FAHA: To motivate or to dissolve?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

The following is a message from the original poster.
4) We have at most 12 students active- there are 30 signed up.

6) We go to 1 event. That's all we've ever been able to afford. The team talks about going to others- and never does any fund raising to get there.
7) My mentors are godsends- all 8 of them. They're dedicated and the come in and they all understand and share my frustrations. I do need more and have had talks about this with our company president and vp's in charge of engineering.
8) There is no team leader. I had a long heart to heart with several students about 'stepping up' to assume the mantle of command and no one has demonstrated it. Perhaps I'll address this tomorrow morning and ask who is the team leader.

I've quoted some things that you may wish to work on. If you have 12 active students and 30 signed up, contact the 18 that aren't active and see if they still want to be on the team. If not, then remove them from the roster.

For the 1 event, talking about others: if the team really wants to go to more than one event, talk to them about taking the initiative. They have to do the work if they want to go, whether it's sending letters or doing a car wash.

Your mentor situation is actually pretty good. For 12 active students, you really don't want more than about 4 more than you have. If you get more active students, go ahead and add more mentors.

Finally, the team leader. Definitely do this. I'd say see who the team leader is and officialize them, but if there isn't one, that's kind of hard.

Regarding that heart-to-heart, have it with all the students that you can talk to. But, ask them why they are on the team. If they're there just for the free food (if you have that) or just to hang out, see what they're interested in and get them working on that. If they're there just to get another club for their transcript, let them know that if they don't start doing something, the school will be asked not to put robotics on the transcript due to effective non-participation. That will motivate them to do one of two things: drop by themselves or get to work.