Charge Ahead!!!

[RoboMadi]

The school year is about to start, and most of the new leaders are buckling up to take their teams to new heights. Our team has already taken a lot of steps to recruit more people, attract more sponsors, and be a FIRST role model for our community. For example, we recently hosted an event "Charge Ahead!!" (our team mascot is a Charger) mainly to recruit more people and let the school faculty know about us. Also we are planning new events and innovative ideas like this one.
Also we are taking steps to create a Parent Booster Club, that will help students with any logistical issue and will monitor the flow of money. (and pizza )


I was just wondering what other teams and their leaders have in mind about next year. Please feel free to share your ideas and if you have any questions about ours please do let us know. Thanks

[Dan Zollman]

We're also working on creating a parent-run booster club so that we can start getting sponsors.

Among our goals for this year are to begin writing press releases for each event and competition we attend, expand our website, begin creating media and videos, start a newsletter, more fundraising, and start doing some community service. Most of this would be done along with the rest of the Tech & Eng club, not just 1712 (otherwise that entire list would be very hard to manage...). We're planning to start an F1 team (http://www.f1inschools.us/), in which six student would design and build a scale model F1 CO2 car.

In general, now that we have a team running, we want to make ourselves more well known and become involved with the community for our second year.

A week before school starts, our school has a "freshman orientation" where we'll have a robot demonstration and booth for recruitment.

Could you say more about your "Charge Ahead" event? What did you do?

[RoboMadi]

Originally Posted by worldbringer

Could you say more about your "Charge Ahead" event? What did you do?

This event is mainly for upcoming Freshmen class, to get familiar with the school and get to know the major organizations in the school.
We did a twenty minute Presentation, focusing on the results for being part of the team (future opportunities and scholarships). We tried to keep it away from 'How you can build a robot?' or 'Its really fun and cool to be part of Robotics team."
Although at the end we showed couple of fun n frolic videos of our team. Also we gave them an opportunity to drive our robots and question any aspect of it.
Another thing we tried to target was the Marketing/Advertising aspect of our team. There were some kids out there who were more interested in how to create an image than how to build a robot.

~Imad

[Donut]

Our main goal this year is to try to do anything more than just build a robot. This could include submitting a website, CAD, animation, or Chairman's award submission this year (since we haven't attempted any of these in at least 4 years, possibly longer). We also are trying to do some more community things (whether it be demonstrations, volunteering, or whatever) than we have in the past, and go to more than our regional.

Actually making sure everyone in our school is aware we have a robotics team would be a nice goal too.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by RoboMadi

Another thing we tried to target was the Marketing/Advertising aspect of our team. There were some kids out there who were more interested in how to create an image than how to build a robot.

~Imad

Imad:
This is very well said. There are so many aspects of a healthy FIRST team. 'How to create an image' is a great way to help students, parents, and mentors interested in joining your team 'get it'. It helps them understand that there is more to FIRST than building the robot and that they can be a part of it. It makes perfect sense.
Jane

[savage301]

We have run summer workshops on every other Saturday where the veterans teach the new members the basics of the mechanical, electrical, and programming aspects. Also, we have started having specialized meetings. And after our first big meeting of the year we are going to build a shooter robot for an off season competition, our competition bot was a dumper bot. We are trying to recreate the build season atmosphere for the new members and make them build the new robot as much as we can. We want to make sure that after this year, because the heads of almost every department are seniors, are team will have people capable to step up and take charge.

[Cyberguy34000]

Our team is also going to try to do the Parent Booster thing this year as well.

Good luck to you guys!

[KathieK]

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record on these forums, but... please check out the NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) website - www.firstnemo.org - the resources section which is still under revision may have some information you might find helpful.