Application To Join A Team

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Every team that has been around for a while has a set of guidelines that works for them. It fits their projected team size, the school rules and population, the needs or resources of the sponsors, and the goals established by the team for the team. Although some ideas might be useful in your environment, they might not be in all teams.
For WildStang, we have long been a graded class in the District. It is considered a 'ninth period' class which can meet anytime outside of the normal school day. However, that also means you must register for the class, every year. Now that makes some implications that are out of our control...
1. You must participate to some minimum in order to receive a grade.
2. The grade you receive does affect your GPA.
3. In some cases, it may be best for a student to drop robotics in order to raise their grades in other classes or reduce the chance of receiving a failing grade.
4. All school rules apply, the District has a co-curricular code that is essentially a 24 hour/seven day policy for behavior even when not on a team activity.
5. There are certain grade minimums (both academic and team grade) to participate as pit crew, drivers or for travel team.
6. Students know their current grade (available on the school websites) everyday.
7. Our team size can be set by the District to what they believe is a manageable and realistic size.
8. Yes, there must be homework.

While I agree that we should strive to involve as many students as possible, it is a huge drain on the mentors of the program to do so. So all of us struggle with providing a balance of quality over quantity. We have migrated to a magic number of about 60 students and that fills everyone's needs and concerns. We have almost 30 mentors and teachers so that allows us to have students in specific roles/sub-teams. Smaller teams must have students work on several projects at once, i.e. Chairman's Award, animation, safety, strategy, PR, fundraising, etc.
If a student can somehow manage to participate in another activity and meet the minimums for grade on the team, we accept that. Currently about half of our students participate on a team, church activity, scouts or music. Many of them participate in fall sports even though we meet all year round so they can spend time during build season. On the electrical team alone, I have multiple students in band or orchestra (some in honors), one on the swim team, one on water polo, one in band and three other school projects, several on track or cross country or both, three working after school, and two heavily involved in church/temple. More than half of the mechanical and electrical teams are taking one or more AP classes. What is surprising is all of these students are exceeding class and team minimums, all are on travel, pit crew or drive team.
The beginning of this season, more than 115 students somehow were allowed to register. We had to cut students for the first time, ever. We were very up front about the plans at the first meeting in August. Everyone was told that there would be an essay, a series of evaluations, observations and participation tracking that would go into the decision that would take place in mid November (mid term). So we looked at grades, homework, participation, essays, etc. And for most it was easy. Nine students didn't hand in any essay, some wrote only a few sentences so they didn't meet the minimum requirements, some missed multiple homework assignments, some had missed more than half of the classes, some had grade problems, some even told us they didn't have the time and would quit anyway. The remainder became heart wrenching to determine. I don't want to go through that again. The lead teachers interviewed each student prior to the final decision. For the majority of students they felt is was just and they would try harder next year. If we had the funds and maybe a few more mentors and teachers, we would love to have a second team.

[rsisk]

Just had to comment...

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

...For WildStang, we have long been a graded class in the District.

...We have migrated to a magic number of about 60 students

...We have almost 30 mentors and teachers so that allows us to have students in specific roles/sub-teams.

Are there many other classes in high school that can say that?!? 30 mentors/teachers for 60 students.

Just tell me that FIRST has not created something special.

And now back to the OP topic.

[Ed Law]

I love that Google translator. Very funny.

I know many of you are very passionate about this topic. I am too. I know you spent a lot of time to type in your well thought out response for the benefit of the OP. However I am going to ask the moderator to delete this thread. It is black and white that the OP violated the rules by creating a new account without team number and posting things like this. Keeping this thread is encouraging people to continue to do that in the future.

Is there a way to keep the excellent comments from others and just delete the posts from the OP? I would propose we start new threads to discuss specific things like Team fees and other team policies. Every team faces issues and there are multiple ways to deal with it. We can all learn from each other and put appropriate policies in place so we can put our energy into improving our program instead of dealing with energy draining issues.

[JuliaGreen]

The Killer Bees have used an application and interview process for many years. One reason we do this is to get to know the students better - we know how the team functions and we know what type of skills we are looking for. We do this every year - returning and new students. We do exit interviews for our seniors.

Sometimes, students want to join the team because they think colleges are looking for "extra-curricular" involvement. Sometimes they want to join the team to get some extra days off of school when we travel. Sometimes they want to join the team because a significant other is on the team. The application and interview process tends to help them decide this is not the place to improve your resume, sleep schedule or relationships. This year, we had students who originally were interested in the team because of these reasons - and some of them really, really like STEM now that they have done cool stuff with the Killer Bees.

We also have students on varsity basketball teams in the winter. These students have to make the hard choices about what comes first (no pun intended!). There were days during build season where they did a full day of school, a full practice and then a full team meeting. Homework was done between classes, at lunch, in the car and late at night. As these students became more involved in the Killer Bees, they are re-considering what comes "first". As with any team, if you don't show for practice, you don't show on the floor or field. You show up on the bench.

We have fees to be on the team - siblings on the team pay 50%. The fees are enough to cause a person to think about what is important. And we don't turn students away because they can't pay the fee. We make it work.

To quote our friends from 51 " You get out of this what you put in to it" - Great Life Lesson for all.

Julia

[KeatonM]

Many teams in Michigan - and beyond - that I know of (My team, Team RUSH included) use applications to separate those who will be dedicated, motivated, and timely, from those who are not. We also have interviews, after the application process.

If Team RUSH accepted every student who said they "might be interested" or had an "I guess so" attitude, we'd be far past our typical - and ideal - 30 to 35 students.

RUSH is not a robot only team. We meet year-round for fundraising, teambuilding, presentations to sponsors, and more - including the summer, when we host our annual Regatta - a cardboard and duct tape boat race that also serves as out #1 fundraiser, new student learning opportunity, and training.

I do understand your post saying that nobody should be turned away - and I agree - but with an added "if they are committed."

Also, I do understand your stance on dues and fees to participate. RUSH has a pretty hefty amount that each student must bring. In addition to that amount, our school considers RUSH a school club, so we pay the additional school club fee. But something you have to realize, is that FIRST isn't the cheapest thing to do. Our budget is in increments of $10,000, and in today's economy, getting sponsors and donors isn't always easy. So we have dues, to offset that huge budget. Our regatta last year raised ~$25,000 - not even half our yearly budget, and although we raise more every year, we also rely on a network of sponsors (over 100, if you include those who donate through the Regatta) to raise our budget. And it starts over every year.

For the time commitment, there is a vast difference in some teams time requirements. RUSH requires every student from 3pm to 8pm, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during build season. In addition to those mandatory meetings, we have 'advanced build' meetings Tuesday, Thursday, late Friday, and much of Saturday. We only have about half of our team working directly on the robot, with the other half on the business teams. Because of this, we need these extra meetings to make sure the robot gets done by week 6.

I guess my overall thought is this: If you want to join a team, and don't want to spend 100+ hours there, find a team that doesn't require 100+ hours. Every team is different, and there are teams that require less time. Applications are good to sort through students.

[Jon Stratis]

This is obviously a fairly touchy subject, but I feel the need to rant on it a little

Yes, in an ideal world every student interested will be part of a team. But this is less than an ideal world. My team has around 20 students in it each year, and we can't safely manage that many students with any less than 5 mentors. There's simply too many things in a shop (with saws, drills, and other things that could cause serious damage) that can go wrong, and one person can't have their eyes everywhere at once. We accept everyone we can get, but our first and largest priority is safety. I'm not sure what we'd do if our team size suddenly doubled. Probably celebrate in public, and cry ourselves to sleep at night trying to figure out how to handle it all.

Yes, there is a lot of stuff people can do on the team. However, how many people can you really support with work throughout the season? Even if you go for all the awards and do all of the "side" work like animation and website, you get to a point where you simply have too many people on a task for it to go smoothly. You can only fit so many people in a shop or around a robot. Each team needs to be able to determine what the appropriate size is for their team - a size they can successfully manage and run. If that means they have to turn some people away each year, then that's tough. Really tough. How do you make that decision?

Well, you start with an application process. You put questions on it and list your expectations for the team. You do your best to design the application to ensure you have as many kids involved as you can manage, and that you're picking the kids who will best support the team throughout the season.

Lets play some hypothetical number games here. Lets say you've determined that you can only support 50 kids on your team, but you have 100 that apply every year. Well, if you require that they're not involved in any other activities during the build season, you can weed out basketball players, theater members, etc. Say that's 30 kids. Now, you require their attendance in off-season events, workshops, and summer camps. You've just lost another 10 kids. You require certain grade levels. There's another 5. By requiring these things, you're helping to narrow down the selection pool to a manageable level, without having the possibility of "playing favorites". This gives you something very clear and obvious to point to when parents complain, and you can have good, scripted descriptions of why each item is necessary. For example, "I'm sorry Mrs. Jones, but we had to deny Timmy's application because he plays basketball. As I'm sure you understand, Basketball takes up a lot of time, but so does robotics. We meet for about 20 hours a week, and many of those meetings conflict with the Basketball practice schedule. With so many students applying to the robotics team each year, we want to make sure that we can provide an environment for those who can be truly dedicated and get the most out of this opportunity."

So, what about fee's? Our team has a fee. A lot of teams have fees. There are fee's to play on sports teams, be a member of the marching band, debate club, or other organizations. They're called activity fees and are fairly common for a lot of different things at schools, especially those that cost money to operate. If you ask for a $200 activity fee each year, just tell the students and parents what they get for it - several hundred hours of interaction, teaching, and experience with professional engineers. You won't even get that paying tens of thousands of dollars each year at college. Most schools also have funds or other ways for financially challenged students to join teams.


In short, how teams manage who joins and who doesn't is really up to the team. There are way to many considerations to be able to look in from outside and say they're doing it wrong. We have some guidelines for students in terms of being allowed to travel with the team or letter, and it's really tough every time you have to give a student "bad news". Just making the decisions is tough. That's why we build our guidelines to be as black and white as possible, which appears to be what you saw.

[Mongai]

Our team is built on interest. Our coaches founded this team based on the stance that everyone should get a chance to learn about machining, design, and programming as well as other skills that make a business work like public relations and media. It wasn't founded to win every regional or to win every award (although it is a goal our team sets and meets almost every year). If a person doesn't seem to be interested at all, they usually leave within the first couple days of our meetings, so it fixes itself.

Of course, that's what FIRST is all about: to spur interest.

[Garret]

I am noticing two main groups. The first group thinks that FIRST is about inspiration, from what I have interpreted their stance is that any student should be able to gain the benefits of the program regardless of competing time interests. The second group seems to be looking at it from a logistics and more pragmatic point of view. I see the first group as still believing in the more, for lack of a better term, "Utopian" interpretation of FIRST as an organization; as a result it seem that they strive to meet this goal. I believe the second group holds the same beliefs as well, and I also believe that they strive to meet that goal. However I think that what is forgotten about the second group is that a majority of them are people who have volunteered countless hours of their time to give these opportunities to students, and in my opinion asking them to do more than what they are willing to do is wrong and selfish.

I will use my team as an example again. This past season, we had issue with a student who felt as if he had been wronged because he was not given a leadership position he wanted, there were several reasons for this, however, that same student had not been to a single meeting the entire fall (they were in marching band which conflicts with the schedule). The student who received the position was a student who had been to every meeting up until then. I think that it would have been unfair to the student who did the work if we had given the position to someone else who hadn't been there. In a sense I think this situation is similar to the one the OP mentioned. From these types of experiences dealing with students (and parents) I have seen that a lot of them want to get all of the benefit of the program without doing any of the real work that it takes (many of them are completely ignorant of the time and money it takes to run a team).

When I first joined CD I would have been on the opposite side of this arguing about how terrible these teams are that don't allow everyone on the team who wants to be. I have since learned how naive and inexperienced I was to believe something like that. I feel confident saying that there is not one FIRST team out there that has the goal of uninspiring students.

[EricH]

I'm going to go hypothetical for a minute. If I was a team leader, this is what I would have, either on the application or in a team handbook that everyone had to read before joining (and trust me, there would be a team handbook!). Turning away students would only happen if there was a severe need to do so (and in such a case, I would try to point them to another FRC/FTC/VRC team in the area).

1) Contact information/Emergency contact information. So I can get in touch with you, or call for your parents, should I need to.
2) What other activities you're in. (Who do I need to coordinate with on whether you should show up at robotics or take an excused absense?)
3) What part(s) of the team are you interested in?
4) Do you agree to the team rules laid out in the team handbook?

And the team handbook would include the following:

• Grade policy. Basically, if you're failing classes, you're going to be spending team meetings studying.
• Conduct policy. (curfews, expellable behavior, dress code at competitions)
• Attendance policy. In essence, attend a certain percentage of meetings, or have a valid excuse to not be at said meetings (other activity, medical/family emergency, major project in school)
• Travel requirements--take everyone, assuming that they aren't under grade/attendance/conduct restrictions, and if there's a major conduct violation, the offender gets sent home early.

Again, this is what I'd put in an application/handbook. Fees and scholarships and the like would ideally be dealt with by fundraising participation (set out in the handbook).



For the OP: the only things that I saw in that summary that I would object to were the strict attendance/commitment (can't leave early/can't have another activity) and the fee to join. If the attendance/commitment were on a case-by-case basis--that is, you can leave early if you have a good reason, and we have an issue with this activity you're in--I wouldn't have a problem with it. (If it's school policy that students can only be in one activity at a time... well, I don't think that school would be too popular with parents.) The fee to join I can see in some cases; it would depend on the fee. But by stating it as stated, it does seem a bit inflexible.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Garret

However I think that what is forgotten about the second group is that a majority of them are people who have volunteered countless hours of their time to give these opportunities to students, and in my opinion asking them to do more than what they are willing to do is wrong and selfish.

You are wise beyond your years.

[daniel_dsouza]

If you were in Arizona, I'd invite him to join our team!

Back to the OP's question. Our club is based out of our school, and we therefore have to abide by school rules (like the school is completely closed on Sundays). The main rule is that, unlike school sports, "[our club] cannot cut anybody from the club based on qualifiers or tryouts." Our teacher/sponsor can ask people to leave and never come back, but only if he as a compelling reason (damage of property, danger to himself and others, etc.)

Club rules aside, I(club president) would never put restrictions on who could join our team. I have found that some of our best members have varied interests, and are often called away because of band, sports, or volunteer work. Anyone can apply to be an officer, or be part of the drive team. And despite being a lower budget club, we don't demand any payment. Although we do ask that club members take advantage of Arizona's school-friendly tax credit laws. (you give us $400, and get your money back from taxes.) While our nonexistent sieve for new members might hinder our chances of building the best robot, the important thing is that our members benefit from the FIRST experience and take something away that will help them in their future lives.

I hope your friend finds a team.

Disclaimer: the situation for our team is that we are understaffed, even with two schools feeding our team.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by daniel_dsouza

While our nonexistent sieve for new members might hinder our chances of building the best robot, the important thing is that our members benefit from the FIRST experience and take something away that will help them in their future lives.

It has nothing to do with building the best robot. It is all about ensuring that the students are safe and making sure they take away the right lessons from the program. I guess if you really wanted to sum it up succinctly, it's about building the best environment for students to grow.

[Euriiko]

Hi everyone,

To begin with, I am personally a member of this team whose policies you are bashing. I am here to address your concerns.

I have been on this team for 3 years, and never has anyone been removed because they were involved in sports, band, choir, etc. I have a friend that is greatly involved in both band, choir, and theater. The mentors understand and appreciate every single moment she can spare for Robotics. We never prevent anyone from joining the team because they are busy.

Rather, we let each member be the judge of their own schedule. One of my friends was balancing AP US History, Robotics, Piano, and Business Professionals of America. The team did not ask her to leave. She participated rarely, but we did not dismiss her. She eventually decided that it was too busy and stressful for her, so she resigned. Resigned.Not kicked off.

Also, about the long 6 pages, I agree, that might have not been necessary, but this was written by one of our teachers. She is a wonderful woman who does her best to stay organized. 6 pages suits her. She writes it like a code of conduct, I realize. And I hope you who are reading this understand that a code of conduct is meant for the good of the team. And be aware that many school districts' code of conducts are 50-100 pages long.

When you said, we should accept everyone,

"not just those who you think keep the image of your team you want"

I need to clarify something.
Our team comes from a huge public school with about 1700 students. Each year, we have many, many applications, far too many to be able to admit every student. Why limit? There are several reasons.
1) We have only a few mentors, and the mentor to student ratio would be unbalanced, if we were to let everyone in. Too many students, in this case, would not learn efficiently and the team wouldn't function well. (Imagine one mentor to 20 students! "mentor" itself implies a small group of mentees)
2) We do not have enough funds. You have suggested we find more sponsors. This is, unfortunately, easier said and done. As of now, our Public Relations team has been recovering from losing half its group to graduation, leaving them with half the hands they originally have. As for me, I would love to find more sponsors. Please don't judge the team in general; please consider the individual aspect. I really wish other teams would share their own business and entrepreneurship plans that they have; that is one area I admit we are lacking in. I wish someone in this thread would post helpful suggestions, rather than repetitive criticism.
3) We need to see who really has their heart in the matter. You all know as well as I do that there are far more people who do not care about science and math and technology that those who do. My team is eager to change that. But doesn't it make sense to change 40 students' minds about science and technology than hardly change 90 students' minds? Just food for thought.

Our mentors are extremely kind and patient. Last year, my parents were late to pick me up almost every night of the week. They waited and talked with me. Of course they'd reprimand me for being late to leave, but no one ever gets dismissed from that. Please realize that what you read on the paper is not how it actually is. We make exceptions. I'm genuinely sorry about how harsh that application may have come across. I had no control over how it was written as a member. I wish members were able to write it, because as direct participants, we know the real story.

To punish a child because of their parents or prior obligation is a slap in the face to FIRST.

As I said before, this is not true. We do not punish students because of their parents or prior obligation. We have emails requesting additional help for serving/arranging meals, or transportation to certain events. Unfortunately, our school does not support our team in such a way that we would be independent of parental help. It's nothing we can control.
Also, I have taken Chinese classes on Saturdays, for two years of my three years in Robotics. I had to miss the majority of Saturdays, the most important build day of the week. No one scolded me or reprimanded me. The mentors are very understanding. They know that we have other things that matter to us. It would be a folly to assume that Robotics took precedent over everything else in life.

Also, please don't interpret the parent section as you did,

The parents section pretty much asks,"How much time are you willing to take out of your life so your kid can join our team?"

My mom and dad have four kids including me, one who is autistic. All of us are involved in various activities, including piano, violin, flute, tennis, gymnastics, Chinese school, and dance. It is nearly impossible for either my mom or my dad to help out in fundraisers. This is no "punishment". To have punishment is ridiculous. The extent of how much my parents can contribute to the team has never been a limiting factor, and never will.

But for a child to be denied because of that, is simply ungracious.

I do understand and empathize with your point of view on my team's application. But please pause for a moment and consider how you have handled your anger and frustration.
It might have been better to contact my team about our policies, rather than interpreting the application yourself. I have reread the application, and I can see how it must have sounded to you. I apologize. I wish I could have been in charge of writing the application, so it was more close to the true way we run things around here.

If the team wanted something in specific, we did a fundraiser for it. These techniques teach kids a good work ethic.

Yes, we fundraiser year-round, as much as possible, because we know how things are tight these days. We want to reduce student cost as much as possible. And to be honest, Robotics has indeed strengthened my work ethic. Some of the best memories I have are formed during team fundraising. It's a kind of team bonding that also gives us practice on teamwork. It's also really fun.

In a public school, how dare you put a fee on joining an EDUCATIONAL organization. The kids on your team are NOT I repeat are NOT a fundraiser. To exploit them for more money is simply outlandish.

Sorry, but exploiting? I feel that is rather harsh for you to say, considering you do not know my team personally. The negative connotation you have used has me almost on the verge of tears. We can't help it if our school doesn't take Robotics as seriously as we do! It's not in our power, please realize that!

I am just so devastated that your girlfriend's little brother may not even try out for my team, due to the negative impression you have. Your impression is not wrong, I just feel you have have overreacted and judged my team just at the surface level. Please don't judge a team by its application. Have you talked to any of my team members? My mentees? Have you even looked at our website?

If it's not too late, please tell your girlfriend's little brother to apply for my team. It's an amazing team, the reason why I want to pursue engineering in college. It's allowed me to expand my horizons, to visualize, to dream, to see the world in an entirely new light. I've made some great friends on my team, friends that support me as we all learn together. If I could live a thousand lifetimes, I would spend it with Robotics, trying out every single department, trying out mechanical build, electrical build, field build, programming, public relations, CAD design, and more. I love my team.

I am also happy for your team, that you have the miraculous capacity to be able to accept everyone who applies. It breaks my heart when we cannot accept everyone who applies due to our lack of mentors and funds. It's not something we can change right away, but something we are working towards improving.

If you know of anyone who is interested in mentoring, please contact our team. I respect JustAThought's refusal to not release team names, but I feel that it would have been better to be straightforward and know exactly who is who. If you would like to ask me any questions, my email is kelly_yu_2013@yahoo.com.

[bduddy]

^ Euriiko: While you ask the OP not to judge a team by its application, that is an obvious first point of contact and it seems like you would agree that there were parts on it that 1) do not properly represent your team and 2) the OP understandably found objectionable. While I'm sure that the teacher who wrote that applciation meant well, is it possible that you might produce one that better reflects your team by bringing these types of concerns to her attention, and perhaps by having your whole team work together on a new one?

[brennonbrimhall]

Every team has the duty to strike the right balance between having a productive, respectful, and robot-oriented atmosphere and reaching out.

I won't lie and say that these are easy choices to make. Each team has to make these decisions for themselves – every team is unique. However, I would also be lying if I said that either unregulated team membership or stifling applications are the best routes.

With Team 20's 80 some odd students, we have a difficult challenge of promoting intra-team communication, and getting all hands on deck. We are expecting even more students next year. Don't get me wrong – it's great to have that challenge, and it's wonderful to have that many interested and committed students with us. Inevitably, though, by build season, we boil down to a core group of people who are willing to put in the time and the effort.

On one hand, it would make sense to have an interview process or to have them get letters of recommendation from a non-family member. But in my case, I might never have had the chance to catch FIRST-fever if that had been in place. There will always be some who will go the extra mile, and those that don't. Knowing that, making the balance will always be a challenge that no team should have the slightest degree of complacency for.

We have awesome mentors – and from my perspective, it would be the utmost disrespect and disservice to them to not be the most committed, dedicated, and ready-to-learn student I can be. I am amazed at how much time each of them set aside from their comfortable lives to spend time with a bunch of crazy teenagers. I think every student has a duty to be as involved as they can.

When all is said and done, FIRST is an awesome experience about a dedicated group of professionals and students setting aside something good for something far better and much more rewarding.