Pros/Cons for making our Robotics Team selective?

[Monochron]

We do not have a selective team, but have discussed it with other teams. If we were to implement requirements they would probably go something like this

1. After 1st or 2nd meeting give out simple "homework" for all students after each meeting. Something as simple as "you will receive an email from me this week. Respond to that email." You might be surprised how many students won't manage to reply.
   • Each homework should be something basic like that, but should require effort. Something like, research any type of fastener and talk about 3 uses for it to the whole team.
   • Homeworks completed (but not quality) should factor into who you accept. As long as they participate, they are welcome to come and be educated.
2. Off season attendance higher than 50% of meetings. (It's great to have other extra-curriculars, but students who regularly miss meetings can end up so far behind that they are a detriment to the other students)
3. Keep track of student participation and work ethic during meetings.
4. At the start of the season (Aug / Sept.) announce a specific number of students that will be added to the team. This can be flexible in the end, but a hard and fast number makes it clear early.

That probably needs some tweaking but it's a good start. The key for us would be that we aren't barring people based on aptitude or "ability", we are barring them based on attitude and willingness to work as a team. Those are the qualities that can make or break a team. And students without them often negatively effect the whole team.

[sonichammer7476]

Our team has an application to be filled out and turned in (in April I believe?) and then our mentors go through the applications and select next year's team. Everyone wishing to be on the next year team must fill out the application, even past team members. The following information is what I set understand to be how our selective process works (as I am entering in my 3rd year as an FRC member):

After the application process, the team is selected and we have a meeting in the summer to get acquainted and cookout and explain what is expected when being apart of this team. Make sure people know the important stuff such as the fact that they will not be able to participate in any winter sports, such as baseball or basketball (this in itself weeds out many). We explain just how difficult and intense the build will be, but also that there is plenty of fun. We have some meetings throughout the fall, along with the beginnings of our driver tryouts. These meetings aren't mandatory, but they are very educational to new people. Again, this allows more people to drop if they'd like.

However, we try to select people that we believe will not drop out. Most people that have been on the team stay on the team unless they give good reason not to be. Even others, including myself, have non productive first years, but if the mentors believe these students have potential, they are given another year to prove themselves (I did in my second year after a rough first year, and here I am entering my 3rd year). We select based on what the students are interested in and what fields we need more people in. We try not to select senior rookies, as we do not want to become senior heavy and lose all of our experience and men at once. We do select them if we need immediate help in these areas. We try to keep it pretty level on the students benefiting the team and the team benefiting the students. Ultimately, all the students will benefit from the team, but not all students will benefit the team. And I have already said how to get rid of them.

Having a selective process is very important to creating a competitive team. I hope you find your selective process and that your team will prosper from it.

[Jon Stratis]

In my view, becoming a selective team is one very specific solution to a couple of problems - there are other solutions out there to those problems, though! Becoming selective means you have a smaller team that is (hopefully) more dedicated. But it also means that your message of inspiration reaches fewer people. In my experience, sometimes those students who show up with no passion for it (because their parents made them, for example) discover something they love and become passionate after that first year. Other times, students may not outwardly show much dedication or attention during meetings, but you find out later that the team had a huge influence on what they decide to major in.

Unless you have problems with the size of the team, I wouldn't become selective just to solve a commitment issue. Instead, work with the team to figure out how to better engage everyone and to change your internal team culture. My team had a commitment issue a few years back - our fall program was so poorly attended that the mentors outnumbered the students most nights!. We've since moved past that issue, and our fall program this year has almost been overwhelming for the mentors to try and manage so many students. You trade one problem for another, it seems!

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Unless you have problems with the size of the team, I wouldn't become selective just to solve a commitment issue.

Agreed. We started tryouts because we had too many people for our spaces and mentors. We selected based on interest and attitude, which helps the inspiration going both ways (to the student, and from the student). Becoming more competitive as a result was a side effect which helps inspire more of the school than just those on the team.

[DonShaw]

Why I fully understand the issue of some students not participating at 100% or even less look at the mission statement of First:

"Mission

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."


If you notice there nothing about building robots mentioned, but only mentions building skills and that can be accomplished by just observing and being present.

We have many students who do not actively participate but at times come out of the blue with a great a concept, so why would you want to stifle that? I feel it may take some kids three years to come out of their shell before they get really active.

So I say limiting kids is not a good thing unless you just can not contain them in your facility space.

I agree with the earlier post they will self limit if it is not for them.

We are a varsity lettering program and the kids that do not actively contribute in some manner do not get letters. We monitor time and attendance and have many other requirements they must meet to earn the letter. This actually had to be approved by the school system and is subject to monitoring.

Yes, it can be frustrating seeing student not participating but you have to try to engage them and understand why they are not active.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by DonShaw

We have many students who do not actively participate but at times come out of the blue with a great a concept, so why would you want to stifle that? I feel it may take some kids three years to come out of their shell before they get really active.

This is exactly what happened to me. My freshman and sophomore years, I was not exactly the most active contributor to my team. However, my junior year, something clicked in my head and I realized that I wanted to make a difference on my team. I threw myself into my work on 1257, co-founding and co-leading our Strategy/Scouting subteam, leading the team at-large as president, and doing a bunch of other things across the team.

Some kids take longer than others to express talent. Just being with the team at the right time can allow this talent to expressed. Selectivity should be employed when the number of students becomes a detriment to the impact of the program.

[kd008702]

Sorry for the long rambling post, maybe you can get something from it(I hope).

For the last 3 years our team has been selective, not by choice but because of necessity. We started 9 years ago with 7 students 1 high school, we now have all 8 county high schools, 2 private schools , and home schoolers involved in our program. We had 176 students go out for the team this year. We have gotten so big that we started a 2nd team to keep more students involved. We take about 35 students per team. We have a selection process that starts in September and goes thru November. This is all in the student manual, that the students must sign along with the parents signature. We only meet 1 night a week from September to November. We drop students that don't show up after 3 meetings. Then we start looking at student participation during the meetings, we also look and see who is coming out to our out reach programs (We have something going on at least once thru the week and every weekend we have something going on) This year alone i have 6 veterans that are well below the cut off mark and will not be making the team because the could not commit. Its a tough decision and unfortunate one, but because of mentor resources it is just not safe to take on more students.
It's not about taking the best of the best, it's about taking the ones that are willing to commit the time and effort now not just latter. We find that the ones that make the commitment now actually work harder and better when the real fun starts.
In the end if you do go selective, put out the information for what you are looking for in the students, put it in writing because there will be parents that are going to complain about their supper dupper student not making the teh team and will want to know why. As in all things document, document and document.

[Gdeaver]

On the subject of selectivity. I want to bring up a subject that has and is currently causing big problems for our team. What do teams do about students that apply that have "special needs". We are a private team and we as mentors simply can not handle the needs of some of the students that have been on our team. Last year our inability to handle one student almost destroyed our team. This year our FTC team some how ended up with half the students being in this category. We tried putting questions on the application. Parents lied. Parents of these children tend to be of the steam roller type. I believe the current situation in the school district forces these parent to become very demanding and combative to get the school system to deal with their child. They carry this over to their interactions with our team. We have a good group of mentor and I feel that every year we give students a great experience. However, we are not trained special education educators and I do not volunteer my valuable time to be a baby sitter. The time during meeting that I have to spend to keep control of certain students is detracting my time from the other students. It's not fair. We can't be the only team facing this. How do other team deal with this problem?

[Jessi Kaestle]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

What do teams do about students that apply that have "special needs".

First I want to preface my advice by saying that every school, student, team, and mentor is different. This is what I have found works when I have been in that situation but this might not work for you.

• If you are associated with a school*, check how their IEP (Individual Education Plan) Program works. So to allow the students to be as included as possible most IEP’s have a section to address how the student will participate in extra-curricular activities. In the past I have seen this in the form of the school needing to provide a faculty member trained in special education to the meetings. (*Private schools are not required to provide IEP’s)
• If the IEP does not cover your meeting, see if you can pair each of the special needs students with a more senior team member to be their buddy.
• You can also ask the parents if they would be able to come to the meeting to help ground their child(ren)

I understand that special needs students provide additional challenges, however those students are often greatly benefited by this program, so in my opinion, all avenues should be exhausted before barring a special needs students from the team.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Jessi Kaestle

I understand that special needs students provide additional challenges, however those students are often greatly benefited by this program, so in my opinion, all avenues should be exhausted before barring a special needs students from the team.

THIS.

I can think of at least two teams that are or were almost entirely special-needs students. That's just how their schools are set up--and from what I've heard from one of those coaches, this program is one of the best things they've done in a while. (One of the two, I didn't even notice until they told me.)

[philso]

Originally Posted by Jessi Kaestle

I understand that special needs students provide additional challenges, however those students are often greatly benefited by this program, so in my opinion, all avenues should be exhausted before barring a special needs students from the team.

We had one student the last two seasons, at least, who had some sort of physical difficulties (maybe from childhood polio?). He was not able to do the things that needed fine motor control like drive the robot nor was he able to work on the wiring. It was great to see that the team members "just accepted" him and treated him "normally" without being told to do so. They listened to his ideas when designing and building the robot. The only accommodation they made for him was that someone would always stay with him when we had to walk a long distance to make sure he did not get left behind. He would help pack for tournaments and he would help clean up at the end of the day. There were occasions where we could have him clamp some pieces in the drill press and have him drill the holes or have him turn a wrench. His smiles on these occasions made it all worth while :-)