Recruiting?

[gorrilla]

My team has around 15 "ACTIVE" students. "ACTIVE" meaning they come to more than four meetings per week and are interested in more than just playing with that black wire-guide-thing from the KOP and goofing off.

We have 2 seniors graduating this year, both of which are very dedicated to the team. One is our main Electrical student(others can do it, but he likes it ALOT more than the rest of us), The other is our second Mechanical leader, whom i will surely miss when I have no backup.
This is not as big a problem as it happens all the time.
But...

After the 2011 season we will have 7 seniors leaving. (including me)
Which will bring the number of "ACTIVE" students(currently freshmen and sophmores) on our team to about 6-8.

This year, we increased the number of students on our team by almost 50%, which is good. We need to keep this up. We are located in the middle of 3 medium size cities(Eustis, Mt.Dora, Tavares.) and have students from all 3 City High-Schools and from Mount Dora Bible.

This has happened to our team before(2007) and we got through it.
I hear about and see teams that have a large number of student(30-50!) and I wish we could be like them. we do many things and try hard to recruit people. We display our robots at the local street fests' and demonstrate them at schools, put articles in local newspapers and magazines, and we even have a week in 2 cities; 12voltbolt week which is the date of the Championships.

We get interested people that talk to us, but we cant seem to actually get that many people to join the team. I dont know if its something we are doing, or just lack of excitement and interest among us and the people we are presenting to?

We have to focus on having the older students teach the younger, less experienced students what they need to know so that when they graduate the younger students can then fill thier place. This is what we have been doing since we began in 2005, but we still need more students in order for this cycle to continue.

How do other teams manage to get so many people?
How do they generate so much interest among normal High-School students?
What works for you guys?
How do you bring someone past the point of "just being interested"?
Are we doing something wrong?

......It also dosent help that we are in the middle of Northern Lake County and the only team for about 40 miles, although we helped found a team in Clermont(2797). Most of the students that I talk to just say something like "thats really cool..." and they seem intersted enough but they dont have the drive to actually join the team or investigate further.

I feel like the whole FIRST thing in my school has been delegated by students as to "just something to watch" or "its cool but idk.."
I dont feel enthusiasm any more from students outside of my team.
I wish I could just take my entire scool(and a few surrounding ones)to a Regional, or even better Atlanta! Then they might understand why we do what we do

Sorry about ranting, but this really concerns me


Adam Spears
1557-12voltbolt

[Alex Dinsmoor]

Well I am a part of The FEDS up here in Michigan, and we pull in consistently about 45 members a year from our high school.

To do this though isn't an easy task; we have a rigorous recruitment process that goes down to the elementary schools. What my team has found successful is displaying to our school and community how strong of a program we have. Ask anyone who is familiar with the High School and they will mention about the robotics team and how well we did last year.

When we start advertising to the public, we start at the elementary schools. We do a robotics night at many of the elementary schools in order to spark their interest at a young age. Once they are in Middle School, they participate in a robotics program which is similar to FIRST. This inspires about 15 people per grade per school since it was started. In High school, after all of this exposure to Robotics has been shown, we as a team heavily advertise our team to our student body through announcements and in class demos. These videos and demonstrations are really what bring in those who have been interested in robotics, and even those who are not.

Along with these things, the students on the team constantly tell the younger kids that they know about how amazing robotics is. This is the real kicker. I can't tell you how much of our team joined because their friends were in it, which inspired them to do the same.


Although this works for my team, this may not work for others. I live in a community in which FIRST teams are in abundance (people from my city are on 5+ teams), and the coolness factor of them are publicized.

The best thing for you to do though is make a 2 minute commercial about your team. Display this commercial at the schools as a video announcement and forward it around to friends and school administrators. You will find that people like videos

~Alex

[,4lex S.]

Community image is important, but I think the thing that really did it for my team is FLL. If you can mentor and insprire an FLL team, a number of them will want to join up in high school. I can say this because 3 of my teams programmers over the last few years were FLL grads. I personally went through the process and I am in my sixth year working with the FIRST program.

Second to FLL is school presentations, even though convincing grade 9's that joining robotics is what they want to do is rather difficult sometimes. Make sure any presentations given are exciting and give the right impression (sometimes this is really subtle and hard to nail right on.).

Also, good engineering mentors help. If you can, get more, I think they are a major part of retaining interested students.

[gorrilla]

We are in the procces of adopting an fll team right now.
And we are about to start working on a commercial.

What other stuff could we do? What kind of stuff should be in a commercial?

[Ryan Simpson]

It's important to make your team visible. We visit the middle schools and are at 8th grade orientation at both of our team's two high schools.

My team has students visit all of the freshmen biology classes to explain what our team is, what we do, etc. The facts that FIRST looks great on college applications and that there are FIRST scholarships are major selling points.

I don't think an active member is defined by attendence, but by contributions. If someone comes 3 times a week, but is a huge help during those days, that person is still a valuable member of the team. It's possible that some freshmen could be scared off by such a large commitment. Myteam is fine with people not being able to come every single day, just as long as they are consistently there and are helpful. If they originally don't plan on attending every day, but find they love it, they'll make a point of being there very often.

[Rick Wagner]

I can't say that team 294 has been a role model in recruiting, because we worry and struggle every year to get more members, especially girls, on the team. But we are growing, albeit slowly, and we are taking thirteen students, six mentors, and four parents to the World Championship this year (we won the San Diego Regional). Two years ago we started an in-house FLL team that now has 14 elementary and middle school students. We hope that in a few years, those FLL graduates will go on to become dedicated FRC high school team members.

We also do many of the outreach activities mentioned above, such as school presentations, demonstrations, community events, back to school nights, etc. I think we need to keep on doing what we're doing and find ways to do it more and better.

[Wildcat]

what my team does is we will occasionally do demo's @ the districts middle and sometimes elementary schools as well as demos in public events such as local parades and festivals. another thing we do is run an ad on my schools anouncements and display flyers around our campus. the thing i think really helps is that we take all of the possible recruits that the commercial brings to an off-season competetion with the team-Kettering Kickoff. here's one of our commercials we put on the anouncements for you to get an idea of what one may look like. This was made by another member of my team.
for the 2009-2010 school year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SsBInRVfMs
2008-2009 school year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65qsE_Y8v9c

[hektormagee]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

How do other teams manage to get so many people?
How do they generate so much interest among normal High-School students?
What works for you guys?
How do you bring someone past the point of "just being interested"?
Are we doing something wrong?

......It also dosent help that we are in the middle of Northern Lake County and the only team for about 40 miles, although we helped found a team in Clermont(2797). Most of the students that I talk to just say something like "thats really cool..." and they seem intersted enough but they dont have the drive to actually join the team or investigate further.

I feel like the whole FIRST thing in my school has been delegated by students as to "just something to watch" or "its cool but idk.."
I dont feel enthusiasm any more from students outside of my team.
I wish I could just take my entire scool(and a few surrounding ones)to a Regional, or even better Atlanta! Then they might understand why we do what we do

Sorry about ranting, but this really concerns me


Adam Spears
1557-12voltbolt

Hey. Our team had recruitment problems for the first 6-8ish years of life. I HIGHLY recommend you check out Team 27 RUSH's Toolkit for success. (My Team) It is our complete 160-ish page playbook on recruiting, fundraising, and everything else we do. Im positive you can find good ideas in it. We recommend it to every rookie team we encounter, and any other team that asks for it. If we run into you at a competition, stop by and ask for a hardcopy! We have the entire file on our website,
http://teamrush27.net/resources/toolkit.html
It's last years, I don't think we've updated the files yet, and we will soon. It's still awesome! Tell me if it helps your team!

[hektormagee]

Originally Posted by Alex Dinsmoor

The best thing for you to do though is make a 2 minute commercial about your team. Display this commercial at the schools as a video announcement and forward it around to friends and school administrators. You will find that people like videos

~Alex

Thats an amazing idea!

[gorrilla]

We are talking to an FLL team and they have stated they will be sending their grads. to us.

And I just found out it will be 12 seniors leaving after 2011'

W are going to make a commercial, what kind of stuff should we put in it?

[Karibou]

The Gearheads are going to be having the same problem - once this year's junior class graduates next year, we'll be losing a lot of experience, dedication, and leadership. We had a huge rookie growth and retention number this year, and next year is going to focus on us seniors teaching as much as we can before we graduate. This also happened to us last year - we lost about half of our team to graduation, along with several valuable mentors to their families. A lot of veterans (myself included) had to step up to the plate. The process began at the beginning of the 09 build season, when we realized just how much of our team we were going to lose. Be sure to make your newer members aware of how much stepping up they will have to do once your class is gone.

We start out the recruitment year by sitting at tables during all 4 registration days (one for each graduating class) at both of our contributing high schools. The table generally has a team banner/tablecloth draped over it, a trophy or two, lots of pins sitting on the surface for taking, a retired robot if there's room, a sign-up sheet, and two or three enthusiastic team members sitting behind it. We sit at the tables and call out to the students passing by, and answering questions about the team. We usually get 30 or so names on the sign-up sheets.

With those names, the captains send out an email inviting students AND parents to a presentation at the school, which is run by the student leaders. The presentation is basically a run-down of what FIRST is, the basic structure of our team, the opportunities available on the team, benefits, costs, and a loose schedule for the year with important dates (i.e. "team meetings are on Thursdays," "Kickoff is this weekend," "build season starts and ends on these dates," "competitions are in March"). Students who are still interested enter their contact information into our team roster. After that, they are expected to begin attending team meetings and work sessions (which start with basic safety training, machining, off-season projects, etc). By early November, we have a pretty good idea of who is interested and staying and who has dropped.

Originally Posted by gorrilla

W are going to make a commercial, what kind of stuff should we put in it?

Who your team is, what you do, what opportunities are available on the team, why viewers should join, and pictures of all the fun things you do [:

[alicen]

We've got the same problem. We have maybe five "ACTIVE" members on a 15-20 person team. Of the active members, two of us are active (including myself). That leaves three people that might be active next year. This is a problem, because this year i did all of the CAD work and the majority of the build, next year, they have nobody to do that at the moment.
i'm actually really worried about what's going to happen to the team..

[Bethie42]

Does anyone know if FIRST has any promotional videos on their website? I looked, but couldn't find any (tend to have trouble finding stuff on the website anyways )

Our team is based at a small school...this year (our best season in a while) we had a grand total of 8 students who stayed all the way through to regionals.

We've got the usual graduating-genius problem....the only returning students next year are two programmers/hardware people, and me (PR, communications, publicity, scouting, organization, Chairman's team-of-one, and wrench-turning).

I'm probably going to film a promotional video for the incoming freshman class (our school has middle school and HS combined...small private school)...but it would be nice if FIRST had something ready made, that really shows what FIRST is all about...enthused students...all that sort. Most of our team is rather quiet...heheh.

Also: what are some considerations when recruiting incoming freshmen? Since there will likely not be many upperclassmen on the team, there isn't the fear of being the newbie, so is it good to emphasize that part? passing the torch from seniors to freshmen...'you have the chance to Be the Team'...

(I'm a bit depressed that the most enthused student on the team is me--the public relations person, not really an engineering type.)

In the video, I'm going to try and strike a balance between showing non-engineers that robotics is Cool and Exciting, and not scaring off the quiet geeks

May as well make this post a bit longer! How do you deal with recruiting for organization and PR and so forth? It was a happy chance that I joined the team (my dad is the school liaison/mentor) but next year I'm a senior and after that the team may not attract a replacement.
Basically I do everything except actually build the robot (though I do that too when there's no-one more skilled around)....at competitions I am THE scout, I like to brag that I have a ready stream of memorized data on Every team at the event....I planned, filmed and edited the Chairman's Award video this year....wrote the Chairman's Essay...briefed the Chairman's team for their interviews (I was busy scouting at the competition)....took care of logistics....now I'm planning for grant-writing and recruitment....

Anyway, after that little self-promotion , how do you find someone to take care of those things? The organization students don't tend to join the team....and our team is usually small enough that everybody does everything, except for the PR which nobody thinks to do.....so how do you find your behind-the-scenes people? Do they just come out of the woodwork?

[Karibou]

FIRST has TONS of promotional material. Check out http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/...er.aspx?id=952 (it's hard to find, I don't blame you for not being able to find it)

When you're recruiting, it's important to mention that EVERYONE is welcome, and they will have the same opportunities as the upperclassmen. In your case, be sure to state that there aren't a lot of upperclassmen to fear in the first place. If you introduce new members to the fun of FIRST in the beginning, they'll more than likely stay until the end. Don't just host team safety training sessions, host training PARTIES. With rewards. Get them dancing and laughing early on. Nobody likes to wait for promised fun.

Finding the balance between recruiting the geeks and wrangling the non-engineers is really tricky. We've tried for years to promote "it's not all about the robot, we do marketing too!", but we've been unsuccessful. It may be due to the general area's attitude and culture, or we just might not be strong enough. Right now, all of the PR and marketing type jobs have fallen to the team captains. Having written most of our Chairman's award and staying up until 3am to edit our video, I give you some serious awesome points for doing it all yourself (has your team considered you for a Dean's List nomination??), but that's definitely not a job that's designed for one person. I think that the best ways to try and attract those students are a) recruiting through friends ("Hey, you like talking about your toy horse collection, I think you would be a great person to talk about our team at competitions and team events!") and b) actually SHOWING prospective team members that PR is fun, and that it exists. Take videos of students talking to judges, sponsors, and other people. Be sure to promote what you DO, not just throw out titles and responsibilities (if that makes sense).

Note: I had originally joined my team because I wanted to make necklaces and use Photoshop. I've ended up doing just about everything except programming/electrical...and making necklaces and using Photoshop. Keep in mind that not everyone does what they come out to do

$0.02

[Bethie42]

Thank you so much for the input, and especially the link!! Knew someone on good ole CD would come to the rescue...

Well it looks like the promotion for incoming freshmen (at least the first one) will be happening tomorrow, and I was not given advance warning so I'll just be turning out a slideshow/music from photos from the season.....yay for late nights!


Hopefully next year I can find someone to help on Chairman's, fortunately this year I did have a really awesome friend on the team who did the voice-over (huge help) but she was a senior :/ As to Dean's List, I believe that falls under the category of things that >I< am supposed to think about....no-one thought of Woodie Flowers nomination til the day before it was due, and I wound up writing the essay late at night, with input from the team captain.... thanks for the recognition though

thanks a lot for the suggestions, I will definitely try to integrate them into whatever high-quality promotional media I manage to pull together at the eleventh hour.....