First Meeting of the Year

[penguinfrk]

Originally Posted by Karibou

if they don't know why exactly they're there yet, and they may feel like they're expected to know the answer to that question already (if they don't, I doubt they'll come back. Personally, if I was in that situation, I wouldn't either.)

Originally Posted by stevend1994

If it's a first meeting to get people interested, personally I feel like having the icebreaker stuff just seems like, aggressive

A build officer on our team actually made a point to include the icebreaker question because she felt that going straight into the robotics part of it would be too intimidating, for the reason Kara stated. We've got a little over a week before our first meeting, I'll be sure to bring up concerns about the value of icebreaker questions.

Is the purpose of this meeting to get students to join the team? Save the icebreaker for the second meeting - a lot of students are probably at this first one because a) they want to find out more about the team because they're not sure if they're interested enough to join, b) they were dragged along by a friend, or c) they have a very mild interest and were just bored that particular night.

I had the privilege of hearing Kevin Ross's explanation of new members. With a little added thought, it's along the lines of:

Out of the 24 members on an average team, you have about an 8-8-8 split in the members in three categories.
1) Die hards - no matter what you do they'll be back for more because they've already done some STEM stuff on their own, and know that engineering/programming/etc. is for them.
2) Nerd-curious - in no way a derogatory term, these are the people who are fascinated by what we do, but don't have prior experience. They're far less confident than the die hards, have trouble taking initiative and engaging themselves, and are less comfortable with speaking their thoughts.
3) Hangers-on - they are there not because of any substantial interest in STEM, but because their friends, girlfriend, boyfriend, cousin, etc. is or was on the team.

When it comes to the foundation of the team to be successful at competition, it seems to be the die hards. However, when it comes to inspiration, the nerd-curious and the hangers-on should be the focus.

The way I see it, the first meeting should be to to keep the nerd-curious and hangers-on coming back for more. Get them hooked.

Our recruitment strategy has been extremely passive. At the club fair, we had our robot demo, and we allowed them to operate our arm; for most students and parents, that was enough for them to ask for meeting dates and how to sign up. However, we intentionally did not have a sign-up sheet. The pitch I gave, which was especially effective with parents, is: "We already have 75 members. That's 5% of the school population, and by far the largest club on campus. We don't need new members. We don't have a signup sheet and we don't want one. We don't want students who we have to push and urge and remind to attend our meetings. You don't need prior experience to be on the team, but you need passion. You will get the experience you want to get out of this program."

As far as information goes, I think an informational flyer and the videos we show should be enough. Yes, gracious professionalism and inspiring students to pursue STEM is a phenomenally important aspect of the program, but until you've personally gone through that transformation, you can't quite understand the value of it. Nobody joins the team thinking "I want to be inspired to pursue STEM careers." That stuff can come later, maybe the 2nd or 3rd meeting, and gradually. If you build enough anticipation for team activities, they will read the flyer and get the information they need to know whether the team is for them.



At the same time, I have a voice in the back of my head second-guessing my rationale, wondering if this is all too idealistic and radically different and if I'm overthinking things. Thanks for putting up with these long posts, and I'd love to hear more thoughts.