Selecting New Team Members
 

For the past 7 or so years my team has had a selections process that includes an application form, and an interview. After completion of both, the applicants would be graded and a new team list would be posted. The reason this started was because a while ago, 150 students apply for the team. But for the past few years there hasn't been nearly that many people, closer to 40. So the team leaders are trying to make a new way to select the team. We also have an hours system, in which each individual member must put in a minimum of 100 hours throughout the year to attend competitions, this includes the off season. During the six weeks, a dedicated member would usually put in over 300 hours, so if you attend meetings 100 hours isn't a problem.

So, my question is:
How does your team decide on members, and who goes to competitions? Or is there even a selection process?

Thanks for the help.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

If you ever get that many students again you should make another team!

We have it pretty simple: All who want to join get in (about 50+). However leadership positions, going to competition, varsity letters and making build decisions are made through the student's amount of work and dedication (We have a log system that calculates points for meetings, misbehavior and such). Its kind of like having a no cut JV and a cut varsity. The people on varsity are the ones that the team can depend on. This may change though because we basically remake the team every year on ideas gained from last year and how it will help goals this year.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Everyone is welcome to join. Everyone can go to competitions. However to miss school for a competition grades must be maintained at a certain level, and a certain number of meetings during build must be attended. Travel costs are the responsibility of students, except in certain conditions due to need.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

My old team was completely open to everyone, yes that was a big problem because they would get people in the middle of the build session, but then they decided to have it open until kickoff then close it off. we got more students, not as many as you but it was alot for our small school. We let people go to whatever meetings during the week and had saturdays a manditory meeting. then the mentors that were always there could see who was really the dedicated people. Which is how the dedicated ones were the first to pick there roles at competition or were chosen by the mentor for drive team.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Application process:

Returning members: At the end of the school year, returning members take an application packet, fill out the information required of returning members, and write a short essay summarizing their time on the Killer Bees, as well as their goals for the future. This is read by core mentors. You also sign up for an interview time. During the interview, one of the mentors talks to you personally about your time on the Killer Bees, and your goals, and may ask specific questions. Returning members are always prioritized during the application process, but must apply again.

Non-new students: At the end of the school year, students who already go to NDP but were not previously on the team can also apply, at the same time as returning members. The same basically happens, with a slightly different essay question. After the returning and non-new student applications are reviewed and members are accepted, they are now part of the Killer Bees and are encouraged to come to local off-season events.

Freshmen/New Students: In the fall, there is another round of applications for Freshmen/students who did not previously attend NDP. Same as non-new student applications. They usually join the team early enough to see the Kettering Kickoff.

Usually, all applicants are accepted. During the end-of-year applications, we always leave a certain number of spots for Freshmen. If there are too many applicants, then the mentors/key parents discuss if we can grow, and are capable of handling a larger number of people.

Going to competitions:
All students are welcome to go to all in-season and local off-season competitions. Students must pay an additional fee for travel to St. Louis. For the IRI, our only travel off-season, a select few are invited by Jim Zondag, and we ride down in a Sprinter van.

Leadership positions:
Competition positions are applied for during the build season and appointed by the council of mentors. However, student leaders almost always participate in OCCRA, and usually lead on their own, without a title. It is usually obvious who most of the leaders are because they are the ones who are the most dedicated. The competition positions which are appointed are comp team (driver/operator/hp), pit crew (4 members), lead scouts (2 lead scouts, runner, video), and chairmans presenters (3). Usually, the students who were drivers in OCCRA make up the comp team, the most dedicated non-driver members make up the pit crew. Any student not assigned a specific position is expected to scout.

Making build decisions: We have a quote on the wall that says "The world is run by those who show up".

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Our team is open to anyone, but there are requirements that must be met to be considered "on" the team.

We have a meeting in early September that anyone who is interested can come to, then we explain the requirements to be on the team to the incoming students.

You have to attend at least 1/2 of all fall trainings, you have to be present for at least 6 hours a week during build season, and you need to be present at 2/3 of our Friday meetings after school. You also have to write a 250 word essay explaining why you want to be on the team and what you want to accomplish during the year. Also if a student is failing classes they can not participate / travel. This usually gets rid of anyone that doesn't want to be on the team that badly.

And new for this year, students who want to go to the competition we travel for (eg. Las Vegas last year) have to submit a travel application, and if the captains don't feel you helped enough during build season, or you weren't really "dedicated" to the team, you can't travel.
The travel application is still a work in progress as of now though.

We never really had a issue with too many students on the team, our team size has hovered around 50-60 for 3 years now.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

On the UberBots, all interested students are encouraged to join the team; no one is turned away. Our team size has varied from roughly 15-40 through the years as we've grown and changed. We always attend the Connecticut Regional, which is driving distance from our town, so anyone interested in attending that competition is allowed to go. When we go to "travel" competitions (further away regionals/Championship Event when we get hotel rooms), there is a minimum attendance requirement of 60%. We usually offer bonus attendance points for things like meeting on Sundays and clean-up days.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

I definitely like the idea of the travel application, Because i feel we take to many students to competitions, that have done hardly anything for the team. It's costs alot for us to go to competitions because of the distance we travel, we have to book hotels for every competition, closest one is 3 hours away. We have a essay thing on the application, but its the same for returning member's as new members. Having separate essay's reviewed by mentors, seems like a better idea. Grades have never been checked by our teacher/mentors but might be a good idea. The leaders are selected by old leaders and mentors/teacher.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

We let everyone join our team - we have no choice, it's school policy. When it comes to traveling to competitions, in the event that we had more people wanting to go than seats on the bus, we would give the spots to those who put in the most time during build season and doing outreach, but that's never actually happened.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Anyone who shows up can be on the team. We keep track of hours to find out who goes to the competitions. there is no set number that get to go, but it becomes fairly obvious who has put in the time and where the cutoff is.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Our team has a hard limit of 55, due to School District policies, so we are required to cut as many people as required to get to that number, unfortunately. In the past, we have used attendance at pre-cut events (stuff like bake sales, community service, etc...), interviewing people, and a questionare about why they want to be on the team. Freshman/new students get higher consideration than those who have had a chance to join in previous years. The choice on who is cut is made by two groups independently (School Adviser, and Student Leadership), then the lists are compared, and a final one is made.

We have a limit of 40 people who can go to competition, due to bussing space, so it is simply hour based. We try to get everyone to go to atleast one competition, but the top 40 are guaranteed two. It usually works out, with a few people being unable to attend one or two. We are looking for a better way to quantify dedication, but haven't found one yet, so it looks like hours are what we're using.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

We have the dozen or so kids who've stuck around and seem interested. Nothing as formal as applications.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

The team my daughter was on had an application process. The student had to fill in contact information (including parents info), tell why they wanted to be on robotics, and say what they were interested in working on.

As far as I know, no one was ever rejected. But having the application showed that the student was at least interested enough to complete an application with a few sentences. And then the team had the contact info!

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Wow, our schools are like opposites. Yours says you can only have so many - ours, which is a school of 6500, says we cannot restrict anyone from joining and can only kick people off for disciplinary reasons (really bad disciplinary reasons - only ever happened a couple of times).

On topic, though - if our team was to have an applications process, and I were the one deciding how it went, I would make it based on:

• Grades in the first quarter
• year (loweclassmen would have higher precedence)
• knowledge of engineering, programming concepts, etc (not a major consideration)

Returning members would have had to have put in a certain number of hours, just so that people who aren't interested don't take up the spots of those that do.

I would NOT make the application based on questions like why a student wants to be on a robotics team. To me, a student's motivation doesn't matter, just that they do and what they can contribute. If somebody only wants to be on the team because they know that colleges love it, I say let them, as long as they will contribute.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

I think that most teams who ask the question of "Why do you want to be on the robotics team?" are using it mainly for data. In other words, they only use it as a negative if there are more students applying then there are spaces on the team.

330 does use an application process, but it's pretty much contact info, why you want to be on the team, and the like. I don't know of a single case where someone's been turned down due to their application.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

1126 does use an application process, although people are rarely ever cut. we have trouble finding an abundance of members usually. Last year we were fairly large for us, which was about 34 students, but i expect we will grow this year. the applications aren't very vigorous, mostly your typical grades, etc. and contact info, what subteam you're interested in. there is also an interview for new students where they ask you some questions about FIRST to see what you know aready and such, and why you wanted to join, leadership experience, etc. if cuts do have to happen, the priority grade level picking goes: sophomore, freshman, junior, senior

as for who goes to competitions, you have to have a certain number of hours during the build season (i think 150ish, but i forgot the exact number) to go to the travel ones. to go to FLR which is very close, you just have to be academically eligible according to the school standards (basically, you can't be failing classes) and that's about it.

as for drives team, they pick who is best at the given positions, but you have to have above a 75 in each class to be considered because they want to make sure you'll definitely be academically eligible for competitions.

i personally wish our team would be more selective. i think other people probably have had experiences that would incline them to say the same too. it's just a bit frustrating when some of the kids don't have the dedication they should to be on the team.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Just a followup to this - the fall training, Friday meeting, and essay requirements were all created or updated last year, but I'm fairly sure that even people who were "on the team" last year still have to go through all of it again - all the veterans had to do them last year as well.

And yeah, it's been 50-60 for as long as I can remember.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Same with our team, with the veterans having to complete everything again. I dont know why exactly, or if there is any benefit to it. My brother didnt make the team in his gr 10 year, but he came to ever meeting and was the leader in gr 11 and team captain in gr 12.

How do you find work for all the people when you have 50-60 students? We have a hard time finding work for about 25-30. Are there a fair amount of people who dont come as often, and then a smaller group that are extremely dedicated?

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Will your being a member of the Robotics Team inspire others?
Congratulations, you're on the team.
Will you be inspired by being a member of the Robotics Team?
Congratulations, you're on the team.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Exactly right, we have ALOT of people, but out of those people, we have a smaller dedicated group of students. For instance, on average only 5-15 people have shown up to our summer trainings this summer. And during build season I can not remember a day during the school week where more then 30-40 students have shown up. But on weekends during build season especially on Saturday, almost everyone attends.

And as for the extremely dedicated group, we have one of those, but we lost a good portion of that group this year do to graduations. But that group is generally the group that puts in 30 hours a week during build season and rarely misses a meeting.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Sure wish we had enough kids to do an application process lol. We are lucky to have 7-8 kids. The year we won BMR we had about 20. Now we just have 4 signed up, but some recruits might be coming in. As long as they want to be there and want to learn, they have a spot.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Our team is open to anybody to join. However, to be part of the team, you have to accumulate 10 hours of service in the off-season and attend 3/4 of our training sessions.
To travel, you have to come during build season at least 3 times a week. In addition, we are implementing performance reviews to let us know if a student really did contribute, or if they showed up just to sign their name on the attendance list.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

On 816, we've never had an application process.

We've found that more often than not, kids will cut themselves from the team before we even need to think about it. Usually, by the time build season and competition season come around, the team has sort of sorted itself into core members, twice a week members, and 'Hey, I went to two meetings over the course of 5 months, can I still go to regionals'. The last case is usually the only time we deny a member.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

On 103, there is an application process, and after the applications, a series of interviews. We try to keep between 30 and 35 members each year. Anything larger we have found to be hard to manage. For us, the number of applicants changes a lot from year to year, so we're forced to be a lot harder on the applicants when there are more of them. Once on the team, it's a 100% commitment, all team members are required to attend all team meetings, workshops, fundraisers, and the rest. Leadership positions are elected, President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. We've found this works well because everyone on the team is dedicated and really wants to be there.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Thanks for all your input. Im going to bring this up at the next leaders meeting.

Re: Selecting New Team Members
 

Anybody can join our team, since we don't get a lot of interest. But only a certain amount of people can go to each regional, since we live in London, and it costs a lot to fly people over. We decided this by how often the person comes to robotics, how much they've done, and how senior they are (that includes school grades and years on the team).