My team has close to no dedication

[preussrobotics]

I am curious as to whether you've taken any of your team members aside and asked them why they don't come. Perhaps, there are reasons that you are not aware of. Have you talked to your teacher/mentor about this? As a teacher, I am well aware of the constraints that they have on their time.

I would be very careful with a lecture. They can turn a team easily. Many times, for the worse.

[Nitroxextreme]

This is our rookie year and my team is also having issues with detication
There is probably right now a "Dedicated" team of 7 (2 fresh, 2 sof, 3 seniors) and me (sof).
We probably have a total team of about 15-19. However, only a few people know what they are doing and are willing to "do the time".
Any ideas would be helpful

I liked the idea mentioned before about having to put in a certain amount of hours to go to the competition

One more question is it normal to have a team of about 20 with only like 8 coming and working?

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Nitroxextreme

One more question is it normal to have a team of about 20 with only like 8 coming and working?

Yes, and its good because those members who are not dedicated are gone, not work well with the group you have. If you can get more dedicated members its good.

[Koko Ed]

I hear way too much on this board about teams that have "dead weight" on their roster and allow them to stay no less. If they don't want to contribute they should be shown the door and there should be some sort of process so you don't end up with them in the first place.
I mean not every kid on our team is the hardest worker in the world but they won't get away with not contributing at all or even slacking for prolonged periods because they know they can't get away with it. We have a system to keep track of their level of dedication and they earn the right to travel with it. The ones that can't or don't put forth the effort usually drop out
Trust me. It works.

[amymac]

Hi, do you have other sort of mentoring support? Even if its just an adult that spend some time with the team to keep people on track and help out, it may help you be more of a leader, and less of a police captain. Ask the other teams in the area if, they know of someone that can assist you for a while.

An occasional lecture may work, but positive motivation will probably work better. We started have students log hours for pretty much any activity they do for the team this year whether it be work on the robot, sell items for fundraise, update the website, etc. They get a certain amount of points for an hour, and to encourage work on some projects we'll double the points. We have one sign in sheet, its they're responsibility to log in and out and let us know how long they work on any other projects. Every month we have a member of the month. Since you have a shorter time period you could have a member of the week each week of the build season. A lot of members thought it was silly at the beginning but invovlement has increased. We are hoping to expand the program to offer a scholarship to the regional for the most points during the season, and continue giving member of the month, semester and eventually year awards. Also our lettering requirements are attached to membership points. You have to be in the top 25% to letter.

Also your team may not have all the skills to feel comfortable contributing. Build some a tetra, or use the kit to construct the base, something that everyone can work on and uses basic machining skills. Another activity would be to prototype with cardboard, tape, and other disposable materials that encourage people to be active and have an end product, but wouldn't require precision skills. While it would have been better to do it earlier, even if you said in 30 minutes prototype a device to pick up a tetra or whatever strategy your working towards, you'll get people moving.

Its also never too late to get more people involved. Let people know what the game is, ask teachers who teach classes related to robotics(which is pretty much everyone) to announce that you still need help, you never know who might pop up.
Amy

[Alaina]

There are a lot of posts I'd like to respond to but I just don't have time! This is extremely overwhelming. Thanks, everyone, for responding. I've gotta start taking notes or something. =P

[Sakura141]

Our team has to do 10 hours of community service, 100 hours of work with the team, mentor one the many Lego Teams our school has, and contribute the the bot somehow.

[Petey]

We have a much more frightening problem--

We began two years ago, so our seniors now were sophomores then. For two years, people from my class have been the driving force of the team. They've designed, programmed, and planned strategy for the robot. We've had a kid from the year below or above our class do some good stuff from time to time, but mainly we're all class-of-2005 driven.

Unfortunately, our team is, for all intents and purposes, graduating this year. I look around the room now, and I see 7 non-seniors out of perhaps 25 students. Out of that total, only about three are actually doing worthwhile things--the rest are checking email, etc.

We're facing the distinct possibility that our team may die after this year. This would be bad, because we've been quite successful in our first two years. I'm worried.

Has anyone else faced these problems? If so, how have you fixed them? How have you recruited new people, reliably and well?

--Petey

[Petey]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I hear way too much on this board about teams that have "dead weight" on their roster and allow them to stay no less. If they don't want to contribute they should be shown the door and there should be some sort of process so you don't end up with them in the first place.
I mean not every kid on our team is the hardest worker in the world but they won't get away with not contributing at all or even slacking for prolonged periods because they know they can't get away with it. We have a system to keep track of their level of dedication and they earn the right to travel with it. The ones that can't or don't put forth the effort usually drop out
Trust me. It works.

This wouldn't work for us, because our entire team would be gone next year. As sad as it is, I fear we may need to recruit many slackers to collaborate to produce even the slightest iota of work .

--Petey

[Barry Bonzack]

This post sounds a lot like troubles I had about 4 months ago. However, I had an advantage of having another 4 months before kickoff to fix things. My first question is how well is your team financially supported? Also I am wondering if you all have a space for your team to build.

I can share other bits of advice I used to help problems out, but many times it is not possible to change personalities of other students. However, there are many ways to recruit new students, perhaps that school 30 miles away would be willing to give a demo during lunch time. Team 233 did this for our school. Feel free to IM me or e-mail me about other suggestions in this area, I've been through a similar situation and continue fighting similar problems. someone once told me "founding a FIRST team is an battle, but an uphill one."

The best thing I can share is that without teacher sponsors, you are sunk. I asked FIRST NEMO about this problem I had at one point, and they had many ideas. FIRST NEMO is an invaluable source for information for topics such as these, and they were able to help see me through the forest during some times that looked bleak.

Regarding teachers from Jenny "Robomom" Beatty of FIRST NEMO:

Originally Posted by RoboMom

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonzack1390
an just one teacher to help with the I guess what I was really asking was for more way to get teachers wanting to help be a sponsor for the team. How do other teams spark interest into teachers, even the ones that know nothing about engineering?


Team 007 has the same problem. Only one teacher. This can contribute to really high burnout. So what they started doing is writing a great letter, attending the first faculty meeting the administration will let them come to and asking faculty to sign up for just one evening during the build. We've gotten a good response. The teachers are just required to be there so many do their own work. But the benefit has been that teachers from around the school (English, French, music, science, guidance counselors, etc) get to see what the team is doing. They are genuinely amazed. Last year the team asked them to write a paragraph of their impressions and these were wonderful to read. They go into our "Q-Log" where we keep everything for the team. It has helped let the faculty(2000+ kids, I don't know how many staff) see what the team is doing. One of the English teachers then volunteered to proof read the Chairman's. One of the art teachers volunteered to help with a logo (2 years ago when they needed something to put in the program book-they don't do that anymore) Anyway, it ripples out wards.Most teachers are willing to sign up for 3-4 hours, knowing it is only once. Many then signed up for a second evening.

We would love to have a second teacher mentoring, but this has been tough to find. You try to do the best with the cards you are dealt.
Jenny

[cdawzrd]

Originally Posted by robochik52

What our team does is we have to log in a certain number of hours during the build phase in order to be able to go to the competitions. Maybe that is a motive to get kids to come, hope you have better luck!

Our team has a fair bit of competition for the driving spots. We hold a "drivers-ed" test, but also, people must have good attendance to be allowed to try out to drive. People who barely ever show up are not allowed to be in the pit at all during the competition.

Ya gotta tempt them. If they don't have the drive, they dont have the drive. If you can't find something or some aspect of FIRST that interests them, you might want to find some new people.

Tough luck, and I wish you well.

Jonathan

[sirbleedsalot]

I will probaly be driving this year not because I reallly want to, but because no body else wants the stress. That is the way it has always been on our team who gets the short straw, at least for competitions.

[RoboMom]

Alaina, you need some help. You cannot do this all yourself and it sounds like you are trying to. Just some suggestions.
Have the main contact update the TIMS. Your team is no longer in a postion to mentor others. Your team needs someone to mentor them. Look at the list of teams willing to mentor and see if any are close. Contact them. Be very specific about what you need. Do you need an engineering mentor? Say so. Much of this can be done long distance. Do you need someone on another team to come in and give an inspirational talk? Ask.
But the bigger issue is that you need a team. As Woodie says "The robot is the campfire they all gather around." My impression in reading your post is that most on your team are overwhelmed. With so many rookies, they don't have any reference with what this is all about. You've been to a competition. They haven't. Yelling and threats usually don't work. Respect is earned. You and the mentors on the team need to figure out how to get each interested team member involved as soon as possible. Most freshman are not in a position to just sit down and do something without some direction and guidance. It is very time consuming, but that is what this is all about. The process. Your team is having one of those rough years that most teams go through. Sit down with the adults and figure out the priorities. Which things the teams can put on the back burner this year. Maybe instead of the Championship and the local regional, you just go to the local. Develop a system to earn your way to travel. Get as many parents to help as possible. Parents are one of the best resources FIRST has and some will jump at the chance to become involved in a high school project, because there are so few opportunites.
Have one of the adults signed up on the TIMS join NEMO to get some hints and to post questions.
You have a lot of work ahead of you. You are obviously very committed. Good luck. There are many great suggestions here.

[Collmandoman]

[quote=pakrat]You should try using insentives, like give people little bits of candy if they come to meetings. Also, hjave like attendance awards, and you might want to think about attendance requirements for being a driver ( i bet some people would come then). I dunno, but those sound like the best ideas.
YEAH! .................................................. .
or............................................
..............
find kids who actually want to pursue engineering...
but the best way to keep interest is to have people come back that know the atmosphere of a regional/championship weekend =)

[Kevin Casper]

Originally Posted by Alaina

hey all,

This year has been very difficult for me. I am the only student who has been on my team for more than one season. And even current seniors who were involved last year mainly helped at the end of the season, so they don't know a whole lot about building a robot.

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). I was the only upper-classman (out of 9) at my team's kickoff party. Then later some mentors showed up, and we strategized while the freshmen played video games.

It's not like I don't tell my team how the build season works. I send out at least 2 emails to the robotics list (yay for technology schools) every day. Whether we meet at lunch or after school most people don't show up. Yesterday we were supposed to have a brainstorming session yesterday and I was the only one there. It was extremely disappointing.

We currently don't have an engineering mentor. The engineer who owns our workspace is leaving on Monday to be in England for 3 weeks. I'm sure he'll let us access our workspace but it's going to be a struggle to get any good designs without an expert opinion. And it seems like my team just wants to sit around until he gets back!

What disappoints me the most is how my teachers don't want to spend any time outside of school to work on this. I thought they were here to help us?

oh god, I have almost the opposite problem in a weird way. Instead of being the highschoolers not being motivated it is the mentors who aren't motivated. Well aren't motivated to do certain things. For instance we currently have on the order of 40 mentor college students and 12 highschool students. The leaders of the team have no problem recruiting on campus, however for all of that publicity stuff, such as recruiting and mentoring Highschool students, well there is currently discussion about making a new PR position on the exec board to do that. After all they are engineering majors and don't know how to do that. Thus they don't have to. Also some IDIOT started advertising that we are really a college FIRST team that keeps HS students aroung "just to drive the robot".

Now I'm being told that well, designing the robot is more for college students skill level, programming and wiring the robot is too hard and better done by college students, Highschool students don't need to be at the kickoff. However we will gladly let them do the animation and reports. I'm at the rate of receiving one or two of these off hand comments at every meeting.

The ironic thing, our main organization advisor will take a look at what these skilled mentors want to do and then go back to his shop and do something else similar but might work. Our skilled mentors probably won't help much anyway unless he instructs them at every step.

I'll admit I've been guity of this from time to time, and this isn't entirely unusual for the team. This year is worse than the last 5 years I've been on the team.