Convincing athlete to commit to robotics?

[Fusion_Clint]

Do not encourage your student to base life decisions on what colleges may want. Have them base it on what the student wants to do with their life.



Unfortunately, college scholarships and admittance is about ACT/SAT scores and items beyond the students control.

The captain of my FRC team this year; a district honor student (4.0+ GPA and 30 ACT score), soccer team captain, president of the math club. Received far less in scholarships (from the same college) than his brother (one year elder) that coasted through school with an average GPA and a 33 on the ACT. My captain didn't even get the $500 FIRST scholarship the school offers.

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

Do not encourage your student to base life decisions on what colleges may want. Have them base it on what the student wants to do with their life.

Unfortunately, college scholarships and admittance is about ACT/SAT scores and items beyond the students control.

The captain of my FRC team this year; a district honor student (4.0+ GPA and 30 ACT score), soccer team captain, president of the math club. Received far less in scholarships (from the same college) than his brother (one year elder) that coasted through school with an average GPA and a 33 on the ACT. My captain didn't even get the $500 FIRST scholarship the school offers.

I don't quite understand your point and your example. From listening to dozens of talks from admission officers, I gathered that colleges are interested in 6 main areas:
1) GPA
2) Standardized test scores
3) Essays and supplemental questions if any
4) Extra-curricular activities and Leadership
5) Work experience and Entrepreneurship
6) Recommendation letters
They are not in any particular order. Every college will put different things as higher priority. A student has more control over some of these than others but I would argue that there is nothing on that list that the student has no control at all. These are things that admission officers use to see whether the student will be a good fit for the college. What students want to do with their life has nothing to do with these 6 things. Are you suggesting that students should do whatever they want and not care about what colleges are looking for? And none of the 6 areas are things that could help in their future whatever they decided to pursue? To avoid further misunderstanding, I don't advocate that students join a club or activity just to look good on their resume to help them get into a certain field. If they have no interest in that field, then they should not be joining that activity. If you don't have passion in what you do, it will show on the application. Joining many activities do not make you look good. It actually makes you look bad. On the other hand, I do encourage younger students to try as many things as they have time for, then narrow down to the things that they enjoy the most.
I am not looking for an argument with you. I am not trying to convince you that I am right. You work with your students the way you want to.
Back to the OP, since your friend is looking into going to a community college, what I said to you before is not as important. It is really his choice. Sometimes in life, you have to do what makes yourself happy but there are people around you that you have to consider also. It is not always about you.

[GaryVoshol]

Let's change the situation. Suppose a student couldn't come to robotics because she had tutoring sessions. Would you be encouraging her to skip tutoring to go to robotics? Of course not, because tutoring is important; maybe she would fail a class without it.

So it comes down to priorities. What is important to the student, overall? Basketball seems to be important to him (or he wouldn't do it); only he knows the reasons why. You mentioned pleasing people and not letting down the team, but you also said he enjoyed it. So he should be free to do basketball if that's what he wants to do.

You have options. As others mentioned, perhaps you could change some team meeting times. My thought is that you should recruit new team members, or encourage other existing team members to come more often, so that you will get more than 2.7 people at a meeting.

Some robotics teams require strict participation rules. Others will accept members for the time that they can give, as long as they are productive members when they do come. Obviously there must be some limits; someone who shows up 4 times in the six week build season isn't a committed team member.

It can be a challenge. I remember one sub-team leader on my daughter's team who didn't show up for about a week because he had to work, and the part of the robot he was working on fell behind schedule. Those kind of things can be resolved by better communication and having backups for when someone can't be there. But you can make it work.

[team-4480]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

You have options. As others mentioned, perhaps you could change some team meeting times. My thought is that you should recruit new team members, or encourage other existing team members to come more often, so that you will get more than 2.7 people at a meeting.

It is tough/nearly impossible to change the meeting times because our one and only mentor has a family to take care of. The time we meet currently is what works best for him. We would, of course, like another mentor(preferably a mentor with professional engineering experience), but living in a town of 400, it is much easier said than done.

The student is our most experienced mechanical builder so it is like have a Senior mechanical engineer leave a company and have to fill the void with entry level engineers. We will likely have two more committed members next year so that would probably bring the average to about 4.3, but these members need training so who would be better to teach them then our most experienced mechanical member?

From what I have talked to him over the past couple of weeks, he keeps mentioning how excited he is for the next build season challenge. But yes, I agree that whatever he has more passion for, he should go and do.

[Fusion_Clint]

Having graduated from a small Minnesota school myself, what you need is more kids and mentors on the team. You need more exposure, can you bring in kids from nearby schools, enlist the help of shop teachers, enlist the help of other teachers. In a school that small all of the folks need to work together, and not compete for the finite number of resources you have. Do you have any local industry, mechanics, farmers, electricians, we always had folks willing to help the school back home.

Casting aspersions on the basketball team as unsuccessful "The basketball team isn't going anywhere(last year the record was 5-15)", isn't an entirely honest argument from a struggling FRC team that finished 60th at your only event this year.

Bring your school and community together to solve your problems, they are larger than one student.

[team-4480]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

Casting aspersions on the basketball team as unsuccessful "The basketball team isn't going anywhere(last year the record was 5-15)", isn't an entirely honest argument from a struggling FRC team that finished 60th at your only event this year.

Shots fired lol.

We got the short end of the stick because of who we were matched up against and with. Our robot functioned nicely every single match, even hitting a high goal in auto. Just some stats from that regional....

Scored 11.25 Auto points per match(7th in Auto OPR)

Scored average of 53.3875% of our alliance's points

Anyways, basketball is much different than robotics. Basketball requires a certain amount of natural talent(i.e. height, arm length, speed) in order to be successful and those variables typically don't change much. Robotics relies on ideas and execution of those ideas which changes a lot each year. One year you may have the best idea and the next the worst idea for your robot. My point is, just because we were matched with not the great teams does not mean that next year we will be getting 60th again.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by team-4480

Shots fired lol.

We got the short end of the stick because of who we were matched up against and with. Our robot functioned nicely every single match, even hitting a high goal in auto. Just some stats from that regional....

Scored 11.25 Auto points per match(7th in Auto OPR)

Scored average of 53.3875% of our alliance's points

Anyways, basketball is much different than robotics. Basketball requires a certain amount of natural talent(i.e. height, arm length, speed) in order to be successful and those variables typically don't change much. Robotics relies on ideas and execution of those ideas which changes a lot each year. One year you may have the best idea and the next the worst idea for your robot. My point is, just because we were matched with not the great teams does not mean that next year we will be getting 60th again.

There is also a certain amount of fufillment in robotics in just making it to the competition, which isn't present in sports.

[Fusion_Clint]

Did you read my whole post? You need to work with your community and school. Your issue isn't that you may loose one student, it is that you only have one mentor and a couple of dedicated students.

Robotics requires skills just like sports, just a different set of skills. You will never win if you are fighting against sports and other clubs in our schools, you must find a way to work with them.

We have over 1000 students in our school and I still have to work with sports, band, Boy Scouts, other clubs, etc.

If you have a one or the other attitude you are hurting your team. Since you only have a few kids, it should be easier to work a more inclusive schedule. Don't let one person dictate the schedule, have your mentor assign tasks for the students so that they can work without him.

Teach these up and coming students in the offseason.

Get out of your own comfort zone.

[Fusion_Clint]

I have been assuming that I am talking to the School Sponsor aka teacher/mentor. What is your role on the team?

Looking back on the original posts, I realise that you are a student. You need a passionate dedicated school teacher/coach for your club. Do you have one? If not, find one. Is this part of a class or entirely after school.

Focus on making the team better, which will require off season dedication from everyone.

[team-4480]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

I have been assuming that I am talking to the School Sponsor aka teacher/mentor. What is your role on the team?

Looking back on the original posts, I realise that you are a student. You need a passionate dedicated school teacher/coach for your club. Do you have one? If not, find one. Is this part of a class or entirely after school.
.

My official role is programming although since it is such a tiny team I end up doing a lot of other things.

Yes, we do have a very passionate coach for our club but he balances being a good father/husband with being at robotics which is a hard thing to do. I think I will step up my search for another mentor.

The robotics program has a class and then after school there is also robotics.

[GeeTwo]

We always make the pitch to those considering robotics vs athletics (or cheer leading or band or whatever) that "robotics is the one team we have on campus where everyone can go pro". We do not push beyond that unless it is clear that the student wants to do robotics, but needs help to justify it over other priorities. That is, if your athlete is "trying to find a way to do robotics instead of athletics", press a bit, and help him/her through the obstacles to doing robotics. Otherwise, back off and decide whether or not to accept what help [s]he can provide as an athlete, and move forward.

[Fusion_Clint]

Originally Posted by team-4480

Yes, we do have a very passionate coach for our club but he balances being a good father/husband with being at robotics which is a hard thing to do.

You need to make your team a family, my wife and son are routinely at our meetings, as are other peoples family members. Make sure your team is at least dining together at your team meetings.

I suggest you enlist the help of your local church groups, I know those fine Minnesota ladies would love make your team a meal or two during build season. I can taste the hotdish now.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

I suggest you enlist the help of your local church groups, I know those fine Minnesota ladies would love make your team a meal or two during build season. I can taste the hotdish now.

Oh my goodness @Fusion_Clint - this is a GREAT IDEA! I am not certain why we had not thought of this before! FRC 4607 CIS will be implementing the 'Church Lady Potluck' this coming season!

Sorry for all the exclamation points... but this is truly a ground-shaking -albeit overlooked - idea for us in Becker (where we have 3 Lutheran churches, 2 Catholic churches, and a number of other denominations in our community). We can feed the kids and welcome in a new group of people each weekend!

Thank you!

~Coach Jurek

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

I don't quite understand your point and your example. From listening to dozens of talks from admission officers, I gathered that colleges are interested in 6 main areas:
1) GPA
2) Standardized test scores
3) Essays and supplemental questions if any
4) Extra-curricular activities and Leadership
5) Work experience and Entrepreneurship
6) Recommendation letters
They are not in any particular order. Every college will put different things as higher priority. A student has more control over some of these than others but I would argue that there is nothing on that list that the student has no control at all. These are things that admission officers use to see whether the student will be a good fit for the college. What students want to do with their life has nothing to do with these 6 things. Are you suggesting that students should do whatever they want and not care about what colleges are looking for? And none of the 6 areas are things that could help in their future whatever they decided to pursue?

It's not that students should ignore college completely throughout high school, it's that by the time you are an incoming senior, there is very little you can change in a significant way. You have your essays and maybe SATs if you haven't taken them before (If you've already taken them the odds are you won't do that much better). Basically just don't let your grades drop and don't get suspended and let what happens happens. Also, high school seniors do not need to be told to think about college with every decision to think about college with every decision.

[FiMFanatic]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

I don't quite understand your point and your example. From listening to dozens of talks from admission officers, I gathered that colleges are interested in 6 main areas:
1) GPA
2) Standardized test scores
3) Essays and supplemental questions if any
4) Extra-curricular activities and Leadership
5) Work experience and Entrepreneurship
6) Recommendation letters
They are not in any particular order. Every college will put different things as higher priority. A student has more control over some of these than others but I would argue that there is nothing on that list that the student has no control at all. These are things that admission officers use to see whether the student will be a good fit for the college. What students want to do with their life has nothing to do with these 6 things. Are you suggesting that students should do whatever they want and not care about what colleges are looking for? And none of the 6 areas are things that could help in their future whatever they decided to pursue? To avoid further misunderstanding, I don't advocate that students join a club or activity just to look good on their resume to help them get into a certain field. If they have no interest in that field, then they should not be joining that activity. If you don't have passion in what you do, it will show on the application. Joining many activities do not make you look good. It actually makes you look bad. On the other hand, I do encourage younger students to try as many things as they have time for, then narrow down to the things that they enjoy the most.
I am not looking for an argument with you. I am not trying to convince you that I am right. You work with your students the way you want to.
Back to the OP, since your friend is looking into going to a community college, what I said to you before is not as important. It is really his choice. Sometimes in life, you have to do what makes yourself happy but there are people around you that you have to consider also. It is not always about you.

To those 6, I would add "Class Rank", as GPA (in a vacuum) can be very deceptive when comparing school to school.

Good post.