How Does Your Team Recruit?

[Katie_UPS]

Go to feeder schools. Even semi-feeder schools. Even schools that might send only five kids. Getting the kids interested before high school always is a good thing. What really is effective is getting teachers to take students to the competition (that's how I got hooked!).

Also, freshman orientation/open houses. If your schools work in such a way that parents attend freshman orientation, then nothing works better than telling the parents about the scholarship and other opportunities. Invite them to competitions (if orientation is early enough/the competitions are close enough). Parental support is key. This also goes along with getting them hooked before high school.

If your school has a freshman-mentoring program (Link Crew or something similar), join them. Having members work with the incoming kids forms friendships that can lead to recruitment and a stronger team. This can also lead to "Hey, I'm joining this robotics team cause my mentor talked about it and it sounds cool. You should join too!".

This all is on top of school announcements and having teachers advertise the team as much as possible. Our physics teacher has handouts for all his classes, and the teacher at our other school (we're a two-school team as well) would post fliers. One of our teaching-mentors would show the highlight videos from past years when he taught younger classes.

Once you do all those things make sure you mention the extra opportunities given to students because of FIRST, and stress that its not just about robots.