[Vermeulen]

I agree with you on a lot of points. While there should be some creative people to do the team image/chairman's presentation/outreach stuff, that should never get so big that the robotics lives in its shadow. There can't be team spirit without a team. I would take a few different approaches to this situation.

Our team has never been organized enough to start imposing strict attendance/application rules, and not big enough to need them; none of the students took it seriously because none of the mentors had time/inclination to enforce it. If you can do that, great, it will help weed out the people who don't really want to do anything.

Another suggestion would be to weed out the leadership roles. Make students write a short piece on why they want to be a leader, and how they think it will help the team (emphasis on the latter). We do this for drive team applicants to weed out the serious people from the non-serious people.

A third thing could be either to run for team president/other leadership role, or step up and tell the team what the situation is. You sound like you are passionate about your team, and I'm 99% sure there are mentors who would support you on that. If some students realize that they don't actually want to be on the team, let them leave.

Fourth, try to recruit some people who want to build. This would be the preferable option, unless people on the socializing side of things distract others and bring the whole team down. In that case, I would tell them directly that there is a problem.