My team has close to no dedication

[Joe Menassa]

I know you might not want to get parents involved but I think it may be one of your best hopes.

On the team I mentor for parents play as large a role as the engineers. Maybe your parents or one of the freshmans parents would be interested. It doesnt matter what their profession is, if they are interested then they will be very useful.

If there is a local team I would try and contact them. Bring the freshman to visit them for a day to see what they should be doing.

As everyone said, videos are key. Show them fun videos, like clips from famous matches or championship finals.

Maybe invite some of the freshman to check out this forum. Reading about all the cool ideas may help to motivate them.

good luck

[Bharat Nain]

Something to add on:
Talk and focus on the future. Look at our teams handbook. Use content from there to make up your lecture. Get your team organized, and give them some responsibility so they feel important. You can also go into how the regionals and nationals are so exciting and stuff. Your goal is to spark their intrest, get organized, and start building a bot. Sadly though, unless this is done real well, you will be putting in a majority of the work. You also want to get your mentors intrest, and maybe your enthusiasm will help. See if you can recruit some other teachers into the team. There is a lot going on, too little time, prioritize and do it right, we are here to help.

I do hope getting them all together is not such a big problem.

[Koko Ed]

This sounds like a job for NEMO!!!
Seriously...
Wow does your situation sound bad. Unfortunately the only solutions I can offer won't do you nay good right now. One is preventive through a thorough interview process so you can weed out malcontents before they poison the well and the other is time. We've had students who started out pretty cold and grew into the job. Our assistant coach Alex is the greatest success story I have seen in FIRST so I know it can be done it just going to take some patience and understanding.
That's the best I can offer.

[Anchi]

lunch time... do you guys build this durring school? if so thats probably a huge problem. remember, FIRST dosent require teams to be school related. i probably wouldnt do it if it was durring school. we stay till 730pm or later if needed.

[Jeff K.]

Originally Posted by Alaina

hey all,

I think I have about 6 new members who are the slightest bit enthusiastic about FIRST (they're all freshmen, so that kind of makes me optimistic for 2008, but that's not my point).
-Alaina

They give us freshmen a bad name. I'm a freshmen and I'm already heading some parts of building the robot, actually we just finished the prototype chasis a few hours ago and because the junior was too heavy to ride on it, I rode on it and it was able to push me around, it was cool

[NoodleKnight]

Alaina,

Our team had a similar problem during this year, luckily we were able to resolve it all before build season. I'm sure this has been stated multiple times, but regardless, you just need to motivate your teammates (which, in my experience, is hard). Luckily our mentors and veteran students were able to give a few speeches and convince our newer members.

If I can recall, the speeches went somewhere down the line of how they chose to spend over six weeks of their lives working on robots. Then basically everything great about FIRST robotics. You could also try and point out some other (school-related) things about FIRST robotics, like getting the chance to skip two days of school (if applicable) to attend regionals competition -- also mention how fun it is to go to a regional; competition as well as after the competition. If you asked any of our veteran members, I'm sure they'll all say that 1/2 the fun of going to a regional comes from staying at hotels and having the chance to get away from parents and other non-fun school stuff. There's more, I can't think of any at the moment though.

And in regards to the lunch meetings, personally, I want to spend lunch period eating my lunch and not have it mixed in with white lithium grease and metal shavings. If your teachers don't want to dedicate the time, maybe you can find a parent mentor who can... the teacher would just need to provide access to the room you work in.

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by Alaina

You have a really great idea, the one where you make two teams and then put them together...But the problem with that is, I never know which people will show up to a meeting and which ones won't. I don't want to make one person head of the "chassis team" if he/she's going to be at an orchestra rehearsal after school instead. I think band/orchestra is the main thing pulling kids away from the team. That and anime. But I'll try it.

I wouldn't assign one person to head either group since it sounds like they are all novices. I would simply split them all up into two groups. Each individual in the group would be responsible for downloading the instructions. That way, if someone is absent, someone else has the information. In addition, by not assigning a person to be a leader, you will quickly see a leader naturally emerge. All you need to do is guide the groups as to how to get started.

indieFan

[russell]

I am having a similar issue with my team where less than half the people show up. One would think this is a big deal, but then what I mean to say is that three of our 7-10 members show up. But I am actually beginning to like this. Its easier for me to get things done.

As for your teams problem..... Just try to think of ways to make it interesting for them. To expand on someone elses idea, you could have people log hours, then whoever gets the most hours gets first pick at being driver or whatever. Also you should consider getting food at every meeting, and make it clear that in order to be eligible to eat the food they need to be there on time, and have stayed until the end of the previous meeting. I am just guessing that the problem is that they dont know what to do, so just try to come up with tasks. If you dont have a field, then put together a team to make a field. If they manage to screw that up then I dont know what to say....

[Wayne C.]

Alaina-
Gee- what do you say to a problem like this? Generally when we recruit kids the first thing we look for is this very same dedication. We normally get about 50 new signups in September but they graduallly dwindle down as the fall fund raising and off season events move on. The ones that remain have a commitment because they invested so much effort in the team prior to the season that they feel it is "their team".

But at this point the team should be mobilized and working and time is running out.

Here are a few suggestions-
1. pick the top 5 kids you have and assign some achievable job for the coming week. Have them report on it to the group. Chances are all the newbies have no idea about what to do with building a robot and don't want to look bad to the group. Neither do they want to be the "labor" without an opinion. But if they develop an responsibility to the group they will perform better as a team.

2. build the kit robot in the next few days. That way they get some experience building something and the controller gets set up and checked out. Then, while the competition bot is in process, the kids have something to play with to get them motivated. It will also show all the adults involved that this team means business and will operate whether they show up or not.

3. get help- Napa's Vintage HS was the National Champ in 2000. Our/their partner was a team led by Dr. Bot (Mr. Federman) of CD fame, also an experienced Ca. firster. I'd check those two sources about getting some help for your team for the interim while your engineer is away.

I know this seems like a tragedy now but if your team is meant to survive it will. I can tell you, you don't want a team full of kids who have no commitment and cannot be relied upon. So when they decide that activity XYZ is more important my response is generally to let them go and fill their spot with someone I can rely on. Each spot on our team is earned and none are irreplaceable- including mine.

Good luck. I'm sure you will get the bot' built. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk,

WC

[Leav]

and i thought our situation was bad....

we have about 20 people on our team, out of those 20, about 10 only come on mondays - the one day of the week they must show up. (i.e. minimal effort).

and it really hurts the team.

but on the rest of the week, i can mobilize the hardcore folks (seniors mainly, even though i'm a junior) to get some work done.

When the problem is this drastic, i suggest you go to the highest level - the principal.

tell him/her that you are trying to make this team works, but no one is helping. including the teachers.

ask him/her to announce that the team HAS to meet more, and if they dont that they fail the class or some similar punishment.

my hope is that after a while they will want to come......

-Leav

[MSBlaster]

What everyones been posting so far is good ideas, I myself like to give in to food and lectures every once in a while, as long as they're both together, but have you actually asked the freshmen what they want to do? When i was a sophomore, My level of knowledge on what to do to help the team was as high as the copyright link on this page. And so you can guess, my level of involvement went down as well. But when it came to the actual competition, I found myself doing a lot of work with the strategy gathering, as I had a knack for that. Hence, I'm the strategy leader this year, and until the team actually competes, just try to help where I can.

So what I'm saying is, sit these kids down individually and ask them why their involved with the team. If they say they're on the team to help design the robot, then get them together in a group to brainstorm ideas to design. If they want to build, still get them in that group to brainstorm, but get them to build after the design is done. And as for the teachers, I find that mentioning that it could get them out of the faculty meeting every week usually works quite well in getting their particapation.

[shotgunking777]

well try this it worked for me when i was coaching track. when ever they do somthing good give em some candy it works trust me haha

[patrickrd]

Alaina,

Your situition is a familiar one to me. When I worked to start a team during my freshman year in college, the hardest struggle for me was getting others (teachers and students) excited about the competition. I know very well what it is like to have most of the team sitting around computers playing networked shoot-em video games while a very small number are interested in actually doing work.

In my limited experience, this happens because the students do not know how they can help or do not feel they have anything to offer. The best thing you can do is to try and peel one or two of them away from the computer, and work with them on a problem. Have them help to try and figure out how far two gears have to be spaced apart, for example. Once they understand something simple, and understand how it is useful, they are much more likely to ask more questions and be interested in trying other things. I remember being given a very simple task when I was in my high school FIRST team, and once I realized I could solve a little piece of the puzzle, I immediately became hooked. It is very difficult to see big change quickly. If you can get just a couple of people interested this year, in the long run it can make a huge difference. I've seen disinterested students turn into great leaders. Sometimes the teachers don't see what FIRST does for students right away, and it takes a year or two. But once they do see the positive effects on students, they can become huge proponents of FIRST and your team.

Your thoughtful question and ability to listen to what everyone has suggested suggests maturity, I'm sure you'll develop into a great leader for your team and wherever you choose to go in life.

[EStokely]

There have been great ideas here.

Allow me to add a few of my own.
Look for the dedicated few, is there 1 2 or 3 freshman you can work with?
Grab these guys and concentrate on them. Give them real tasks (as described previously by other posters)
Help them build the drive chassis. Get a moving machine. That is usually a big plus for team spirit.

Keep the lecture positive but I think its a good idea. You may want to say if we don't have a robot then we don't go to regionals.

If nothing else you can set the stage for next year. If you can get a core going they should hold it together.
BTW how are you funded? most teams with this lack of support can't/won't raise the fees needed. If its is outside teh school have the sponser talk to them, what they expect from the team.

Keep us informed and GOOD LUCK

[sirbleedsalot]

This is not a pity post
Our team has a similar problem we had over 50 people show up for the robotics year book picture about a month ago, and now there is 3 seniors and 1 sophomore working on the robot. We have told those other people who were there last year that they have to show up and do there fair share of the work to go on the trip but they don't seem to care. Also do not let distance bother you we do not have a member that drives less than 30 miles to school every day. I know this is a bad thing to say but unless something drastic changes we won't have a team next year and I don't care. If other students don't want to help they won't have a team ( don't feel sorry for the one sophomore that cares because he is my younger brother )