Some great stuff above, and I commend each and every post. Here's my $.02 for stuff that I
didn't see covered but have on my mind:
Turn challenges into opportunities. Here are a couple of opportunties unearthed by the first reply to this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cad321
I've been on my team for the past 4 years and this year (5th) will be my first mentoring. One of the biggest things I tell our rookies is that no matter how small and useless their task may seem, it is all vital to the building of the bot. If its sorting nuts and bolts, now someone else isn't spending 20 minutes looking for the hardware they needed.
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Do the bolt sorting before the season starts. Get the veterans as well as the rookies involved. The veterans know that it's important, don't they? Treat this just like a full-up build task - group some veterans as leaders/mentors with some rookies. That way, your sorting gets done right, the veterans and rookies bond and learn each others' styles, and the second-year students have already had a tiny taste of student mentoring.
Another thing we're trying this year with our annual hardware sort: In each box of bolts and nuts, we're going to designate one of the largest sections "unsorted". That way,
if when someone is not going to take the time to properly sort a bolt or nut, there's a spot that (s)he can drop it so that it doesn't "get in the way" when people are looking for parts later that week. We're also hoping that it will greatly accelerate the hardware sort maintenance tasks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cad321
Our team is also notorious for using an absolute ton of 1/2in aluminum standoffs that are usually made by the rookies. They always complain about it because its tedious and takes a lot of time to make the quantity we need. However the robot would not function without them (critical part) and after their made, each person is 20x better at operating the machines than they were before.
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Anybody read the first part of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer? Take a few lessons from Tom as he "outsourced" the whitewashing of the fence. I'm not suggesting that you cheat the rookies into doing the work, but you should look at the methods he used to motivate (dare I say INSPIRE?) his nominal peers:
- Inspect their work critically but graciously, and with praise when appropriate. When you send back a piece of inferior work, you implicitly communicate the importance of quality. Make it clear that the quality and speed of their work will be taken into account when the next set of jobs are assigned: people who are fast and of fair quality will be given bigger (but still relatively simple) jobs, and those who do great work will be promoted to doing the "artisan" machining. And no, we're not doing it as a "reward", but simply because we want to make the best use of our skills to compete!
- Give them incentive to do this simple task. Perhaps one of the end-of-year prizes on your team could be "machined the greatest number of parts on the robot". Don't make this as prestigious as your GP or student mentorship or top fundraiser awards, but still something that might make them want to put in an extra effort. Maybe you have a "member of the week" or "member of the month" that could be awarded to someone who is particularly prolific or proficient at these basic tasks.
- This is not inspired by Mr. Clemens, but make them part of the larger picture. There are always a few people who are ready to take pride in a 1/2" spacer for its own merits, but most people want to feel like they're part of something bigger than a spacer or standoff. Don't take your (making up numbers here) six mechanical rookies and make them into a "spacer machining crew for the whole robot". Instead, split those rookies up among the chassis, pickup, and scoring hardware teams (your teams may vary, of course, but I hope you get the idea), and give those rookies the job of machining the spacers used here for the drive system, and here for the pickup, and here for the scorer. Of course, don't make it a secret that they are all making copies of the same part; give them at least an opportunity to come together to learn from each other. To really close the "ownership" aspect: let each of them install (or at least assist in the installation) of the pieces (s)he machined. Each can then take personal pride (or embarrasment) in the performance of that particular mechanism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cad321
Moral of the story, everything you do during build season matters.
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Let me amend that by dropping "during build season". Everything you do during summer and fall recruiting matters. Everything you do during tryouts matters. Everything you during "teaching season" matters. Everything you do during build, competition, and post-competition season matter. Don't forget that the
real mission is to inspire and recognize those who may be heading towards a career in Science, Technology, Engineering,and Mathematics, including those who represent these activities to "the money people".
Also, we have definitely have had "power freshmen" and "power rookies"
every year, and TL;DR to list here. We've found that it's much healthier for the team for students to see that a rookie/freshman or second year member has
earned a varsity or officer billet, than to have one awarded to someone simply because (s)he's been on the team 3 or 4 years.