Team Communication Methode

[bhsrobotics1671]

We use private Facebook groups. We have a main group where all of our members are in, then we have several other Facebook groups for CAD, Programming, Leaders Only, etc. Teams like electronics don't need their own group because they are not working at home on their own usually.

[Cynette]

My team (FIRST Team 1511, Rolling Thunder) uses a combination of methods. We have an e-mail system very similar to the one DoronS described for Stuypulse. It is used for weekly team e-mails, and announcements for the whole team or a select subsection of the team. Individual subteams will use their e-mail distribution for back and forth conversations during build season.

We post breaking news and top calendar items on our webpage and also have a forum on our website for general interest conversations and things that we want to make available to a larger audience.

We also have a wiki page(s) to track activities related to the robot build season so all team members can know the progress of the individual subteams. It is maintained as our engineering notebook and is very useful for documenting lessons learned from year to year.

New this year, we have a Facebook page, but it is mostly for fun since not all of our team members are on Facebook.

[VKP]

My team has an online forum (teamwork.saintsrobotics.com) to communicate. We first introduced it two and a half years ago, and now it has become a vital communications tool, especially considering that we are a large (40+ regular members) team with many subdivisions.

Forums are a good option for a team, but they take time to get used to and navigate.

[AJCaliciuri]

Team 1305 fully utilizes Google Apps for all their communication needs. Using a Google Group, each member can send an e-mail to all others on the "E-Group". It also allows us to moderate messages from new or younger team members who don't yet know our "E-Group Etiquette". This setup also includes Google Calendar for organizing meeting times. Through the Google Group, reminders for team meetings can be sent automatically to all members. We also use Google Docs for document collaboration. Trip forms, essays and other important documents can be shared with the entire team at once by sharing it with the Google Groups account. We use Google Sites as a team "Webshare" where, like a wiki, all team members can create and edit documents and guides as well as upload files for the team to utilize. Our programmers use Google Code to collaborate on programming. Finally, we use YouTube as our video sharing tool of choice. We use Google Apps mainly because our students are spread across seven different schools within our school board. We are currently using the free license, but since our team operates out of a school board, we are working to get the Google Apps education license. Communication is one of our many great challenges, but we always overcome it.

[maddoctor90]

Thanks for the replies. We use Google docs for sharing files between mentors and could use Google groups/email lists. We too use a Google calender to keep everyone on the same schedule. What I am really trying to do is simplify how to send out important (need to know now) type of information and just useful information for different groups. I like the idea of the forum for sharing useful information in team groups. I think we could make that work well for our team.

[Johnny_5]

Does anyone else use PTC's online WindChill software?

[sdaustin]

Originally Posted by AJCaliciuri

We are currently using the free license, but since our team operates out of a school board, we are working to get the Google Apps education license.

How long (time) have you been using the free license? My understanding is that it's good for 30 days.

It appears that Apps for Education is geared towards entire school districts (e.g. mydistrict.edu), so I'm very interested in hearing whether a sub-group of a school district will qualify.