How to get students join the team?

[yarden.saa]

Hi,
I have a hard question that my team is discussing.
What is the best way the get students join the team.
Some history on my team:
Last year we were rookies and our school was new growing school (We had only 10th graders, and this year we have 10th and 11th graders....)
The team was built from 16 10th grades.
This year we had only 2 new members even though the new grade in the high school is bigger then our grade. There was no intrest in FRC.

[Katie_UPS]

First thing you do, is you advertise the team everywhere: have a robot open house and freshman orientation, put posters in the hall, if your school lets you-have the robot during lunch. Teachers on our team will normally do a quick shameless plug in their classes.
Once you're established enough, FLL teams at middle schools bring kids in. Demo-ing in the community also can bring attention and teammates.

Remind students that no prior skills are nessicary to join. Remind students (and especially parents) about all the scholarship opportunities.
Another big thing is roping your friends in, and convincing siblings, and siblings friends, and friend's siblings.

Have members talk about the team- why they like it and why people should join. Mention all the opportunities that FIRST has to offer... and that its not just about the robot. Artsy kids might really dig animation. The forensics kids might really like the marketing aspect (and presenting for chairman's). And so on and so forth.

Lastly, if you can people at a competition- official or otherwise- they can see how crazy and fun FIRST is.

[Dancin103]

One thing that we do that can help your team increase interest is doing a presentation to the high school and the 8th grade in the middle school. We bring our robot and show them competition footage. We explain to them everything that the team does and then if the student is interested, they have to apply and interview. If you need more help or suggestions, please PM me.

Cass

[Joe G.]

Stress recruitment among your current students. Have them bring in their younger friends. Younger siblings can be especially powerful recruitment tools, practically the entire senior class of my former team originally joined because they were friends of my younger brother.

[nlknauss]

NEMO has a great document at the link below.

http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/Recruiting_Students.pdf

I would also suggest trying to do a demonstration at one of your faculty meetings. Other teachers are great recruitment tools because they know which students might benefit from joining the team the most.

[SamMullen]

When we've run into problems like this, we've found that the easiest ways to get people who are really into first are to either:
drag in random friends, give them tools, and tell them to do something. They won't understand what's going on, but by the time they've figured it out they're normally already hooked.
or to look for kids in physics classes that have already had some experience building things. Kids with carpenters or construction workers, or if you're really lucky engineers for parents can be not only a great supply of already partially trained kids, but mentors as well.

[Matt C]

Feed them.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by Matt C

Feed them.

That's always a good option!

[Lledargo]

This is a wonderfully helpful thread, thanks everyone for the information.

[LightWaves1636]

We do robot demos during lunch time in the cafeteria. It helped out A LOT.

We also make visits to every class: specifically science, math, and engineering classes.

Next year, we're participating at athletics events with a t-shirt cannon so we can have a robotics booth set up for recruiting and we're going to particpate at the school rallies.

[Koko Ed]

Invite them to a FIRST event (regional or off season event) if it's local. Nothing sells FIRST better than seeing the end product in action.

[Cyberphil]

Originally Posted by LightWaves1636

We do robot demos during lunch time in the cafeteria. It helped out A LOT.

We also make visits to every class: specifically science, math, and engineering classes.

Next year, we're participating at athletics events with a t-shirt cannon so we can have a robotics booth set up for recruiting and we're going to particpate at the school rallies.

That is actually a great idea! I might have to see if we could do that ourselves!

[LightWaves1636]

Originally Posted by Cyberphil

That is actually a great idea! I might have to see if we could do that ourselves!

Thanks! The key thing with recruiting your own high school is to simply support the school and everyone a part of it and they support the team back. It's worked amazingly for us.

and yeah, i can't believe I forgot our middle school students. It won't be this year but the year after, we're going to do summer camps for the 7th graders and have 8th graders automatically join the team after the school year ends.

This year, we're only doing the 8th grade part. We're visiting their middle school and presenting to all the 8th graders.

[Robby Unruh]

We were a rookie team last year as well. At the end of the school year, a couple members from our team went to the middle school to present the robot and show some videos of it in action. Videos were the best we could do since there's no 'local' regionals (closest is probably Boilermaker all the way in Lafayette!). That got a couple freshman interested, but we only managed to hold on to them until mid-build season. That wasn't too hard of a hit for us, but we managed to pull through and finish our bot this year.

This year we gained 3 or 4 new members, giving us a total of 7 students, 3 mentors, and 2 teachers. We're hoping to do some presentations at the middle school again and get even more 8th graders interested, nothing feels better than showing off your robot.

[Sharp Cheddar]

Originally Posted by Dancin103

That's always a good option!

only make sure people arent only showing up for the free food