Recruiting-Getting people who are interested in ROBOTICS

[Joel J]

Give those who apply a "trial membership." Hold activities during the first month or two of school and see who shows up, and of those who show up who does what. Just through observation, you can get a pretty good idea of who will be active during the season, and who will become part of the infamous "core team." Attendance (frequency), excuses, activity, etc, are quantitative points that can be used.

There are a few things to remember, though. Not everyone is good at fundraising. Therefore, they may allow that to deter them from participating in fundraising activities. So, its a good idea to remind new members that they can just show up and a place will be found for them. More generally, each new member joins the team for a different reason (be it for animation, robot build, promotions, chairmans, etc), so they may only feel the need to participate when the activity is related to their field of interest. Sometimes this is due to the fact that at other activities, they have nothing to do or nothing that interests them. Again, they need to know that this is not an excuse, heh.

I would push for an application process of some sort (you know, an essay or something), but I don't like those for the following reasons:

1. Anyone can fill out an application.
2. Paradoxical to my first reason, if the application we were given during my freshman year of high school counted, then I would not be in FIRST today.

Of course, if you are looking for more objective methods, then I'll leave that to someone else to suggest.

Be careful when executing whatever selection process you come up with. If done improperly, then you can lose good students and students who really need the program, and can be left with students who contribute almost nothing. This program is about inspiration, so its not all about selecting the cream of the crop and putting them to work; its also about selecting those on the edge and bringing them back, giving them a vehicle to find themselves, what they want to do, and how they want to do it .