How to Get New Members to Stay?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I sympathize with this, but I can't really agree with it. Our team safety rules -- and, one would hope, our team safety culture -- make tools off limits to students until they have been trained in using them properly. No building will happen before safety has been fully addressed.

There are no shop rules preventing people from driving robots, though.

I have to agree with this. However, there are different ways to approach safety that can be more or less fun. One year, we went a little overboard... watched videos on safe shop usage, had a rather long written test. It was a very boring meeting all around, with bad feedback from the students. So, now we do more of an individual hands-on approach. Basically, students are told they aren't allowed to touch a tool until they've had a primer on it from a mentor, then we start working on something. It means I might have to explain proper use and safety features of the bandsaw 5 times that first night, but the students get a better experience, have a little more fun, and get used to coming to us mentors when they need something! It also conditions us mentors to always ask "have you used this tool before?" when we're helping a student - the answer then lets us go into safety features more in depth when needed!