New to robotics...feel lost, useless, and robotics career question

[Uberbots]

best way to get involved: ask a team who is working on something if they need help.
that way, (if they arent snobs) they will most likely say yes, and bam! you have a prt on the team.

you just gotta make sure (if one dya youhappen to be on the other end) that you dont leave someone out, or even worse discriminate.

just last year, we had one of those kids who would discriminate against the weak (aka, the soft-spoken). The disciminees either left the team, tried to sabotage our robot, and one of them actually got a mad parent involved.
it was ugly, but we got thru it (and made a STRICTLY enforced rule against leaving people out)

u gotta be careful. but ask for help, and ask if help is needed. thats all it takes.

[Dillon Compton]

This is only my second year on a robotics team, and I had a somewhat similar experience on my team my rookie year. I dont attend the school which my team is based out of, but I was asked by the team leader (my dad) to contribute my programming knowledge (which is limited, but more than anyone else's) to the effort. I agreed, and my FIRST career began.

I experienced extreme culture shock my very first meeting.
The school at which my dad teaches is in Philadelphia, and the kids on it come from all over the city...I live out in the suburbs, and am pretty much the stereotypical geek.
It was pretty difficult to prove myself to the rest of the team and to get accepted into the group, but I worked hard, learned what I needed to to contribute to any lacking aspects of the team (in my case I learned much more about programming, memorized all the wiring rules and became head electrician, and was integral in design and fabrication of our arm), and by the end I had gone from 'Dillon' or 'Mr. Compton's Son', to 'D-Rock' or 'Ben'(an affectionate reference to a supposed likeness between myself and Mr. Franklin...). Work hard, prove invaluable to the team, and not only will you have fun, become obsessed, and get accepted; you'll also learn some things!

the forums and the whitepapers on this site are a great resource, and there are some useful link on my teams webpage...[shameless plug]...www.masteryrobotics.com. Click on the "resources" or "links" tabs!

Good luck

-Dillon

[Steve Yasick]

A Mentors view:

We see this all the time here in Zeeland. The question for us is "How do I give you the task that will keep you going until you get hooked?"

I am glad you sent us the e-mail here on CD. I think you need to get that small job done then "get in the way" and ask questions of the mentors. Most important, don't quit!

Mr. Yasick

P.S. I love the name of the town you are from

[TheAnsweris42]

I had the same sort of useless feeling the first few days on the team, but here's the thing, especially if you are on an inexperienced thing - find someone no one else wants to do. I wound up reading the rules at home one night, and overnight became the recognised 'rules guy'. Its odd how many times people need information, and its great to be the one that has the answer, like the earlier battery man example. Keeping up on things here on CD is another job you might take up... I'm kinda describing my own job, I think. What I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of opportunities, techinical and not, when you're doing something as complicated as this competition.

[atomikitten]

Originally Posted by TheAnsweris42

I had the same sort of useless feeling the first few days on the team, but here's the thing, especially if you are on an inexperienced thing - find someone no one else wants to do. I wound up reading the rules at home one night, and overnight became the recognised 'rules guy'. Its odd how many times people need information, and its great to be the one that has the answer, like the earlier battery man example. Keeping up on things here on CD is another job you might take up... I'm kinda describing my own job, I think. What I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of opportunities, techinical and not, when you're doing something as complicated as this competition.

That's a neat job and would definitely help your team. Since you said there's only 4-7 people on the team, why don't you start recruiting other members? Grab some people out of the comp sci class, see who's really ahead in math, who loves physics, get people from DECA and Student Council to help you with the business and PR end of the team. There are so many awesome people you meet through FIRST. There's always someone to supply you with the supportive can-do and don't give up attitude; why would you want to leave?
Keep your chin up, kid; you're probably more valuable than you realize

[Eric Scheuing]

I'd recommend doing what you're assigned+. I didn't feel like I learned a lot my first year, but I know more than I thought I did.

It get's more fun. Trust me.

[dude__hi]

I know what you mean. Our team is medium sized with about 35 people at the beginning of the school year. Half stop participating after a few months. Then about 6 or 7 people do all the work. It happened every year and once my fellow seniors and I leave the team will be left to 3 juniors.

When I started my sophomore year I felt the same way. I was new and the team had been fairly successful before so I was shunned to the side by the ruling junior class of veterans. I did the small roles but once I started to become more involved I moved up in the ranks. At our regional I was given the responsibility of coach on the field. I was the same at Nationals. The following year I was the driver and I train the rookies. This is my last year and my life has been completely changed by this FIRST experience.

I owe Dean Camen and my mentors more than they'll ever know.

If you don't believe me type my name (Cristian Arcega) in google and find out.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Even if you are doing something you don't think is important, you are still a member of the team. Try to completely understand the task you've been assigned, and see if you can improve its design to make it more useful to the robot. Also, even if you are just machining one simple part, you can still be talking to your teammates and getting to know them well.

The better you know people, the more likely they are to give you responsibility. I know that when I started getting to know more people on some of the building sub-teams, I earned more of their respect.

[Nita]

This is my rookie year and I joined having no clue of what this was going to be like. I wasn't even sure of which team I was going to join, so I just went with the flow and ended up joining the manufacturers. On my first day, I learned the names of basic tools and how to use them and all the new members took turn trying them out and practicing. After that, I just did whichever task was assigned to me and when I didn't have anything to do, I watched other people work from their side. When I came home, I got online and looked around to see if there was anything else to learn. You are here on CD, so I would guess that you are equally interested in this program as I am. I showed the team what I can do everytime I had the chance to and now the team has real plans for me next year... I am to help with the design and do graphics for the website while doing all the manufacturing stuff I'm doing this year! Show what kind of things you are good at and you'll get plenty of work to do(just hope that you won't get overloaded).