Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymous_robot
I would like to open saying that i have created this account to protect my own, and my teams identity from both my team and others. I will say that i am a third year student on a relatively old team for a little context.
In the last few month I feel like my team has gone down hill. I am saddened to say that I feel ashamed of how we/they have been behaving over all. Our team and our school has a policy that you can not exclude member from a club/team making it so anyone can join. I am a strong supporter of this policy however I feel that it has lead to an influx of member that see robotics as a casual activity and not so thing that requires dedication. This has lead to a proliferation of this attitude through out the leadership on our team. While we are a team for 40-50 students the amount of students that do measurable work that can not be done by others and show up to most meeting ended up being just about 20 of us. Of that twenty an even smaller percentage leads by example. All the other student socialize and play games. At competition these last few year my team has been a little loud, in the good way, we were spirited, always asking who needed help. This year a majority of the freshmen and sophomores would congrats in front of our pit blocking traffic, in addition they would be telling inappropriate jokes. A portion of the senior are also very apathetic to every thing. I am truly at a loss for what to do. I would love others input so that I can help turn my team around.
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Out of curiosity, does your school require you to let every student travel for competitions? I understand not denying a student access to the club, but traveling for any school organization is considered a privilege. Your team, school, and teachers are taking a huge liability taking kids out of school and traveling with them to regional competitions so students have to "earn" that privilege by proving that they are really committed to the program.
Another option is to recruit more parents/mentors/volunteers to improve the adult to student ratio. Then you can assign teams with clear roles so that people aren't crowding the pit all the time and in fact are staying busy.
I think everyone struggles with team members who aren't always pulling their weight. I have found that if you can create a solid structure with sub-teams, roles, goals, and leaders you can gain at least some control. Team building activities and meetings are important to share the issues and work on solutions as a team.
Reaching out to your school about your concerns can also help. I doubt they would want bad behavior to represent their school so they may be willing to help.