Does robotics attract the right students?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I do not mean "wrong" as in we are attracting bad kids, but we are attracting kids who already have a set goal of going into STEM. Aren't we trying to attract kids who are on the other end of the spectrum? My mentality was that majority of the kids on the team would have joined regardless of the mission as long as it had robots. I can confidently say majority of the students who are on robotics already had the vision to become engineers and scientists, or at least were entertaining the thought of it.

While this is true to some degree, there are also many kids who join who were not planning on going into STEM... the problem is, you don't ask them ahead of time! I can tell you, without a doubt, that many of the kids we recruit for our team were not already set for STEM. In fact, one of our best graduates (majoring in Electrical Engineering), had been planning on studying business before she joined the team.

What can we do to attract kids other than those who already have a goal in STEM? I know there are teams with dedicated business, and other non "build" departments within the team. However, is that really fulfilling FIRST's mission? I noticed many of the students end up doing something non build related. I am in no way trying to put the build team up on a pedestal, but I do notice it, like with many others have. Are we doing the job correctly if 80% of the team is in the stands cheering with a handful of people in the pits working on the robot? I have never been a "non build" team member; I have always been a programmer and on the drive team. It breaks my heart to see kids feel "disposable"; hell, I am the lead programmer and I feel that way sometimes.

You can only fit so many people around the robot at once... if you have 100 kids, then yes, you need to spread out your jobs a little, and many of them may not touch the robot. But that's part of the beauty of FIRST - There's so much more for students to do than build a robot. You can have a team focused on animation, another focused on CAD, one focused on PR, one focused on fundraising, one focused on the website... in short, there's something there for everyone to do. And quite frankly, it really doesn't matter if you have someone on the team who doesn't want to work on the robot - if they spend all their time working on PR or managing the team's finances because that's what they like doing, then it helps to give them valuable experience that they'll use down the road.

We graduated 6 this past year, and all of them were profoundly impacted by what they did on the team - and some of them never worked on the robot! It was amazing to see them all considering majors that related to the areas of the team they worked with.

Are we allocating the jobs correctly? I know, not everyone was made to be a Programmer, Welder, Electrician or anything, but with the ~100 students who signed up for the team makes me worried. I know that all 100 will not show up, but a big chunk will. There are simply not enough jobs for that many kids, and I worry that many of them will be turned away from STEM for that.

If you don't have enough jobs for everyone, then it's time to expand your program. Go after all those awards that don't have to do with the robot. Dedicate two build teams and build yourself a practice bot. Spin off a "JV" team to participate in the Vex challenge. Dedicate someone on the team as a project manager, and his/her sole job would be to ensure that everyone has a meaningful job they enjoy.