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Unread 07-02-2017, 01:54
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Cothron Theiss Cothron Theiss is offline
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FRC #4462 (Full Metal Jackets)
Team Role: College Student
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Kingston, Tennessee
Posts: 601
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Re: Looking for some brutally honest feedback...

Quote:
Originally Posted by HonestAnonymous View Post
Anyways, I have a couple of questions for the CD community:
  1. Do you have seniors who do a lot of the work on the team?
  2. Do your mentors do a large chunk of the robot work?
  3. How involved are the majority of students on your team? Do they do a lot of the work, or do mentors?
  4. Do your students learn more by themselves or more from other students and mentors?
  1. It kinda changes from year to year. In 2016, the seniors did the vast, vast majority of the work. This year, the captain's a senior but the core of the team is a group of juniors and sophomores.
  2. Again, it changes from year to year. In 2015 and 2016, the mentors did increasingly less of the work on the robot. This year, the mentors are doing a good bit more, which I'm very glad about.
  3. The majority of the work is done by a small group of students and mentors. The majority of the students are primarily learning. Some of this learning is done elbow-deep into the robot, but most of it is from observation.
  4. Hmm... this is a tricky one. Like all the other answers, it changes from year to year. I will say that I think each student MUST find and begin training his/her replacement for when (s)he leaves the team. That is one of the biggest responsibilities for students and one that I failed miserably at as a student. That's one of the many things I regret about my time as a student on an FRC team is that I did not do a better job of finding younger students to assume the roles I took on as a student.

In regards to your entire situation, I think talking about these matters with your mentors and your dedicated students may be the best course of action. If your mentors are already contributing their time and energy (and probably money) to this program, telling them that there are still students that care and have a desire to learn and be successful may be the best way to remotivate them. There's a good chance your mentors have a nagging voice in the back of their heads asking if what they're doing is the best way to benefit the students, the best use of their resources and time, or if it's just worth the effort. Maybe all they need is some affirmation that Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology is happening, and that there are students willing to put in the work to make more Inspiration and Recognition happen.

Course, this also means your fellow students will have to step up; I don't know which has to happen first. But the mentors have to be present, have to be engaged, and have to set the attitude and environment for the team. And the students have to be willing to learn, willing to work, and willing to have fun.

Good luck! Remember, if these thoughts have occurred to you, it's very possible that they've occurred to others on your team. Reach out to them. FIRST happens in the team meetings and the late nights and the irksome tasks and the fierce competitions. But all of those experiences happen with your team.
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