[dtengineering]

When our team was experiencing rapid growth we instituted a process whereby team members had to fill in an application form, indicating which roles they were interested in filling and what experience they had to support their ability to perform those roles. They also had to get signatures from two teachers attesting to their ability to work in a group setting and to have demonstrated good work habits in their classes.

From this we selected the applicants based solely upon their skills and experience. (Strangely we were able to find a space for everyone who applied... the simple process of having to fill in an application form helped keep a lid on numbers.)

It would be ideal to include everyone who wants to be on the team, but it is likely far more important to ensure that everyone who IS on the team has a quality experience.

Not all of the teachers sponsoring our team were technology education teachers. One of the most important adult mentors on our team was a business education teacher. She organized a number of students with business interests to manage our communications, finance and fundraising. Remember... it's not all about the robot.

Finally, in regard to affirmative action, it can be implemented in a number of ways. The negative responses to a.a. usually come when it is implemented by selecting one candidate over another because of some characteristic... gender, ethnicity, etc. that is unrelated to the job at hand. A different approach, being taken by a number of police departments and fire departments here in Metro Vancouver, is to work hard to recruit applicants from under represented groups, but then to select the very best applicants from the entire pool based on job-related criteria (and yes, the ability to speak multiple languages, in a multicultural city, is an important job related criteria).

Basically, however, if you look at affirmative action from the point of view of "why are some groups underrepresented", and "how do we increase our appeal to underrepresented groups", it is possible to have a valid, meaningful, non-discriminatory selection process that selects the very best candidates on the basis of merit, but from a larger pool of applicants.

A good question... one of those learning experiences for the team members that reinforces the idea that FIRST isn't just about the robot.

Jason