Help for Second Year Team

[xitaqua]

Hello,

I am with Mark Chew Academy, and we advise teams on robotics. I am having a call with a robotics coach from St. Louis Public Schools, and you might benefit from the conversation, the telecom is on 8:30PM Central this Monday - December 10, if interested in participating, send me a PM and I will send you more info.

In the meantime I suggest have everyone on the team put some skin on the game, by having a season membership due from $1 to $500. I would suggest $1 for coach,$5 student leaders, $10 for students non-leaders in the team and $20 for mentors.

Feel free to check us out on Facebook and like us: "Mark Chew Academy".

Cheers,
Mark.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

In the meantime I suggest have everyone on the team put some skin on the game, by having a season membership due from $1 to $500. I would suggest $1 for coach,$5 student leaders, $10 for students non-leaders in the team and $20 for mentors.

Has this been shown to work in your experience? I fail to see how chipping in a few dollars will be a major factor in changing team dynamics. This isn't any different than typical club dues. Taking students to the next level and encouraging them to adopt the mindset that robotics is far more than "just another club" requires something other than nominal capital investment.

Sidenote: we do charge a $100 fee for all team members (those with difficult financial situations are able to get assistance). However I don't consider this a major factor in a students' motivation or commitment.

[McGurky]

Brendan,

I want to extend this message to you because I want to make sure that you know you are not alone in this difficult decision.

My first season on my FRC team we had 8 members, 5 of which where seniors, whose mentality was pretty much "I do not care about the future of the team". When they graduated, we had 3 students the next year, and the other two had very little interest in leading the team. On top of that we had lost all but one of our sponsorship due to the downturn in the economy as well as the loss of support from our school when our lead adviser had to step down due to family conflicts.

Having had the time and experience of a lifetime my freshman year, I knew I needed to step up to the plate to ensure the sustainability of our team.

That year I was the team president, treasurer, lead builder and pretty much every leadership role the team could possible have. Not because I was greedy but because they needed to get done, and I was the only one who wanted & needed the team to succeed.

There is only one thing that kept me going, and that was shear passion for FRC. It was not that I was an excellent leader, it was not that I had a lot of experience, I just wanted really bad for the team to succeed. I certainly made a lot of poor decisions, and our team was not perfect the next year, but we were able to build up the size to 8 people again, and gain funding due to a sustaining NASA Grant.

After that year, our teams focus was on sustainability and strength. We worked really hard to gain back the support of the school, gain funding and gain membership.

Now, only 3 seasons later, this team is 40 members strong, and excels in a lot of areas.

You obviously have a lot of passion for what you are doing, and that passion will lead you to success if you want it too. The barriers that you are seeing can easily be broken!

Through all of this I learned a few lessons that could help you

-Fundraising is a team effort all year round
-Get your school involved
-Establish a great team of people to work around
-Do not be afraid to ask for help, and thank them at every opportunity
-Hand written notes/letters to your key team supporters goes a long way
-Look to your freshman as the leaders of the team, and do everything you can to empower them to lead. As when you leave, they will be doing what you do.
-Community, community, community... get your name out there, do every demo you can.
-Focus on what your team CAN accomplish this season, then next season build upon it, do not let the stronger teams in FRC intimidate you. A few years of hard work and your team could be among them.
-Always have food at the meetings (seriously, its a great motivator)


Please send me a PM if I can be of any specific assistance to your team!

-Kyle

[Mr.Frishman]

Team 3999(Shadetree Mechanics) was in the same position as you last year. We are not funded by the local school district and we get all of our funding from outside sources. Grants are not given easily and I would say to try for them as much as possible. I can also tell you from experience that they should not be your only source of funding. Activities take place all throughout the year on our team and we always try to be sure that we end the year with enough money to enter our regional in the following season. Local sponsors must be made aware of your team and what your goals and expectations are. We will compete in 2013 and still have enough left to pay for registration in 2014. Thats what fundraising does for you.

[xitaqua]

Dcarr,

Great point, the key is not charging on a fee but give then an opportunity to contribute financially for the team so the team has "ownership".

And I usually do not say it as a "fee" but have it be implemented differently depending the circumstances.

For a new team like in this case for Chicago, I would have everyone bring a "snack" in the value of $10 as their contribution and set a rotating schedule. And have the mentors provide a pizza party to the team at the end if everyone brought food at the working meetings.

The one thing that work for us is having the telecoms, as we work one to one with the mentors and coach and get the nuanced information for us to be able to provide good advise and be able to support the team on the long term, everything else is "dynamic", we haven't be able to give advise that works for every team, we provide advise on case by case......

We have two main paths for robotics: Clubs ( Build Demo Robots) and Teams (Build Competition Robots). We usually like to start with students on elementary schools as club and as clubs mature go to teams....

Originally Posted by dcarr

Has this been shown to work in your experience? I fail to see how chipping in a few dollars will be a major factor in changing team dynamics. This isn't any different than typical club dues. Taking students to the next level and encouraging them to adopt the mindset that robotics is far more than "just another club" requires something other than nominal capital investment.

Sidenote: we do charge a $100 fee for all team members (those with difficult financial situations are able to get assistance). However I don't consider this a major factor in a students' motivation or commitment.

[Billfred]

I've been on and around a lot of teams over nine seasons--teams that have hung banners and teams that won a thing--and I believe that a competitive, successful, sustainable team starts at the top and draws the buy-in from the rank and file.

When 2815 started in 2009, we had an all-star mentor team led by Stephen Kowski (previously of 312, 1369, and 1902) and Donn Griffith (previously of 343 and once FVC Director). If you could go pro in the most literal sense in FRC, these would be your guys. Both had robots on Einstein in their past, and more banners than I have wall space. It went for two great seasons--five judged awards, Palmetto silver in 2009, seeding 11th on Curie as rookies--then graduation and job pressures caused them to have to pull away from the team.

Who was left? Three teachers, about a dozen kids, and a schlub with a marketing degree (that would be me). But, we had the mindset that this team is going to contend for the title every single year. The robot wasn't nearly as pretty that year, but it put us on a new level: two-time regional champion.

The year after that, we lost a teacher and some of our blue-chip kids as they spun off their own team. Plus, our entire drive team graduated. Even worse, we barely even got a slot at Peachtree and had to grind for the money. (Fortunately, our teacher is a beast at grants.) The robot looked marginally better and ran far better than its predecessor. It took the backup gods smiling upon us, but we still managed to be the first team to walk into Palmetto as the defending champion and do it again.

Now we're on the precipice of the 2013 season, and we lost our main teacher and a second one, our lead student programmer, our driver (yes, again), and our lead college student is a senior with the classwork that goes with that. However, none of these people have left without instilling what I think is the essential element of our team: no matter what is broken, no matter who you're playing, no matter where we are in the standings, you get that robot ready, go out there, and win anyway.

It sounds like at this point, you are the top. Get your core group together and get them fired up for the season. EWCPcasts, old match footage of The Blue Alliance, shine up the old robot, heck get on the tables and start Sandstorming on Kickoff morning. (It works for us.)

But if you get that four or five together, and they each bring a lackey/minion/friend/underclassman with them, you start the seed of something. That can lead in whatever direction your team chooses to pursue--regional titles, Chairman's, technical awards, expanded mentorship, even just getting into a second regional or making eliminations. With your current position and resources, some of those goals will be more attainable than others in 2013. Keep building your base, start doing side events for fun or profit, and it's all possible.

[Moriarty]

Thank you all very much for the advice. I must say the response time and quality of posts on this forum is excellent, very befitting of FIRST.

At some point I will probably take a few days mulling it over and organizing what would be best for our team (after the FTC state competition tomorrow our team will be in full FRC mode).

Another hardship of the team is travel time -- We are a "magnet" high school which means that our students live across the city and often have a very long commute. Any suggestions on working this out?

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by Moriarty

Another hardship of the team is travel time -- We are a "magnet" high school which means that our students live across the city and often have a very long commute. Any suggestions on working this out?

Try to consolidate your build days - it will mean long nights, but it will be easier for everyone in the long run with less travel time.

Perhaps make it just two or three days after school during the week, then long days on Saturday. And, encourage kids to carpool when possible.

Good luck with everything, we are here to help! Let us know how it goes and if you need anything.