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Originally Posted by Andy Grady
Question of the Week (9/12/04):
What techniques do you use to recruit new High School Students and/or Mentors to your team?
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Our team doesn't exactly have a organized way of doing this ---
usually we get two new types of recruits:
1)those who already have a passion for robotics/technology/building and have wanted to be on the team since they first heard of it.
2)those who may have had little or no previous intrest in robotics but have been recruited by friends who are already on the team. Usually these people are hooked after the first meeting they go to. (I was one of these)
We are trying to improve our means of finding new recruits. For example, this year we gave a five minute presentation at our freshman orientation and have made announcements in the morning over the loudspeaker telling students how to sign up for robotics. Probably the main reason for people not signing up (in the past) is the fact that they do not know how to join, what exactly robotics is, and/or what it means to be on the team.
As for adult mentors, we aren't particularly organized in this area either.
Most are parents of students. (plus 2 teachers and 1 engineer)
Recently one of our team members wrote a letter to the local newspaper asking for adults willing to mentor our team. Other than that there hasn't been much outreach.
However, recently we recruited a new engineering advisor who is a new math teacher at our school. I only found out about him because I read in the paper (in a section highlighting the newly hired teachers in our district) that he had a degree in Aerospace engineering. So a freind of mine and I asked him to be a part of the team. Not a very organized way of finding a mentor, but it worked well enough. He was happy to be a part of our team.
I look forward to reading other posts in this thread to help me find a way to improve my own team's recruiting process!!
