New Rookie Team-Los Angeles-Advice

[Pauline Tasci]

Hey everyone,
I'm helping start a new team in Santa Fe Springs, California.
I've been involved in FIRST for a very very long time and have been reading up on some grants and sponsors for the team and how to really get the team started.
But organization wise, I was wondering what you teams use to communicate with team members, how to start the training process (we work out of a company with all the tools we need), how to get parents involved, and any other advice for rookie teams.

Thank you so much!
Also if you are near the area, we would love some help! Feel free to contact me. Thanks!

[logank013]

Our team can communicate pretty easily. We use twitter to communicate. Most of us don't actually go on twitter but, we can get texts from twitter. So whenever the communication account tweets, we all get texts with what the tweet says. It usually works out well for us.

[SenorZ]

Pauline,
Nice to see a new team starting in that area. I taught at El Rancho HS up the street from Santa Fe Springs for 8 years, and mentored a team there for 2. Getting a company to allow the team to work off campus is a HUGE plus, and having tools available is a HUGE ++.

For our team we have been using google groups to email students. I am going to start using Remind to send texts too. Here is our general process:

1. Google form to collect Name, Email, and Grade level (also do this for mentors and for parents)
2. Make Google Group for each grade level (I do this to allow for targeted emails). I give them names like "viking-robotics-co2016" (for the class of 2016) so students keep the same group throughout HS.
3. I then make sure the posting preferences for the groups allow anyone to send an email to it, thus avoiding most spam filter issues.
4. And new for this year I sent out a Remind.com invite to those student groups. Now I can send a quick text to everyone about meetings, etc.

A couple of issues with google groups is you can only add 10 users at a time, and sometimes a non-member of a group, like a parent, will have their message send to spam regardless of my settings.

Hope this helps. Any questions, ask me or Madhav.

[sanddrag]

Your location is the envy of every team, since you are down the street from McMaster Carr and can Will Call pickup any time.

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Your location is the envy of every team, since you are down the street from McMaster Carr and can Will Call pickup any time.

Yea, the head mentor is very excited about the short drive and no paying for shipping

[Gregor]

Here's a recent thread on the communication topic:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=communication

[meow-its-sarah]

My team is nowhere near yours, (Georgia is a long ways away from California) but I can definitely give you advice for communicating with the team members/parents as well as general advice.

1. The team mostly uses GroupMe to plan/ tell people when meetings and to discuss FRC-related news, since (most of) the team is near their phones all of the time. It works well because it works on all platforms (phone/tablet/laptop) and can even just be a MMS group message for people that don't have the app. It also works well at and traveling competitions to communicate since it is quick and easy to send messages and locations in the app. There is also a parent GroupMe, but it's used just for competitions.
   
2. Emailing major updates works well for parents, since they check their emails often and etc.
   
3. Google Calendar is good to use for events/meetings.
   
4. Getting parents involved is not as complicated as one may think; simply invite them to attend the first few meetings and ask where they want to contribute. Most of the time, they really do want to help, but just don't know where they could help/ how to approach asking about it. Inviting them to any events, off-season or on-season, will also foster a want to help the team. We never explicitly invited parents to the competitions until worlds this year, and know they have wanted to become very involved.
   
5. Take advantage of your off-season! Our team hasn't and we (at least I) regret it. You can use this time to come up with a budget, do your fundraising/ sponsor-finding, t-shirt designing and printing, and teaching students all about wiring/programming/mechanical stuff to prepare yourselves for the on-season.
   
6. Don't try to do everything. Get really good at a couple things thing and then move on to the rest!

I wish your new team the best of luck and know that we're all jealous of your awesome location!

[GeeTwo]

Team communication has several key points:

1. Information sent from the team captains/lead mentors to the whole team
2. Coordination across each department/division/whatever you use
3. Feedback/commentary from team members
4. project management (and a team always has multiple mostly independent projects going)
5. Detailed conversation (give and take) within each project that eventually leads to decisions

You may very well find some additional tracks you need to add, but at a minimum, ensure that your team intra-communication supports the cases above. Remember that an effective communications plan means that:

1. Everyone who needs to know information gets it, in a timely manner
2. Very few people who do not need to know information get it

How to meet these requirements simultaneously is something I will admit straight up that I do not know how to do in any general sense, but that I have always worked towards, both professionally and as an FRC mentor. Rank #1 above #2, but absolutely don't ignore #2 - everyone has a personal information overload threshold. Once you cross that, people stop getting the information they need to know.

[EricH]

Not related to communication at all, but...

You guys are planning to show up at the Fall Classic, right?

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by EricH

Not related to communication at all, but...

You guys are planning to show up at the Fall Classic, right?

Yes. The team is planning to attend with a kop drive base and possible topper or grabber.