[NoodleKnight]

Alaina,

Our team had a similar problem during this year, luckily we were able to resolve it all before build season. I'm sure this has been stated multiple times, but regardless, you just need to motivate your teammates (which, in my experience, is hard). Luckily our mentors and veteran students were able to give a few speeches and convince our newer members.

If I can recall, the speeches went somewhere down the line of how they chose to spend over six weeks of their lives working on robots. Then basically everything great about FIRST robotics. You could also try and point out some other (school-related) things about FIRST robotics, like getting the chance to skip two days of school (if applicable) to attend regionals competition -- also mention how fun it is to go to a regional; competition as well as after the competition. If you asked any of our veteran members, I'm sure they'll all say that 1/2 the fun of going to a regional comes from staying at hotels and having the chance to get away from parents and other non-fun school stuff. There's more, I can't think of any at the moment though.

And in regards to the lunch meetings, personally, I want to spend lunch period eating my lunch and not have it mixed in with white lithium grease and metal shavings. If your teachers don't want to dedicate the time, maybe you can find a parent mentor who can... the teacher would just need to provide access to the room you work in.