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Originally Posted by elsenor
Thank you for the advice. Unlike most other teams, it just seems too difficult to have sub-teams because our members don't read the rules or actually read the weekly e-mails we send out. So in the end its just the 10 few people who design/ build the robot. But, a lot of our members come to competition and they are clueless about what's going on. Any ideas on how to stop this madness?! I think this is mostly a result of us not doing anything until January.
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Been there! this year is the first year we actually became a full year team. As a result, we put a handbook together and are making sure that the kids follow the rules. Before it had always been a bit.....wild wild west with kids showing up to just hang out with their friends and not do anything. Now we have a solid core group of kids who want to be there, and that may be our whole team, as we didn't have many new kids come to kickoff this year. The kids were the ones who pushed for this - they wanted robotics to become more then it was. Let your core kids take the lead.
We have a facebook page and a twitter, and I send out weekly emails. I try to include as many parents as possible too because kids don't always read their emails, but over time once they realized that's the way the information has been coming, they're better about it.
I second asking your students what they think will get the team more motivated - the answers may surprise you.
Good luck, feel free to shoot me a message with any questions you might have. The growing pains of going from a strictly build-season team to a full-year team were totally worth it and what we did accomplish this fall was more then we ever dreamed or expected.
Edited to add: We make our kids read the rules by telling them there's going to be a quiz on it sometime in the season. They also have to have all their forms (health form, etc) in before they can participate and take a safety test before they're allowed to do anything.