[Riverdance]

As far as incentive, our team has very defined rules about attendance and associated team activity -- for example, you are not actually considered a member of the team if your attendance is below 60%, and you will not be able to attend competition as part of the team. Additionally, to be a driver or officer, your attendance must be above 85%. This tends to keep attendance up.

We also try really hard to engage our students from the get-go. We built a practice drive train to keep the mechanical rookies busy before build season, our public relations team did a lot of outreach stuff with other teams and worked on raising funds throughout the offseason, etc. Coming up with little projects for your freshmen to work on prior to build season keeps them from getting bored. I think we even had a few kids design, build, and decorate a new battery box.

Finally, we keep it going with the little things. Movie night here, Super Smash Bros tournament there. Every once in a while we all get together and get a sense of camaraderie going with the new members, so that meetings don't feel like a chore. It's a treat -- you get to go hang out with your friends and build a robot.