Being a Good team leader!

[GMKlenklen]

Hi, all

We, the MASMabot high council, have enacted a small lego robot turnament to sort of get the ball rolling and the minds turning and generally enlighten the team . The task was almost overwhelming (like first games) but defianately possible, if you spent enough time and or came up with some good ideas. We split up into 4 groups, each with one RCX kit.

Now the problem:
The teams never really took the initiative to come togeather, brainstorm and build a robot like we where hopeing they would (we did have team leaders to make this planed, not just sporatic). Instead the lego pieces remained unanimated, and come competition time, there where only two teams that actually had a non-default program on their robot!

Ok, so that may have ben a slight failure on our parts interms of not takeing the initiative for them... but is this really the way it should be done? These kids signed up for robotics, and i have seen them build, and think... but how do we get the team from step one to the final stages?

Thanks!

[AcesPease]

Two things

1) Were mentors assigned to each group? The mentors don't have to do much more than keep the students focused. They do not have to be engineers or lego experts.

2) Was time allowed at the meetings? When we do these types of things, all the work is done at our regular meeting times.

And after all this some groups will still not complete the task, but as long as it is fun and teaches something about teamwork, its all good.

[OZ_341]

You may not be able to have a completely independent team in your first year of existence. Speaking as a mentor from a team where student independence is the standard, I understand your goal.

However, it took several years to get there. You may need to model the right behaviors for them until you build up enough of a student base that can mentor the new people.

Just my perspective.

[Koko Ed]

It's easy to judge yourself a poor leader because the teams you are working with aren't performing like top tier teams(My FLL teams had two or three sporadically working programs and scores of 62, 19 and 20 points in their matches and were constantly screaming at each other).
But remember: in FIRST it's not just about where you finish in the standings but the intangible of inspiration where there is no true or immediate forum of measurement. That you had brought the means of FIRST and the possiblilty of it's effects into these childrens lives is already a great accomplishment. So to label yourself as a failure is really doing yourself a brutal disservice.

I've worked with a couple different FLL teams before, and there seems to be a wide variety of types of kids who do it.

In some cases- they are kids who love to tinker with the parts but never actually get around to accomplishing the game.

However, to me this sounds a little bit more of a case where they didn't know exactly how to start. I know when I started diong FRC I had no idea what was going on, and was intimidated. Having a team definitely helps. In this case it might be particularly helpful to point out to the kids that it doesn't matter if its perfect- and just suggest they get started and build something thats fun. Once you get past the activation energy of starting to build something, it gets a lot easier. Have them make any mechanism they think would be cool- regardless of it would be applicable to the game.

Once they find it fun and interesting they may even find ways to implement these mechanisms. Hopefully, having time to just get started with it casually and not worry about if it works or not will help inspire them and make them want to have more meetings to work.

[Bomberofdoom]

Originally Posted by GMKlenklen

Hi, all

We, the MASMabot high council, have enacted a small lego robot turnament to sort of get the ball rolling and the minds turning and generally enlighten the team . The task was almost overwhelming (like first games) but defianately possible, if you spent enough time and or came up with some good ideas. We split up into 4 groups, each with one RCX kit.

Now the problem:
The teams never really took the initiative to come togeather, brainstorm and build a robot like we where hopeing they would (we did have team leaders to make this planed, not just sporatic). Instead the lego pieces remained unanimated, and come competition time, there where only two teams that actually had a non-default program on their robot!

Ok, so that may have ben a slight failure on our parts interms of not takeing the initiative for them... but is this really the way it should be done? These kids signed up for robotics, and i have seen them build, and think... but how do we get the team from step one to the final stages?

Thanks!

We almost had the same thing in our first year in the FRC. We started with 26 people and came down to only 8-10 who actually DID the robot by themselves. I was very mad at our team leaders for not talking with everyone about our working terms. They didn't work too much either, but they did most of their jobs. I was the head of the programming team at that time, busy in understanding how to FRC code works. I shouldn't have been mad at them because this was our first year, our team signed up pretty late and our mentor didn't have enough time to explain to us about FIRST, so everyone didn't have nay expirience in anything, including our first team leaders. It kind of points a finger towards our school that they registered us pretty late, but we all didn't know about anything so we were just out of luck all of this year. Towards the 5th and 6th week of the building, I started seeing how drastic we were and I decided that I should try to lead the team in what time is left.
I did what I could, but it wasn't THE best, but I'm sure it was something.
What came out is that in the Regional competition we came out 33rd out of 33 teams in the ranking(but that was from sheer bad luck because our other alliance teams just didn't play well with us, but mystiriously did well with others), but we ended up being chosen by the 6th ranked team to join their alliance in the eliminations and we were able to reach the Semi-Finals. We also won the Xerox Creativity Award, but even though we made a very special magazine for FIRST in order to try to get the Rookie All Star award, but we didn't get it because we weren't able to spread out the word about it enough around the competition. It shows how much we've put into this project and it wasn't good at all, but we did come out with something and not just empty handed.
Currently I'm taking things into hand and making sure that only those who really favor this project are to be here, not because they get their school project that have to do, but because they want to have fun in building a robot. FIRST is really an amazing expirence that only those who are ready to dedicate should join, but everyone should have a try at it.
This year may have been a troublesome one, but we'll back to show what we got.

Leadership is important.

This is my opinion of what is leadership, teamwork and a team in FIRST terms.

Dedication + Enthusiasm + Expirience = Leadership
[Leadership + Friends] * Active = Teamwork.
Teamwork + Goal = Team

[Beth Sweet]

Oh man is this a good question.

Kids who have never been in FIRST before don't end to really "get into it" until their first competition. I had these exact same feelings 3 years ago when I started 1504 and had to make attendence requirements for kids to show up. I was like "you wanted to be here! You signed up!" The kids that came back 2nd year, for the most part, were much more into it and really got it more.

I don't really know of a way to make them get it more their first year in, other than to assign experienced students to each group. It should get better next year, both in terms of the students, and the rest of the running the team issues that make you feel like screaming at the top of your lungs!

[Justin Montois]

First of all, you can't discount the fact that they are younger kids. I'm not saying that they can't keep their focus , but it is more difficult with younger kids. I believe that you are a good team leader just because you are taking the initiative to post here in an attempt to learn. If there were a lot of rookies, then they may not have understood the commitment necessary and may have been burnt out a little.
maybe next year...
-If it's a problem of getting started, take each group and give them chart paper. Have each team write draw up what they feel is important to have on their robot.That's what we do in FRC and it is a good thing even down to FLL.
-Make sure all of the kids understand the time that needs to be put in
-Set a slightly easier schedule, and have way points that you want to hit by each meeting.
-Don't be hesitant to tell them where they are going wrong and be stern in correcting it. I'm not saying yell at them but tell them they needs to get back on track and stay focused if they want to be successful.

My E-mail is jmontois340@gmail.com
At anytime during your season you need any mentoring or advice do not hesitate to Email me. Good Luck the rest of the way.

Justin Montois