Way to get kids to join a team

[Elyse Holguin]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Oh, let 'em drive the robot. That's by far the best way to get kids interested.

This works amazingly, from our experience. We start the interest in robotics early by having team members mentor lego league. Later on we have the annual "kids night" and open house right before ship date, where our families, sponsors, and a ton of kids can come in and view the robot and ask any questions they might have about the program. We also take the robot to parades and back to school nights at our four high schools in order to promote the program at the high school level. However, the majority of our students came to the program by hearing about it from students already on the team, so talk talk talk about robotics all the time, and how awesome it is (the preseason, build season, and esp. competition!), and you're bound to get a couple people interested enough to join the team.