How Do You Treat New Members/Freshmen ?

[Ashley Weed]

Originally posted by ryan350tantrum
Heres the bad part. MY TEAM IS 90% FRESHIE!!!!!! We have 2 sophmores (myself included, and 1 junior, then everyone else is a freshie.

I have the same problem on my team. I wish I had found these forums to discuss this stuff in before this year's build season. Does anyone know what to do about this? You have a team with all freshman, around 3 sophomores, and 3 Juniors. We had no sinority on the team. There were only two on the team, one was in PR and the other, when he showed up, was more entertainment. (I don't think I saw him work on one part this year.) To top it off, we had about 8 people (Seniors) who wanted to join the team, but to only be with their friends.
My dilema... what do you do with a team that was like this, and 90% of it was unproductive all the time. Now, when the new season begins in the fall, all of those freshies will be sophomores, and there will be even more freshies. How can myself and the other two seniors get our sinority back? There was no sinority or structure on the team this past year, and you have soon-to-be-sophomores who think it is ok to walk up and grab the controls of a running robot that you are working on.

[Alfred Thompson]

Seniority should be determined by who knows what and not by what grade people are in. The idea that a senior automatically knows best is just plain silly.
I like a plan where students select leaders based on experience and knowledge. Mentors should supervise elections only to make sure that ballot stuffing does not place unqualified people in charge just because they are seniors or bullies.

[robomama]

weedie,

as far as drivers, operators, and hp's we do what a lot of teams probably do and that is have tryouts.

as far as the rest of the stuff we each have to fill out an application with our 1, 2 and 3 choice of subteams to be on.

if too many people want to be on a certain subteam, some would get their second choice. i don't think anyone had to take their third choice.

leaders usually rise to the top on their own. slackers fall by the way side. survival of the fittest. and hopefully the leaders can delegate to keep the unproductive time to a minimum.

[Ashley Weed]

Originally posted by robomama
weedie,

as far as drivers, operators, and hp's we do what a lot of teams probably do and that is have tryouts.

as far as the rest of the stuff we each have to fill out an application with our 1, 2 and 3 choice of subteams to be on.

if too many people want to be on a certain subteam, some would get their second choice. i don't think anyone had to take their third choice.

leaders usually rise to the top on their own. slackers fall by the way side. survival of the fittest. and hopefully the leaders can delegate to keep the unproductive time to a minimum.

To me that sounds like wonderful advice, however, right now it seems like only in a perfect world. I have definately noticed the survival of the fittest. However, what do you do when the adult advisors don't enforce anything, and then the engineers get cranky. Our team has always done well with sinority, and my first year, if you even looked at the robot and the driver saw you, you ran, and kept running. Then this year, for the first time, both myself and the other driver were Juniors, and with no sinority, we lost all control of the team. Now, my brothers class (soon to be sophomores) think it is all a joke, and that we (the 3 seniors) are all pushovers.

[robomama]

However, what do you do when the adult advisors don't enforce anything, and then the engineers get cranky.

short answer...get new ones!!!
jk
sometimes it takes one of those student leaders we were talking about to step up to the plate and tell it like it is.

"Ya'll either get with program or get lost."
"Dig in or shove off"

i'm sure a little peer pressure can get those little bodys contributing. and actually i think that is all a part of the learning process. not everyone is going to learn how to build a robot. someone is going to learn how to relate to people, lead people, and inspire people to really want to be a part of a great team.
that's why i think being inspirational and motivated may be more important qualities for a student team leader than electrical or mechanical abilities.

[ChrisH]

One of the great moments of the BeachBots happened in a design review meeting. We were running over the list of requirements as a group and checking off which were high, low, and no priority.

All of a sudden there's this voice from the back of the room, "Excuse me, but I don't hear any students saying anything". It was the young lady who was student lead for the electrical team, and she was right. So we went back over the whole list, this time the engineers could only answer questions and the students did the ranking. There were only a couple of minor differences in the list as a result, but a major change in attitude.

Notice: she made this challenge in a polite and respectful way (or was it Graciously Professional?). She was also an experienced member of the team and therefore had credibility.

There is a need for the students to keep us engineers in line. We tend to get wrapped up in the technical details and ignore the people issues until things explode, and then we wonder what happened. It isn't because we're mean, sometimes we're just clueless.

Kind of like giving a colorblind person a pile of blue and green socks to wear and expecting him to come up with a matching pair. Can he do it?, generally if he's paying attention and looking closely. But probably not if he's just throwing stuff on because he woke up half an hour late. Because differences that are obvious to a person who sees in color are not obvious to him, he isn't equiped that way. ( A color blind co-worker of mine did this regularly. )

SO if you don't like the way things are going, speak up. Do it politely, and in a non-threatening way, be obviously trying to help. Mention the PROBLEM in a general way, don't talk about the PERSON, at least not at the first go.

For further guidance I suggest the book of Matthew, Chapter 18.

[dets002]

Well, we're all rookies so and how people were treated was determined entirely based upon their desire to learn how to do things and work hard. However the older members handled some of the more technical work because of their [generally] higher level mathematical aptitude.

I'm officially First-sick now. I just need to design one circuit, please?

[Jferrante]

My junior year was our teams rookie year so in a way we were all freshmen... but we weren't yet a robotics team that year, we were still part of the schools science club which allowed for the upperclassmen to still have seniority within the club itself.

With that said we treated freshmen very well, almost equals.... That is until they proved there capabilities. Those who were less willing or able to work were givin more menial tasks and although not formally required to be quiet, learned that there input wasn't usually taken seriously. Those who proved to be very willing to do work, even if they weren't the best at it, were givin more complex and more important tasks, of course, under propper guidance and monitoring depending on there actual ability level.

I should add that this went for some of the upperclassmen to. Simply put. If you wanted to work and didn't know how we were willing to take the time to teach you. If you didn't want to work and had all the skill in the world you would usually become a gofor (go for this, go for that, etc.).

[Harrison]

Last year one of the rookies on our team decided to suggest we build a hover-craft with a turret on it. He was serious.

We then locked him out of the school....lol

Some freshies can have good ideas, and we encourage SERIOUS ideas from everyone...but the youngins sometimes get carried away, at which point they need reminding that this is a serious competition that (for the most part anyway) requires serious thought.

[Ryan Foley]

Actually now my team is different then what it was last time i posted on this thread. We treat people on how hard they work, what their attitude is like, etc. IE: we have one freshmen from last year (now a sophmore) who always worked hard, and had a great attitude. I treated him like my assitant captain. Then now we have this new guy (sophmore i believe) who has the most horrible attitude, he thinmks he is the greatest member on the team (keep in mind hes been on the team for about 3 weeks now). He thinks he knows more (not possible, I'm the only official year veteran so basically i know a great deal that no one else does, not trying to brag, its the truth, plus i have the most experience), and that hes the best driver. Our junior from last year (now a senior) is just like that too. So it depends on your productivity, attitude etc. Most freshmen are really immature, its rare that we get good ones, so most of them are treated like one would normally treat freshmen. The good ones are respected though.

Basically for this year we have
1 senior (that really arrogant cocky one who always fools around, and yes, its a guy)
4 juniors (myself, 2 guys, 1 girl, all are into it and have good attitudes and almost never goof off)
5 or 6 sophmores (1 is the "assistant captain" i described above, the others are fairly into it, they do their share of goofing off. all guys by the way)
3 freshmen (1 guy who is really into it, and pretty much never goofs off, 1 guy who is into it, but is at some points, way to hyper, and a girl who is usually quiet, but is into it and has a good attitude)

The good thing is over the summer we lost most all of our slackers (they were freshmen, now they are sophmores)

[sidewinder]

I don;t care who you are or how good you are, Every newbie goes through a 2 year grunt program. Its not the best treatment but everyone has to go through it to learn.

My team is suffering heavily this year, becuase we are down to about 2 trained leaders left. We see hope for few grunts, btu the process is long and hard. Like many of the posts I have read we have only a handful of members who work, but about 20 who travel to regionals and nationals.

[evulish]

I'm considerably nice to the newbies who do work (whether being filing edges or being informants). I'm normally incredibly easy-going but some of the freshmen last year really irked me. We are normally working our bots off the last weekend so we don't even bother going home. It used to be that just Seniors or Juniors stayed. All of them did work. This year, there were freshmen there. It would have been okay if they worked...but they were just bogging down the T1 with pointless games. *sigh* I think I bit my share of heads off (All my pent up anger comes out in random bursts at things that annoy me...I have been told that it's scary. I personally find it humourous )

Oh yeah...when I was a Freshman, I don't remember being allowed to look at the robot. I got to make buttons the ENTIRE YEAR! 3 hours of making buttons every monday, wednesday and all day friday and saturday. Did that for two years. Needless to say, I nearly quit robotics. I'm glad I didn't though

[RBrandy]

Im kinda "assish"(sorry) to the newbies on the team. Ok im not that bad but some of the rookies just arnt normal looking and im not saying any thing bad about them but i would be kinda embarrassed if i went to nationals with some of them. Others are fine and im sure i will be able to get along with them.

[Gadget470]

I started with 247 in the team's second year, as I became a freshamn. I was one of 3 chosen (it had just become a class at school as opposed to a club)

I, and the other two, were all welcomed and appreciated.

Second year, there were more freshman, and their acceptance was based on merit. A few refused to work assuming FIRST was a blow-off class. The rest earned their keep.

Third Year.. Newbie Catastrophe. Very few of the new kids wanted to do work, and with a new teacher (Huskie Brigade's Mr. Goldberg) made for many tensions. As we all settled in through the year, Charles Darwin watched over us.

Now we have another 20 or so new members and almost all (less maybe 2 or 3) work their butt's off.

Hooray for survival of the fittest w00t.

[Colin Bohannan]

I was a freshman last year on GRT and after taking that much flak from the veterans, I personally decided not to do it again. I never took it personally, but towards the end of build I hated the veterans and everything they did. Don't harass rookies or freshman cause they'll be there next year and remember what you did/said.