Inspiring/Motivating A Team

[av11d]

We're a veteran team (started in '97), but we're currently a VERY young team. We have Zero fourth-year members on the team. We have a grand total of about 3 third-year members (including myself.) 95% of our team has never been to nationals. 50% of our team has never been to a regional competition (the frosh.)

I need help (a) motivating them to work harder and (b) explaining to them what FIRST is really all about. I've been searching the forums for any kind of inspiring stories out there. I know they're out there, but I can't find them. I would really like to find an essay/story someone has written that I can just read to the team, or have them read silently. Does anyone have suggestions/ideas?

I've been trying hard to help them understand FIRST, but I really need the CD communities' help in pointing me to some resources.

Thanks so much in advance!

[dez250]

check out and read the thread that is below, it has many great comments and suggestions in there for a team with low motivation which sounds like yours.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=32786

Hope this helps!

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I would say that a lot of what you need you have right with you. We have a lot of new people on our team this year, but it's not that young-dominated.

Here are a few simple ideas:

Let them watch old competition tapes. I am sure you guys ahve them somewhere, but if you don't, talk to archiver site owners. A few teams may have links. Howver, this is an easy way for the younger people to get in touch with what competition is about and they can expect to see.

Get a bunch of new people on your chairman's team. Couple them with older team members and try and produce ideas and brainstorm. Not only are you getting some great work done, but you're giving them room to think for themselves about the team values. Do the same thing with Tech also.

Do a presentation on team history. Maybe get up in front of the team every day and tell a fun fact, like "in 2002 our team won the chairman's award at...". Also, it's a good time to teach them how to talk to judges and stuff like that, and what to say. Everyone on your team shoudl be able to. .

A really important aspect of inspiration is personal communication. Try to get to know all these new members. If they make connections with upperclassmen and mentors now, they'll be really eager to come back again. I would recommend hosting a student forum, students only, so that the younger and possibly more shy teammates can express themselves. It's a good way for people to bond, and for things to stay open.

Good luck!
- Genia

[Mohsin]

NOTE: This in no way is supported by my team. I am posting this as an individual. This post is unofficial.

ok. after that, one of the members on my team has a sledge hammer , we call it INCENTIVE , and when we need to push people harder, we end up bringing that out. Yep its even offical, we have it stamped in to the head. Works every time for us, but then people know we are joking about it, so.... well good luck, but tell the people, to have fun, that is important too.

Mohsin
Team 772
Do I really have to get Incentive out?


* oh yeah, get some really upbeat music, and put your videos from last year, then make them watch it, really works.*

[Bharat Nain]

You know, most of the time just giving them some mechanical work to do is enough to motivate them. Seriously, thats what I have found what most freshmen like. If they are computer nerds, look at the programming white papers and show them some C and robot programming tutorials. You just have to throw some responsibility on them and have some faith that they will work. Oh and don't forget scholarships. Kids serious about their grades and scholarships etc will respond to that.

[av11d]

Thanks for the advice so far. We don't really have a dedication-problem per say. We get 90% attendance on a 50-person team and we're even a little ahead of schedule this year. I really want to push our team to the next level though and start building a team that is consistent every year, and that each group of students feels that they've left behind a legacy.

Particularly, I'd like to get some advice from those great mentors out there that seem to inspire their team to greatness. Some of these posts have given me the idea to have a "FIRST Tutorial" for about 20 minutes each meeting. I can talk about some of the great other teams, talk about our team's history, teach them how to act at competitions, inspiring FIRST stories, etc. What do you think? I'd be happy to post a curriculum online once I finish outlining the first few weeks of this.

Thanks again for everyone's help so far!

[Kims Robot]

Some Helpful threads:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&page=1&pp=15

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...7&page=1&pp=15

I've also uploaded my college essay that I wrote ages ago (you will see by the dated song Will Smith's Gettin Jiggy Wit' It)
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=31680
(There are some other links and stories on that forum that might help you as well)

I think you are on track with how to get your team inspired, but remember, as your new members are much like rookies, they only have your stories to go from, and FIRST wont truely affect them (or at least they wont realize it) until they see a competition live. I am dealing with much the same issues right now. While my new team (the second team I have started), is excited and dedicated, they are young, and have yet to really see FIRST. I have some of them saying "oh well im not sure if I really feel like going to competition" or "I thought I would just do fundraising next year"... This happens. They havent seen the competition yet, they havent met the hundreds of other teams we will meet, they can only go on my word.

Your little tutorials might help, but what will truely help the most is getting them to trust you. If you can form trust and friendship, they will believe that FIRST can have the effect that you preach, and they will trust that it is worth it. Talk to each one on an individual basis as often as you can. Get to know more about each of them and what drives them, and then use that to figure out how FIRST can work for them, what they would be best at, or what they might be interested in trying. That is where the inspiration comes in And the hard work and dedication comes when they are inspired.

Good Luck, and remember to have fun! While FIRST is a lot of hard work, it is supposed to be fun and rewarding. It will not affect everyone the same way, but as long as you are able to provide the opportunities, they will come around.

[Matt Fultz]

The only way to really motivate a kid, I feel, is if they know exactly what you are excited about, and what they should be excited about. I agree with posts that say to watch old competitions, but whip out an old robot (if you have one still together), let them drive it. One thing that we at team 234 do is, as build season rolls along, the freshman/new members kind of roam, looking for the one job that sparks that something in them, then they take off. We are now at the end of week 2, and everyone has a job that they love!
Just some thoughts

[Rich Kressly]

some of this is hard to accomplish during a build season, but...
-75 has a rich history, show them old pictures/video
- explain the traditions
- go through the team lists at the regionals you are attending and tell the stories ..
- have the frosh research those other teams, learn about them (not just the scouting stuff), contact them, interview them via email, at competition
- feature the new team members and what their jobs are/ will be in a team newsletter
- find alumni of the team will "distance mentor" the new members - visit on breaks, contact via email/phone
- some of the learning about FIRST needs to happen at a competition so be sure their role their is meaningful in some way
- do "exit interviews" with them at the end of the year ... have them complete a few questions including thigs like "What does being a member of Team 75 mean to you? and How has FIRST had an impact on your life?
...

[Wayne C.]

Hillsborough is and always has been one of the NJ power teams and this posting really surprised me. And all of the suggestions above seem to be good ones. But here are even more ideas to maybe spark the team up a bit.

1. talk to our senior mentor Paul Kloberg about what the Regional guys can offer to jazz up Hillsborough.

2. come out for the off season events that we have all over the region. Surprisingly, your team has been mostly absent from that sort of stuff over the past few years. The events get the team motivated and allow the new kids time to learn and develop. That's why we hold them. And they are really cheap ($100-200 per event). From May through December we have something just about every month somewhere in the region.

3. have your spirit committee do something really creative. They can and will surprise you.

4. have a FIRST movie meeting right after the build season in preparation to going to the competitions. If you (or your mentor) call FIRST and talk to the folks in the office they might send you some of the videos they have available. Especially some of the old ones when ESPN aired the event are fun to watch.


And remember that we are in this for fun.

Drop me a line if you want to talk

WC

[av11d]

Thanks for the replies. I just wanted to make a few more comments

- Team 75 does have a rich history. The last few years have been very inconsistent considering we've had 3 new teacher-advisors in 3 years. Our lead sponsor, J&J, has also been trying to find the right balance of team leadership/sponsorship over the past few years; we've rotated between a few J&J sponsor leaders. We also (do to terrible recruiting a few years back) have zero 4th year members. I'm trying to develop a sustainable group of leaders (parents, J&J leaders, and teachers) so that we can build off each previous year.

- We have maintained all of our 1999 -> 2004 robots in pretty good condition. We drive them around; that usually does help motivate our team.

- As for the off-season events, that is something I'm DEFINITELY making a priority. Due to the inconsistency mentioned above, our off-season events usually consist of presentations that the students run purely out of dedication. We will be attending an off-season competition next year.

- We created a Team Spirit sub-team at the end of last year. Team Spirit is something I felt Team 75 had always lacked in previous years. This year we are FINALLY naming our robot. We have some really cool stuff planned for the competitions. Think Indiana Jones.

I may have over-exaggerated my original post. Our team is not experiencing any sort of crisis; I'm just trying to get some ideas for how to teach FIRST-newbies what FIRST is. I do recognize that most teams struggle with this, too.

Thanks so much!

--Andrew Duch