Problems Facing Rookie Teams

[cjrazdar15]

Going along with getting a teacher to be a sit-in mentor only, you can really use that situation to funnel in the teacher to become a full-fledged mentor. You MUST realize that having a sit-in only teacher is not a permanent fix; although that is a solution, sustainability cannot be assured if there is always that possibility of the teacher simply dropping. However, if you do obtain a sit-in teacher, it would be a great idea to try to pull them into the team - very slowly of course. Start asking them to come to some events, maybe even tempt them to lead some... They will surely become a major asset to your team, and the team will become a major asset to them.

[CENTURION]

Originally Posted by cjrazdar15

Going along with getting a teacher to be a sit-in mentor only, you can really use that situation to funnel in the teacher to become a full-fledged mentor. You MUST realize that having a sit-in only teacher is not a permanent fix; although that is a solution, sustainability cannot be assured if there is always that possibility of the teacher simply dropping. However, if you do obtain a sit-in teacher, it would be a great idea to try to pull them into the team - very slowly of course. Start asking them to come to some events, maybe even tempt them to lead some... They will surely become a major asset to your team, and the team will become a major asset to them.

This is absolutely correct, and I should have mentioned it when I posted before. Unless you get the supervising teacher involved, and at least somewhat interested in the team, they'll eventually dislike showing up just to sit around, which is not a good situation.

[Clem1640]

We lost our teacher/mentor in 2008 and ultimately went independent. I do not recommend this approach (it's really rough and requires very high adult personal commitment), but we have made it work, at least so far (sustainability is always an issue).

Our founder and head mentor was forced to leave the team and teaching for health reason in the middle of the 2008 build season. We had a "sit and watch" replacement for the remainder of the 2008 season, but after this we needed to find a new home. We tried but failed to recruit a teacher/mentor to replace our founder. We had school board and school administration support in this effort, but it failed anyway.

Since then, we incorporated. We hold our own liability insurance. We rely on donated space (and we move frequently as a consequence - last time between Christmas & New Years (Yikes!)). The FRC team is competent (making it to Einstein for the first time this year). We've grown our program, operate 6 FLL teams and last year hosted an FLL scrimmage and qualifier.

The team retains a very close relationship with the local school board and school administration. They appreciate but do not (and can not) support us.

But this is a hard road. Work with your school if you can.

[bduddy]

You don't necessarily need to look for one teacher who can attend every meeting; it's not surprising that that's a pretty big commitment for teachers that may not even know much about FIRST. Maybe you could try looking for one teacher to come in on each day you normally meet, and then try to figure out build time later... My team did that last year, and while it may not be optimal it worked out OK.

[gluxon]

My team held an open house at the beginning of the year. Parents, Board of Ed, and all the teachers were invited (even from our middle school). We prepared by making our warehouse extra spiffy and had each committee (or sub-team) head present the tasks they carried to move the team along. If you get one or two teachers to help over-see this, you could probably get more thereafter.

I have to ask now. How broad is your team? I'm sure that by opening up the tasks your team does, you can get more teachers interested. Somehow, teachers on my team seem to come in from completely different sides of the "science" field. An english teacher comes in occasionally to lend a help with Woodie Flowers and Chairman's. The school art teacher is a regular and helps with t-shirt design, crafting, etc. As a rookie team, I think it would be great to start looking at how other tasks can help improve the robot other than controls and mechanical.

Another question, how many teachers have you directly approached and asked for their support? Ask them directly what you would like them to do. An art teacher may be intimidated by "robots", but explain what they could help with.

Let us know how this goes.