FIRST EXPERTS INTERVIEW SEIRES - Preseason

[nbascomb]

PRESEASON PREPARATIONS – An Interview with Mike Martus, lead mentor of Team 51, with Neal Bascomb, author of THE NEW COOL

Over the course of the 2011 season, I will be interviewing mentors throughout FIRST to offer suggestions/tips for teams on the various aspects of the FIRST season. Consider these Q&As an opening to the conversation on the topic, and please post your ideas/comments as well as suggestions for future interview (and subjects).

A short bio on Mike Martus first: Mike is the lead mentor for Team 51, “Wings of Fire” and puts the “Chief” in chiefdelphi.com. For 37 years, he taught vocational education in Michigan, everything from electronics to hydraulics and engine repair. He started with FIRST in 1996 and now is the lead inspector for Michigan as well as a member of the Board of Directors of FIRST in Michigan. His FIRST team (a recent merger of Team 47 and 65) is a Hall of Famer and winner of a National Championship.

What’s the importance of preseason activities for a team?

A lot of young teams learn after the first year or two that the competition doesn’t start at the kickoff. Robotics starts way before the kickoff. To have a successful team that’s well-prepared, ready for all the business of the season, you have to start preparing long before. The preseason is where the true identity of the team develops.

What do you focus on during the preseason?

Develop cohesiveness. We do a lot of team-building activities. You can’t go into January without team members that don’t get alone, that aren’t on the same page. Team members need to have their roles defined prior to the season.

We define these roles over a three months period. We break everyone into sub-groups where kids experiment in different specializations, video, photo, programming, electrical, etc. Then we rotate kids into different groups. Sometimes I reorganize 7-8 times before January. Kids will come up to me, tell me where they want to be.

Also in fall, we teach basic mechanical skills, how to run the mill and late. All the students have different projects that they need to use these machines for to complete. I teach all safety, and then I have the students certify each other. Often, the skills we teach at this time are pretty basic. For instance, how to measure with a ruler effectively. Seems simple, but most kids in high school don’t know how to measure properly.

How much do you talk about the future, i.e. what it is to be an engineer?

Quite a bit. We spend a lot of time on educating the team on what FIRST is, what the career of an engineer involves. It’s easy for them to say I want to be an engineer, but you need to counsel them on what it is exactly, what the right skill base is, the right classes in school to take. Fortunately for us, we have General Motors engineers come in every week to talk to them. This is where the “I”—inspiration—in FIRST comes in.

In the final days before kickoff?

The last week, we spend 3-4 days, doing nothing but how to brainstorm, how do you analyze a problem, how to creatively share your ideas with everybody else. We don’t want to do that too early or they’ll forget. The first days in the build season are the most important; teams can lose a championship based on how well they do the first week.

Give us some examples of team building activities that you do in preseason?

There’s Speed Conversations—a spin-off of speed dating. We have the students in a circle, rotate from desk-to-desk, they have questions they have to ask each other (What is your favorite dinner? Who’s your favorite current singer/song? If you could be any animal, why would you be? Most embarrassing thing that you’ve done that you’re willing to share with everyone? What moment of your life has made you most proud?). When they’re done, each person makes a presentation on a member of the team.

Another exercise I do is called: Escape Vehicle. We break the students into teams of four. I read them a scenario, maybe their plane crashed or they were stuck in a tsunami. Then I dump a box of LEGOS out, they have to create an escape vehicle out of these LEGOS, but with their non-dominant hand. Somebody then has to present it to the team to show why it’s the best. They get about 35-40 minutes from all these bricks (400-500 legos pieces). The game shows team dynamics, who’s a leader, who’s quiet, who’s maybe a troublemaker, who’s vocal and outspoken. Then we talk about how we can work with the strengths and weaknesses of each student to build the best team.

What different roles do your mentors play?

Well, we basically have three levels of mentors, and it’s key to define their roles and responsibilities early. We have the engineering mentors. They are the experts in what to do, how to build it. Then there are the teachers. We are responsible for the kids, the discipline, the organization, the forms, paperwork, travel, fundraising, dealing with interpersonal and personal conflicts. Finally, we have been fortunate to have a strong group of student mentors, college students who volunteer their team to help the kids in many, many ways.

Give me one big piece of advice to an experienced team: I would ask them to stop, take a moment, both students and mentors, tell them to remember what FIRST is about and take a hard look again to make sure their efforts are aligned with that. Veteran teams get distracted, cutthroat; the mantra of FIRST is shadowed in the background. Reflect on what FIRST is about, that’s what they should be aiming at achieving.

One big piece for a rookie team: Every year we mentor rookie teams. I always say: Keep it simple. A rookie team needs to keep everything from organization to building the robot as simple as possible, so they have enough time to enjoy, and learn what’s around them, to make them better for next year. Keep it simple, in process of organization, look at your resources that you have student-wise, if you don’t have resources to put robot on CAD, then don’t do. If you don’t have resources to do complicated programming, keep programming simple. When it comes to build robot, you don’t need one to do everything in the game, need 1-2 things that do things well as part of the game. Pick what’s important, do those well, with high quality, and you’ll be better off.

If you’d like to read Team 51’s Mentor Handbook for a more in-depth look at their team’s methods go to this link: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2417?

If you want to know more about Neal or his soon-to-be published book on FIRST, THE NEW COOL, please go to nealbascomb.com.