Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

The parents on our team think otherwise.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

I too have worked with kids with autism and similar disorders and I agree with Adam. It is sometimes insulting to let things slide and I definitely would disagree with a parent who thinks otherwise.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

To be completely honest, I haven't seen an issue with this for the team I used to be on. 309 did FTC (and this may vary because it's FTC and not FRC) but we had about 20 people on the team. of those twenty, about 10 regularly attended meetings and those intent on staying put in the effort after school and the long night sessions we often did when last minute parts came in.

Several times, our team won the spirit award, especially the competetion where one of our cheerleaders found a sharpie and a stack of sticky notes in her purse. So saying you have to put in a lot of work to get the spirit award doesn't seem like a logical excuse to me, you need to cut members.

Now I won't lie, it was nice when those who didn't touch the robot where around, just socializing. Sure it was distracting, but during the long nights when working on a rig went from a 1 to 6 hour job due to finding some new innovation, it was nice to take a break, and roll out with the team to the nearest dunkin' donuts for coffee and a donut. Now, those who were interested in art made up our engineering log, and we had one kid who was good with CAD. Again, these didn't compose more then 10% of our team.

We didn't have to enforce an "hours to travel rule" but it was generally understood that if you didn't pull your share of the work, you weren't welcome to come. However that being said, we did make rare exceptions to those who had real life committments come up first (like my brother and his mandatory (aka show up or you don't get credit) AP afterschool classes, who despite that would text me ideas based on feedback I gave him about 300 feet away in a classroom), and for those who came to the afterschool sessions but couldn't stay late. they were welcome too. Again, it was also nice having extra people incase we had issues (a programmer lost his USB drive and had his car break down- thank god the other programmer was there with a copy of the program) and during the competetions, some people did double duty of pits/coding or PR/scout/ you get my drift.

But 50 people on a team for spirit? I like the idea of incorporating an application. Just watch that sometimes these people join up as a clique- you lose one or deny one, you lose 5-7 others- which according to you might not be so bad after all.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

This is one of the most reasonable ones most of all. I wish our team had that tone, that building is the priority, but we don't know how to set that tone. And when we try, it backfires on us socially

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

They can always sue you for anything; suing and winning is the tricky part. Besides, although it's not quite clear-cut, the odds are very good you can't personally be held liable, even if you did personally discriminate on the basis of a medical condition. Employment law doesn't apply because you're not an employer, you're not an agent of the state so you have no constitutional duty not to discriminate, and you're presumably a minor. (Your teachers and school administrators, on the other hand, have more limited protections—but I do know that in California, some state agents are shielded from personal liability in the course of their work.)

So I think a reasonable policy, equitably applied, would be at virtually no risk of exposing you to liability, even if it was necessary to treat the autistic students somewhat differently. (There might be grounds for striking it down, if it was official school policy.)

Unfortunately, whether the team breaks up or not is an administrative decision at some level. That's certainly something to be concerned about, if you believe that those in positions of power would not side with you.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

I've been thinking about this problem for a while. I have a couple of suggestions you might try. First set some ground rules but more importantly enforce those rules. Secondly comes from a judge at the last regional I went to. Find ways to communicate with them. It's hard and takes a LOT of patience but once you figure out how; it will work wonders for you and your team. One thing that's help me a lot has been complementing the people who are doing good work regardless of what that work. One student did an excellent job with painting the numbers on our bumpers, it wasn't mission critical but by mentioning how good of a job he did, it got him more interested in the rest of the robot and overall he ended up making a make larger and better quality contribution to the team than he otherwise would have.
Another method is to intentionally split up the cliques that form. Ask a few students to come help you with something, like replace a wheel, and while your doing it start teaching them how to fix the chain, or properly space a wheel and whatever else you needed "help" with. Rotate who your asking and as you fix or make other parts you'll come to know how to place the team members effectively so you get a great robot and a happy leadership, and well satisfied team as a whole.

Hope my $.02 helps

-Joseph

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

I'd give my left kidney for a 50-man team with that much enthusiasm and drive.

10 students for build? You could build a championship robot any day of the week with that.

You're blessed. FIRST is not just about Robots, you have 2 Very Important People telling you that every year at Kickoff. Maybe you should listen.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

Doing the right thing always comes with a consequence. You simply can't expect to get something for nothing. Whenever faced with this type of dilemma, decide whether or not the goal is worth the consequence. I can't really say if your social life is worth it. For me, it would have been. I often made unpopular calls when I was a student on the team. Honestly though, I never really had a social life to begin with.

I know what your trying to say, it just doesn't seem to fit. Yes, there are other parts of a team then just the robot. There is funding, planning, scouting, off-season projects, spirit, award submissions, and many other things. That does not mean that there should be people on the team that just do any 1 of these things. Is it unreasonable to expect team members that are already in the stands to take scouting data? Not everyone on the team has to build the robot but they certainly should contribute more then a set of lungs in the stands. I definitely agree that 10 students is enough to build an amazing robot. Those same 10 students also managing to get funding for 50 students to go to a regional as well as all the planning involved is another matter.

Jason

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

It's not me I'm worried about, I'm safe. It's the team I'm worried for. Some of these people are nice, intelligent students, who benefit our team greatly. It's just that there are a few that don't do anything, and make us look like a bad team. Even worse, they invite their friends over, who don't want to do robotics, and end up using our computers to play minecraft the whole day. This has meant a major loss of productivity over this past year, and it made our already small building room seem more crowded.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

About that? I agree its good to have a team with a lot of people and with drive, but when their drive is on one particular aspect and they ignore ALL the rest and don't even want to try to give it a chance, it's a problem.

I like doing the work myself, and I'm not worried about next year when I'm a senior, I'm worried about all of the rest when they're will be no builders left. I just wish you read my post clearly before you came off with a snoody comment

p.s- When I see my scouting sheets wrong, blank, full of incoherent words, or swamped with zeros, ill be thinking of you and say "At least they have the drive to hold up pretty pictures and dance around in costumes"

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

See bold words above. I'd love to have 50 people working with a drive to work, but only to do their separate jobs on the team. If everyone wanted to do the same thing, then I wouldn't care if I had 5 people or 1,000 people on my team.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

I wish our team had the team spirit you describe. At our competitions the scouting forms are perfect, almost everyone in the stands with more than 1 year of dedicated work goes in the pits for a bit. But our team doesn't feel as much like a Team so much as a couple different groups of people sort of working together.

While you are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I don't think that is too big of an issue. I would design a prototyping project that is also VERY spirit orientated, in an attempt to overlap the two main areas of your team and do both well. An example of this would be when teams incorporate designs into their sheet metal lighting patterns.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

Some of the points you bring up here about the difficulties of working with team members with autism is directly related to the autism itself. People with autism have an extremely difficult time understanding gracious professionalism - because gracious professionalism is all about the situation and how you respond to a certain situation. What is gracious professionalism in one situation is different in another situation because of other factors that are present but invisible.

Those who are socially aware can implement a flexible response. Those who are not socially aware due to autism don't even know a response is required, so where the socially aware person is expecting a reciprocal response, the person with autism is unaware a response is expected. Some of us neurotypical types think of this a rudeness.

Those with autism can also experience trouble with staying on task, due to a low tolerance for frustration or a higher than normal level of distractibility.

However, these members do bring a benefit to your team in their intelligence and willingness to help you. It sounds like you need help - so ask the school social worker or a special ed teacher to help you help the persons with autism. They can give you specific ways to "call out" the behaviors that can help the person with autism interact with you, judges, alliance partners in a different way and increase their social awareness.

Autism is a disability when viewed through the lens of the neurotypical - but is also one of the most interesting and fascinating forays into how the human brain works.

Feel free to PM me with specific questions about working with people on the autism spectrum -

Julia - Mom to one of the coolest kids with autism.

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

It's interesting how the same person with autism can behave like you described with some tasks (usually ones they wish to not do), but have some of the most intense and dedicated focus on other tasks (usually the ones that interest them).

Re: Building just isn't a priority anymore
 

I have an autistic son so I appreciate the struggles you are having. I'd love to hear more about how your team came to have so many autistic kids on it.

It can take a lot of energy to work with the autistic kids - trying to keep them on task, modeling good behavior, trying to cope when their behavior is not the best. It's a big undertaking and all this is in the middle of that other thing - trying to build a robot in six weeks. Very impressive.