Thread: New rookie team
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Unread 06-08-2015, 10:23
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FRC #1923 (The MidKnight Inventors)
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Re: New rookie team

Two things:

#1.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDesbiens View Post
FIRST is about new things, it's about challenge, it's about helping others and learning...
FIRST's mission, from usfirst.org:
"Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."

Take a look at that description of FIRST and see how this team fits in with those goals. Who are your mentors? What experiences do you hope to draw communication & leadership skills from? Building a robot alone might help foster your engineering & technology skills, but what about the rest of FIRST?

Even going back to your definition of FIRST - how exactly does this team help others?

#2.

Akash mentioned earlier in the thread that students have run teams on their own, unsuccessfully. I'm going to jump in as one of those people.

I've posted about the early days of 1923 before, so I won't get too preachy here, but I cannot stress enough how much I do not recommend running a team on your own. At 14, my team (all 4 of us) was administrated, 'mentored' and captained by yours truly, without a mentor to our names for three years. It was exhausting, and I can't say I got what you're 'supposed' to get out of a FIRST experience. In my case, that was worth it to me - I've known FIRST all my life, I knew I wanted to go somewhere in the STEM fields, and I could hit the check box of being 'inspired' - so my focus in running the team was to provide that experience for other people in my school, even if I didn't get it myself.

Your case doesn't sound like that, since it doesn't seem like this team is even really open to other students. As others have mentioned, you seem to have some good pieces in place - and with that, you can definitely contribute positively elsewhere.

Edit:: Whoops - OP has addressed a few of my questions while I was composing.
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Libby Kamen
Team 1923: The MidKnight Inventors
2006-2009: Founder, Captain, Operator, Regional Champion.
2010-Always: Proud Alumni, Mentor & Drive Coach. 2015 Woodie Flowers Finalist Award.

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229: Division By Zero / 4124: Integration by Parts
2010-2013: Clarkson University Mentor for FLL, FTC & FRC

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FIRST Partner Associate, United Therapeutics
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