How to get students join the team?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by scottydoh

Believe it or not, but we make a huge effort to loose the "Robotics" connection. While it might seem counter-productive or "not in the spirit of FIRST", I feel that a lot of students are scared away by the word robotics...they feel that they aren't smart enough or that robots are only for the "nerdy" kids. When we give recruitment presentations, we promote all of the other equally as important roles on the team (business, art/graphic design, music, writing, public relations) This helps us include more of the high school community and bring in kids who would never even have considered joining.

That's funny, we do almost the exact opposite! We advertise it as all about the robot, and have the robot out in front of the school as much as possible. When our students talk, they invariably start out with something like "When I joined the team, I didn't know how to do anything! The mentors and returning members spend a lot of time making sure you learn how to do everything that's needed to build a robot (even how to use a drill properly!)." We make sure we put a big emphasis on "no experience necessary" every time we talk with a prospective student.

Of course, we also talk about all the other functions on the team - the need for PR, scouting, fundraising, etc... but that's not the focus.