relations, but it does go out to parents so they can see what kind of community activities we attend. of course, we do have an email system for the team, so we all know about the next meeting/build session and how robot progress is going. we also have a daily log on our website that outlines what went on during any given day, in case someone missed a session.

that's not my only job though, so it's a bit different from your situation. i maintain the team website and the daily log, memorize the manual so people can come to me with questions about the rules :confused:, and make graphics/textures for our animation. robotics is -definitely- life! :D

our newsletter articles are on our website - go to http://shsrobotics.org, enter the site, and click news. ;)

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

No, we do not have a Team Newsletter. We do have an email that we send out - with our accomplishments.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

I suppose if I said I had a job it would end up being the guy with all the best ideas that everyone ignore. :mad: :mad: I think they need a steam from the ears smily or maby call it a steamy.

Re: Everyone has a good job on the team.
 

I totally agree with you there! lol. It's so true! Or as my friend and I say, robotics owns my life :) haha

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

I had a similar job this year. I worked on our Rookie All-Star entry, but I was also the communications person, so I kept our manual binder up-to-date.

We're going to start a newsletter next year for the Tech & Engineering Club (the umbrella club) which will probably be quarterly, and will be for parents, interested teachers and students in the school, administrators, and I suppose donors. We have a lot more people in the club than just the robotics team, and the club does a lot of other activities too, so it would probably be broader. I would expect that our PR person would oversee it, but we'd also choose a separate newsletter person and committee to write it and do layout.

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

No, you would not be the only guy in the program that dose that! I think every team has their own fool. But im usualy the one that feels compelled to injure them with my mouse and keyboard.... lol.. And well for the news letter we dont have one, but i would say to include upcomming events, meeting times, and maybe history about the team and its members... Good Luck!

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

Chief Delphi does an entire newspaper every year. It is usually 5 to 6 pages long, and contains articles from our students about what thier role to the team is or what thier sub team is responsible for during the build season. Our engineers and Coaches also write selections for the paper. Articles also come from the F.I.R.S.T. VIP's Dave, Woodie, and Dean. This is completely a student made and written newspaper. It is also a sub team called Communications/Publications and that is thier main project to tackle during the season. This would be a good thing for any team to start, I think that it would be interesting to hear about what other teams are doing during the year. :)

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

We have one that comes out once a year or so...We do a lot of community fundraising and we send one to each of our sponsers.

But the mother who got it together daughter is graduating, and she is focusing more on Lego robotics at her school. So I would love to start one...say once a robotics season (build, off, competition, pre)

I also would like our local newspaper to have a technology column every week. (And well environmental too, the natural world is my passion, be where else can I get hands on experience with hand tools?...I certainly don't have a jig saw:))

Newsletters are important for building up your extended community. There are many people who want to know what kids are doing these days but don't know how to ask or where to find out. A newsletter scattered around the school is a great start.

Do any teams have technology nights/forums to discuss and showcase their work that is open to the public and well advirtised? I think it's a great idea but advertising can be difficult.

Best of luck writing and spreading the word to all teams,


BTW How is everyone doing with Dean's challenge?

Re: Am I the only person with this job?
 

newsletters fell under the responsibility of the website team on my old team, however they were always given other stuff to do, which is why the website and newsletters were never done (except in 2005, it seemed everything went as planned, but that was the only time)..

Also our team did an hours system.. Where you had to do so many hours to go to be on the drive team (they figured if you're not there then you don't know enough about the robot to be on the drive team), and you had to do so many hours to go to the event on thursday, so many hours to go on friday, etc..

We'd always have like 3-4 students just hanging around with nothing to do everynight trying to accumlate hours... So like they always got stuck on the jobs nobody wanted to do since they really weren't part of any subteam.. One night they might be organizeing tools for us, another night they might be machining parts with loose tolerances so somebody like me could dedicate time to other stuff, maybe they'd go work on an old robot to get something working and do troubleshooting etc..

Those people ALWAYS turned out to be critical since without them important stuff wouldn't get done.. They maynot have worked on any particular critical part of the robot, but without their work the little stuff would never get done and we would have had lots of problems come ship date..