FAHA: To motivate or to dissolve?

[smurfgirl]

In your first post, it sounds like you effectively want to shut down the team. In my opinion, this isn't going to do anything useful for the students, although it will make your life slightly less frustrating. Overall, though, there will be no chance for the rewarding experiences FIRST can give to both students and mentors.

It can be really, really hard to be a mentor, or anyone who is very passionate about FIRST, when the people around you just don't seem that into it. It sounds like you've tried as hard as you can to give the students all the resources to discover their potential and the great things FIRST has to offer... but that's really all you can do. You can't force them to realize what FIRST is about and learn the life lessons that are out there, they have to discover it for themselves.

As hard as it is to step back for a bit... maybe you should do this. Discuss what is going on with the students... and then let the students have it their way- if they realize week 4 that hey, there's no robot and the mentors aren't building it for us, maybe they'll get the motivation to start brainstorming themselves. If they make it further in the season, such as to ship date, maybe they'll want to get their act together with the 40 lbs of replacement parts, and a busy Thursday at regionals. I can't predict exactly what will happen, but at some point they will probably come to the realization that they have to start working themselves, and that will make a bigger difference to them than an entire season of prodding them to be productive might.

I know this could be read as sounding harsh and pessimistic, but it's really not meant to be. The mentors, who sound great, can still be around for support when the students are ready to start learning. FIRST is a program for students, so it shouldn't be up to the mentors to build a robot. The students will learn about responsibility if you leave it up to them to keep everything going. If, at the end of the season, no one has expressed any interest in really doing anything, then maybe you do want to let everyone know that you're not going to renew the sponsorship if no one is interested in being a part of this program anymore.

Hopefully this won't happen, and you can keep us updated on the progress throughout the season. Good luck with everything!