[Rich Wong]

Ah! The classic case of “I know everything”. It happens almost every year with some of my teams. Sometimes it’s a senior, sometimes it’s is rookie member with that’s strong-minded (and narrow-mind) and sometimes a new mentor/teacher. This happen to one of my teams this year, another “want-to-help” teacher step in at the end of 3 weeks and said the design will not work and should be changed.

This time, I had to take him to the side with the team’s head coach and explained that the team rules agreed to at the beginning of the six-week building period is “No design change after the design is voted on by the members; unless there is a serious fault.”
The decisions are made by majority student vote so the students controls theirs own destiny. But the coaches and mentors have final say to design changes.

In the past (I recalled twice) I have not step in to stop the team from “Following the Piper.” A person have convinced the team that “He know what’s right for team” even thought it was a formula for disaster. Why? Because in FIRST, failure is an opinion if the students will learn from their mistakes. If the team opinion is strong and they out vote the mentor & coaches, it is better to support them and allow them to slowly mature and understand their mistake then to force them in to a design the adults come up with. (Also we could be wrong too; not often!!)

Last year, one student member was confronted by the whole team and asked to change or leave because of his negative opinions and disruptive behavior. He had a funny way of expressing himself in a negatively and was bring the team down. He reconsidered his behavior and apologies to the team.

My recommendation to you is to ask this new member to join in the team’s work but not to disrupt the team’s progress. Your organization also dictates the chain of commend on member behavior too. I feel all disruptive members will hurt the team in the long run. In FIRST, no member is that crucial and no individual know it all.
Good Luck.