Team issues and difficulties?....(not just technical ones)

[c-squared_2006]

That was a little off topic, but back to the topic on had. Sometimes people aren't having a great day and they take it out on someone else, possibly someone in the team. That has happened to me once, and I didn't feel so great. Anyways, communication is a great way to work out problems (as someone mentioned, I think). And just being friendly overall will improve the overall atmosphere. Personally I try to be friendly to everyone and just have a smile on my face. It's really had to pick a fight with someone who refuses to fight. And always be there if a fellow team member just needs to talk about anything.

[Tytus Gerrish]

We have done virtually nothing in Programing Or animation

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by tribotec_ca88

This is the scenario: We´re from Brazil. We have 26 students. We only have enough $$$ to send about 6 to 8 people.

I know this is rough for all of your team and we would love to meet you all. Many rookie teams go through this same dilema, many not being able to attend the nationals at all the first or even second year. Although all of you sound like you are a big part of the team, circumstances just don't allow you to take a big group. Those team mates that get to travel will know full well that there are people left behind that should be with them. That makes it almost as tough on the travel team as those that stay behind. We want your team to join us, but if only a small group can make it then we will know that the rest of you are there in spirit. If you are worried about having enough people to work on the robot, be assured that there are many of us who will gladly help. Let me be the first to offer assistance. If you run into any problems, come and find our pit and ask for help. Don't wait for a small problem to become a big one. Even if you don't have a problem, stop by and say Hi! Our tie dye team shirt is easy to spot, you can ask anyone where our pit is. Good Luck on your first FIRST year!

[ShadowKnight]

aye, assuming our bot is in working order and people from our team can hold down the fort, I intend on taking strolls around the pit areas and lending a hand tightenign down the bolts on a wheel, wire somethign that got fried, help a team replace their drill motors after they burn up, or just hang out with other people and enjoy the gracious professionalism that FIRST really is all about. last year, our bot was MESSED up, and we were frantic to try and get certain parts of our code working, trying to lose weight and all that good stuff. Having been in the shoes of a rookie team, seeign as how last year we were a rookie team, I plan on helping out teams at annapolis as much as possible.

yes that was a bit off topic...

[ColleenShaver]

In terms of choosing people to attend competitions, we have a process we follow which narrows down the team to people that are really well-rounded and capable. From there, we choose people that have to be there in order for us to compete successfully (i.e. Drivers, pit crew, etc).

Step 1:
For the first time this year, we imposed a minimum number of meetings (10 from Sept until competition time) as well as a minimum number of hours people must contribute. Team members must put in at minimum 15 hours on one side (Operations or Support) and 5 on the other. They also have a general pool of 10 hours that can be met by doing anything related to the team (demos, competitions, etc). They may not earn more than 5 hours per week towards these hour goals.

Step 2:
Everyone interested in traveling with the team must take and pass a Rule Test with 100% accuracy. They may take in multiple times. The point is to ensure that team members know and understand the game and various rules that are especially pertinent to our robot playing the game.

Step 3:
Everyone interested in traveling with the team must take and pass a Technical Test. Here, members of the team in charge of Operations give everyone an oral quiz on various basic technical aspects (Describe a fuse and a circuit breaker and point them out on the robot) as well as specific aspects of that year's robot (What does CVT stand for and how does it?). This way we know everyone knows the robot reasonably well and is able to explain to any judges that come by what the robot does.

Step 4:
Knowing how many spots are open, assign people to travel who are necessary for robot function and have met previous qualifications. For instance, you need a robot driver and operator and a human player (we also have a method for doing unbiased driver testing/selection that we really like, PM me for more info). You need a coach. You also need experienced pit crew people to fix the robot when it breaks.

We typically take ~14 people out of 250+ on our mailing lists (college mentors and high school students combined). This process works pretty well for choosing the people who have really put in time and effort and are going to be valuable at the event.

Hope this offers you team a little help. It's still one of the most difficult parts of the whole thing (people have emotions, robots don't!), and our team has been in it 13 years! Any questions, feel free to contact us.

Best of luck!

[snake]

That was a great help to out project
you could cover the chain with plexiglass or plastic

[shyra1353]

Going back to the original post, every team does have their problems. Obviously, being in Brazil you have more to deal with being isolated from us in Canada and USA, but IMO, that is part of the challenge for you.

Our team does have our problems. We had problems being a student-run team (not student-run as Alaina was saying where I am the dictator, but minimal staff support from the school). As well two people on our team have started dating .. hopefully for the better (seeing as one of them is my cousin) and that i told them both at the beginning that if the relationship goes bitter, they are still working together.

also, i think that every team member has to remember people in teams do clash and you have to deal with it. also, to remember, because the six weeks are so stressful, people may snap at you, but they might not mean it, so keep in mind that they might not be mad at you and dont be too sensitive if this happens.


Good luck with sorting out the travel problems.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

so heres an idea, if you attend a local regional, FIRST can collect an extra fee ($100 maybe?) from each local team to help fund the most distant teams - esp international teams, who dont (yet) have the convienance of attending a local regional event?

not that we dont want to help, so dont take this that way, but i do not think that some of the teams will be able to do this. i mean, i know that our team is extremely low budget, we were not going to make our registration fee deadline and we only did because of a $5000 US loan from our school. We now owe our school $6,658.64 CDN and have only received $3500 CDN in sponsorship money, which is needed for our robot and meetings. so even though we would love to help out Brazilian teams, we are actually unable to.


ps- I think this thread should be moved to the Team Organization Forum.

[Mike Heinowski]

Originally Posted by collin234

As much as I hope that you all get all of your problems worked out...I really DO NOT feel as if Chief Delphi is the place to be airing your team's dirty laundry. As great as the forums can be for discussing different strategies, clearing up rule questions, asking how to gear for the best torque, etc., complaining about a student on your team to five-thousand chief delphi users is not the Gracious Professionalism that Chief Delphi and FIRST are going for. It is especially not what Chief Delphi is going for in these forums. If you have to complain about a problem within your team, type it up in Word, and then delete it. It isn't worth hurting others for. Now, if you are going to ask a specific question e.g. "How do teams that feed from multiple schools communicate effectively?" That's fine and a reason that these and other forums are in place. However, if you want to talk about a student who has become a dictator, leave that within your own team or in your own head. Use the forums for what they are meant to be used for, not for complaints. Come on folks.

Just in case that you didn't notice we are in the General Discussion section of this here forum, we are also talking about team issues. I think you are over steping your bonderies by posting this, many teams have their problems, I will be the first to admit that I have alot of "cheese" with some of the people on team 862. We all look to this site for the sense of community that FIRST gives us and alot of teams are bound to have their problems and complain about things. Its going to happen. I guess what I am getting at is we need to help each other and if we need to give advice to help, we will. Be it a technical problem or a personal matter, we all need to listen and be undersanding people. If we help out with every ones problems it will only make us all stronger.

[NateBot16]

Well the weather here hasn't been helping us at all. We lost three days of build time due to snow and ice. Our main problem is that some of the people who have been involved for a few years still do not know what they are doing, and its really effecting us this year. We also have the pressure of having to do well this year, or our program is possibly cut from funding next year.

[Dick Linn]

Know what is hurting us this year? Apathy. That or other interests. When you get 7 mentors and 8 students at any given meeting (out of maybe 25 students in total), what gives? I don't think that the mentors/engineers on our team are all that overbearing or anything (though we do have our faults). We really like to help out where we can. What are we doing wrong? I don't mean to "dis" anyone, but I really would like to know what we could do to improve the interest level.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by Dick Linn

When you get 7 mentors and 8 students at any given meeting (out of maybe 25 students in total), what gives? but I really would like to know what we could do to improve the interest level.

We get an average 15 students and 7 mentors, out of 29 students and 12 mentors.

interest wanes, same students don't always show up, then you get those few new students who are awesomely enthused *grin*.

We just do it with what we got.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by NateBot16

Well the weather here hasn't been helping us at all. We lost three days of build time due to snow and ice. Our main problem is that some of the people who have been involved for a few years still do not know what they are doing, and its really effecting us this year. We also have the pressure of having to do well this year, or our program is possibly cut from funding next year.

Same thing for our team. I'm home right now since the school was closed again because of weather. I'll bet most of the teams here in the northeast have been affected in some way. Between the bitter cold (-20 degrees) and snow and ice storms schools have been cancelled repeatally. We were lucky one of our sponsors let us use their shop for two days but we are starting to hurt with lost time. We'll going to have to pay the board of ed to use the school on weekends now to make up for it. Unfortunately the money has to come out of our teams budget so talk about our team REALLY getting hurt.

[Mark Pettit]

As a team that has experienced more than our fair share of personnel-related issues in the past, we are more cohesive this year than ever. The big issue for us right now is that we can’t get our drive system running due to some backordered pillow blocks from MMH. I know that a bunch of teams are experiencing the same problem with all of the backorders on wheels, balls, etc. Hang in there!

[Mike Heinowski]

Our biggest problem has nothing to do with the robot but rather with the parents. You see over the summer some of the parents decided that they wanted to be more involved with our robotics team. This is perfectly understandable and we even welcomed this change. We ended up creating a beast, so to speak. They decided that it would be good to collect dues from the students at a cost of $40 a piece. They also decided that these due would be "optional." Now eight months later their new definition of optional means required. Now our Vice President doesn't have $40 just lying around readily available to pay his dues (which are now $50 because they are late). The worst part is that they actually told him that he could not be on the team any longer. Lucky for us he refuses to leave. This is just a small taste of what our parents are trying to pull.

If anyone has any ideas on how to handle this kind of thing, because most of our team is fed up with it, PLEASE let me know.

[fox46]

It seems that everyone on our team have come down with some sort of cold/flu virus (AKA "Dimitri Disease" nicknamed after one of our members). Since our meeting this past Saturday, fewer and fewer people have been showing up. At first I thought that disaster had struck, and that the team was orchistrating some sort of protest or strike for some unexpained reason, but after a few phonecalls, I realised everyone was at home, sick! We had a meeting afterschool today, and three people showed up- me and two others instead of the usual 10-20!! So now that construction, and everything else has ground to a halt, I'm trying to figure out what to do next. It's pretty ominous walking into a machine shop, and the only sound you hear is the hum of flourescent lights, and all you really do is sit around and think...I wonder what that smell is.