Team Rules

[Mew187]

My FRC team is having our first team meeting tomorrow and I wanted to have some basic rules to give to members as a starting point. So I want to know, what rules or guild lines does your team have? What worked and what didn't work for you?

so far I have:
1. We only have six weeks to design, build, program and test our robot. This must be your #1 commitment.
2. You must focus at all meetings.
3. School and homework have to be a priority, if you need any help just ask. If your grades start to slide you will be put on probation.
4. You need to have a minimum number of hours in to travel with the team.(haven't decided number yet)

any suggestions would really help, Thanks!

[RMiller]

SAFETY
As they say in much of industry, if it can't be done safely, it isn't worth doing.

[Nin_estarSaerah]

In regards to minimum hours, 80 to 90 percent of the build season meetings is always a good number to work with, depending on the number of team members that you can take with you.

We have a points system, where you get 1 point for pre-season meeting, 2 points for build season meetings, 5 points for team community service projects, 20 points for the FLL regional we're hosting. You need 80 points to go to regional, or the top however many slots we have.

Knowing the manual is always a good rule to have. Many teams have a test that students must pass before they can go to competition.

Hope this helps!

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by Mew187

My FRC team is having our first team meeting tomorrow and I wanted to have some basic rules to give to members as a starting point. So I want to know, what rules or guild lines does your team have? What worked and what didn't work for you?

so far I have:
1. We only have six weeks to design, build, program and test our robot. This must be your #1 commitment.
2. You must focus at all meetings.
3. School and homework have to be a priority, if you need any help just ask. If your grades start to slide you will be put on probation.
4. You need to have a minimum number of hours in to travel with the team.(haven't decided number yet)

any suggestions would really help, Thanks!

Welcome aboard! Good luck with your first meeting tomorrow. If you have a little bit of time search here on Chief Delphi for information on starting teams or rookie teams. Many teams have made their start-up tools available to new teams. I know that my team #1511 has some rookie team helps on our web page at www.penfieldrobotics.com. And ask for help!

One comment on your first stab at your list: #3 is the most important. Schoolwork trumps all, always. Robotics requires committment, but not at the expense of schoolwork.

Hold on to your hat! Its going to be a wild ride for your first year!

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Mew187

My FRC team is having our first team meeting tomorrow and I wanted to have some basic rules to give to members as a starting point. So I want to know, what rules or guild lines does your team have? What worked and what didn't work for you?

so far I have:
1. We only have six weeks to design, build, program and test our robot. This must be your #1 commitment.
2. You must focus at all meetings.
3. School and homework have to be a priority, if you need any help just ask. If your grades start to slide you will be put on probation.
4. You need to have a minimum number of hours in to travel with the team.(haven't decided number yet)

any suggestions would really help, Thanks!

Nice rule, but be careful not to scare people. I find that after people stick it out for one season, they get hooked and are more dedicated in the next season. . The FIRST season is always the hardest (pun intended). :d.

[ATannahill]

#1 thing to be said, Put #3 before #1 and remove #1 from the current #1 which will become #2

1. School and homework have to be a priority, if you need any help just ask. If your grades start to slide you will be put on probation.
2.  We only have six weeks to design, build, program and test our robot.
3. You must focus at all meetings.
4. You need to have a minimum number of hours in to travel with the team.(haven't decided number yet)

If that is confusing pm me or post here.

[Beth Sweet]

The link to our team handbook is below, it's kinda our compilation of 4 years of knowledge, so you may find it helpful.

http://team1504.com/media/documents/...4_handbook.pdf

Good luck, and welcome to FIRST!

[EricH]

I don't have any rule suggestions, but I do have suggestions:

#1, get parents involved. You never know what they'll have to contribute. Anything works, from meals to mentors
#2, Safety first. Stress that. I can't stress it enough.
#3, Read the manual. Everyone. The whole thing. Once. Have a rules guru who has it memorized. Have a second rules guru for the Q&A.
#4, make sure that team roles are defined clearly before the season. This causes more friction than a lack of a key bearing.

And in general, see the CD whitepapers and any other team handbooks, etc. that you want. Take the best ideas and adapt them to your team.

[DonRotolo]

Safety is Rule #0

I second the notion that the manual is really important. (Almost) everything you need to know is in there.

Any team member who is here to fool around, just go home, we don't need you.

[Tom I]

On behalf of Team 811, welcome to the FIRST community!!

Good rules! School should come before FIRST. Safety is critical!! My brother actually had a bad accident because our safty regulations were not respected as well as they should have been. As for the hours dedication, I've personally gone on record for 8 days, 9 hours of time purely spent at our FIRST BASE!!! I hope you have members as crazy as I am, but obviously not everyone wants to/can do this! I'd say time measurements are good for general records, but if someone cannot come as often as they'd like, but they're productive for the time they do attend, and they're a significant member of the team, they should not be penalized because they could not make it as often as others, especially if these others are not as productive as they are.

This is a link to our team's Manual... it's 5-6? years in the making, and it contains basically EVERYTHING! take a look, use it as a reference if you want!
http://www.team811.com/files/download.php?id=5

Also, something else that Team 811 does is it has a Declaration of Membership... basically this is a formal document listing all the team goals and rules, and everyone signs this sheet, stating that they intend to follow and respect these rules to the best of their ability... this really gives perspective to the whole "team" environment. Sorry I dont have a link for this! but feel free to take a look around our site in general!
http://www.team811.com/index.php

Good Luck!!!

[Matt382]

If you are looking at team handbooks, check out this link: http://usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=7022 Welcome to FIRST!

[Joe J.]

Here is 862's Team Manual its divided into several small handbooks

Team Handbook - general rules, etc.
Safety Handbook - Safety rules, and training
Officer & Team Leader Handbook - Rules for Team leadership
Officer Contracts
Hours Card policy - timekeeping rules
Style Guide - image rules
RPM By-Laws - By-Laws for our booster club

[Tom Line]

The first rule to making rules is:

1. Every rule must be measureable in some fashion.

For instance, saying that all team members must "work hard" is inadequate and unlikely to generate any meaningful results.

Saying that all team members must belong to x number of committees, must report out on that comittee X number of times during the season, must be qualified on X number of tools in the workshop, and must attend X percent of meetings is something you can actually measure.

Stick to that rule and you'll probably do just fine.

Editted to add:
P.S. - this same rule applies to interviews and performance reviews in the real world. Don't ever let a boss tell you that you've done a "poor job". Insist on a meaningful description along with measurable requirements for you to work to so you can improve. There are unfortunately times at which you'll end up working for a vindictive jerk in the real world and if you insist on measurable goals then you have a fallback if he tries to play the "I just don't like you" card. So far I haven't had to deal with this situation, but it will happen at some point in my career.

[Mew187]

Thanks for the suggestions! The meeting went great! Good Luck to everyone and see you at the Pittsburgh regional.

[Engineer]

Many of the teams have handbooks. One of the hanbooks I liked my rookie year was the TechnoKats http://www.technokats.org/handbook.php. Look at what the more experienced teams are doing and follow their lead.