How to Get New Members to Stay?

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

Its a robotics team, no different from a sports team. If you miss practice you sit on the bench. No one signs up for Volleyball and Cross-country at the same time (assuming they're in the same season), so the same should be with robotics (assume robotics is a winter sport with a winter season).

This.
Robotics should be treated as a winter sport with some stuff during the spring summer and fall. When students come up to me apologizing for not going saying they were too busy with swimming. I tell them if they want to gain responsibility they have to choose. Some do some don't. This year I want to have a parents meeting early on where we explain to the parents the time commitment that way they know their kid can't sign up for a sport in the winter.