Team issues and difficulties?....(not just technical ones)

[KenWittlief]

On almost every team, and every year you will have at least one major emotional problem:

1. a student will get upset and quit the team

2. a mentor or parent advisor will get upset and quit the team

3. two students will fall in love - sometimes its great, and sometimes they have a falling out before the season is over, and then one or both dont want to be on the team anymore

4. students who have been best friends for years will have a falling out, and you will have a big mess on your hands.

Funny thing is, you can tell everyone on the team about this at your first meeting, and they all look at each other and say, "Yeah! right! not me!"

but this program is so intense and stressfull, that conflicts and emotions are bound to rise.

best advice I can give when things blow up on you is to sit everyone down and remember what this is all about. we are not here to build robots, or to win a contest, or to travel to cool places or to bring home trophies.

we are here to see what a career in engineering and science is like - anything else that happens along the way is frosting on the cake - so if someone else gets more frosting than you do, try not to be too upset.

[Enslaved]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

On almost every team, and every year you will have at least one major emotional problem:

but this program is so intense and stressfull, that conflicts and emotions are bound to rise.

You are so right...
Well, I wouldn't dream of quitting the team... People are expecting of me, hopes relying on me, some are reliving their dreams through me! So no matter, how tough it gets, I have to keep moving

There is one funny thing though... something my team mates say about me:
Sometimes, when something doesn't work, or I make a foolish mistake
I tend to get very angry... Yeah, one of those hot-tempered women
Once someone said, they'd have to carry a tranquillizer if I were going in the competition

It made me laugh so much, that I couldn't drill a screw properly....
Never stopped laughing the whole day... and since then, it's amazing, but I don't get all that angry

So, no matter, how heated the atmosphere becomes, always try to make each other laugh.... It's a wonder how things start falling together themselves....!

[Erin Rapacki]

The NU-TRONS has college admin, college facutly/staff, corporate engineers, college students, parents, 4 different high schools, and outside help.

Communication is our biggest problem, clearly.

[Alaina]

I've been worried about this for about a week, but luckily a mentor brought up the same issue, and people listen to mentors. Anyway,the main thing is:
Our robot thus far is quite heavy. And all we have designed is the drive train. We don't have anything for an arm or pneumatics or anything...

*Anything else said in this post will be personal opinions...that are shared with other members of the team...many of them.*

We don't have much of "student-run" team anymore...It's more of a "Single-student dictator." It's not kool. That particular student has the design in his head, makes a picture, and then gets his engineer dad to make a more comprehensive picture for us to work off of. This student will graduate after this season, and I'll be the most veteran member next year. This will NOT be happening again.

*Anything else said in this post will be completely personal*

We're using wood next year. Alluminum? No. 3/8" plywood? Yes.

[Collin Fultz]

As much as I hope that you all get all of your problems worked out...I really DO NOT feel as if Chief Delphi is the place to be airing your team's dirty laundry. As great as the forums can be for discussing different strategies, clearing up rule questions, asking how to gear for the best torque, etc., complaining about a student on your team to five-thousand chief delphi users is not the Gracious Professionalism that Chief Delphi and FIRST are going for. It is especially not what Chief Delphi is going for in these forums. If you have to complain about a problem within your team, type it up in Word, and then delete it. It isn't worth hurting others for. Now, if you are going to ask a specific question e.g. "How do teams that feed from multiple schools communicate effectively?" That's fine and a reason that these and other forums are in place. However, if you want to talk about a student who has become a dictator, leave that within your own team or in your own head. Use the forums for what they are meant to be used for, not for complaints. Come on folks.

[srjjs]

I think that getting help with team management issues is as much of an acceptable request as asking for suggestions on how to build a 4-motor drive train. It just has to go in the right forum. (*cough* http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=86 *cough*)


As cliched as it might sound, you can't make people come, you have to make them want to come. By kicking people off the team, you accomplish nothing. Instead of coming to 50% of the meetings, those people are now coming to 0% of the meetings. If people are not showing up, the only way to fix the problem is to address the source; why aren't they coming? Common causes I've seen are being too busy (perfectly understandable at exam time, and cured only by waiting), or apathy (in which case there needs to be some activity on the part of the team's leaders to help fix it).

If one person seems to be "taking over" the team, the first thing to do is to make sure that is actually what is happneing. Someone who feels "displaced" by someone will naturally resent the other person, but having one person who is exceptionally smart, talented, or motivated take on a greater than average share of responsility should not be viewed as something horrible, rather, it is inevitable, even in the most egalitarian teams.
However, if the person is going too far, that may indeed be cause for concern, as a bottleneck can result in slowing everyone down because 30 people are trying to get approval from 1 person with limited time, or even worse, when that person gets sick and can't make it to a meeting, resulting in a whole day wasted. At that point, it probably is time for someone (a teacher/mentor or a senior student (but only 1 or 2 people, not the whole team)) to talk to the person and explain the situation and propose a solution.


I'm happy to say that our own team is suffering from no more than the usual, as predicted (2 students fell in love over winter break, 2 friends had a bit of a fight today, and 3 people have quit).

[Cory]

Originally Posted by collin234

As much as I hope that you all get all of your problems worked out...I really DO NOT feel as if Chief Delphi is the place to be airing your team's dirty laundry. As great as the forums can be for discussing different strategies, clearing up rule questions, asking how to gear for the best torque, etc., complaining about a student on your team to five-thousand chief delphi users is not the Gracious Professionalism that Chief Delphi and FIRST are going for. It is especially not what Chief Delphi is going for in these forums. If you have to complain about a problem within your team, type it up in Word, and then delete it. It isn't worth hurting others for. Now, if you are going to ask a specific question e.g. "How do teams that feed from multiple schools communicate effectively?" That's fine and a reason that these and other forums are in place. However, if you want to talk about a student who has become a dictator, leave that within your own team or in your own head. Use the forums for what they are meant to be used for, not for complaints. Come on folks.

I hardly think the thread started out as "whining" It turned into it, but I think this is a really important issue. I cant say I know what it'd be like to be in the situation that this team is in, but I can sympathize with them. I would be very disappointed if I were to put hundreds of hours into the construction of the robot, only to never even SEE it compete, let alone be there. It would be very cool if local teams hosted your team, like foreign exchange students.

Kind of off topic, but why does your team go to New Jersey? It has to be cheaper to fly into LA or New York, or even Houston(Being the closest regional to you), I would imagine.

Cory

[tenfour]

I think that when you place individuals with different ideas (some wrong) together, you naturally have problems. It becomes worse when these people are prideful, as smart people sometimes are.

The way to solve it is simply to go out of your way and treat everyone as you would family (you are around them as much). You also have to have incredible tact and be very politically minded.

Besides common manners, a good team structure is important since it determines ahead of time how problems will be solved and decisions made. This avoids haste in the heat of the moment.

Hope this helps!

[KenWittlief]

was just wondering, what does it cost to fly from brazil to the US? $1000 per ticket?

there are almost a thousand teams this year - if each team donated $20 that would be enough to bring a whole international team here?

maybe FIRST should consider a fund to bring international teams here for regionals? in fact, I would say, if we are going to do that, let them attend the championship instead of making them goto a regional first.

something to consider.

[Guilherme]

The airplane ticket is around U$ 750,00. It´s a high cost considering that we have to include the hotels, transfer, vans... in the end the total cost per student comes to U$ 1300,00 per student.

This year : 20 x U$ 1300,00 = U$ 26,000. This is a big value for us, because 1 U$ = 3 R$ (our currency)

[KenWittlief]

FIRST originally started out with something like 26 teams, most of which had to travel to the competition

this year we have 26 regionals!

this eliminates the large travel expense for local teams

so heres an idea, if you attend a local regional, FIRST can collect an extra fee ($100 maybe?) from each local team to help fund the most distant teams - esp international teams, who dont (yet) have the convienance of attending a local regional event?

[c-squared_2006]

That was a little off topic, but back to the topic on had. Sometimes people aren't having a great day and they take it out on someone else, possibly someone in the team. That has happened to me once, and I didn't feel so great. Anyways, communication is a great way to work out problems (as someone mentioned, I think). And just being friendly overall will improve the overall atmosphere. Personally I try to be friendly to everyone and just have a smile on my face. It's really had to pick a fight with someone who refuses to fight. And always be there if a fellow team member just needs to talk about anything.

[Tytus Gerrish]

We have done virtually nothing in Programing Or animation

[ColleenShaver]

In terms of choosing people to attend competitions, we have a process we follow which narrows down the team to people that are really well-rounded and capable. From there, we choose people that have to be there in order for us to compete successfully (i.e. Drivers, pit crew, etc).

Step 1:
For the first time this year, we imposed a minimum number of meetings (10 from Sept until competition time) as well as a minimum number of hours people must contribute. Team members must put in at minimum 15 hours on one side (Operations or Support) and 5 on the other. They also have a general pool of 10 hours that can be met by doing anything related to the team (demos, competitions, etc). They may not earn more than 5 hours per week towards these hour goals.

Step 2:
Everyone interested in traveling with the team must take and pass a Rule Test with 100% accuracy. They may take in multiple times. The point is to ensure that team members know and understand the game and various rules that are especially pertinent to our robot playing the game.

Step 3:
Everyone interested in traveling with the team must take and pass a Technical Test. Here, members of the team in charge of Operations give everyone an oral quiz on various basic technical aspects (Describe a fuse and a circuit breaker and point them out on the robot) as well as specific aspects of that year's robot (What does CVT stand for and how does it?). This way we know everyone knows the robot reasonably well and is able to explain to any judges that come by what the robot does.

Step 4:
Knowing how many spots are open, assign people to travel who are necessary for robot function and have met previous qualifications. For instance, you need a robot driver and operator and a human player (we also have a method for doing unbiased driver testing/selection that we really like, PM me for more info). You need a coach. You also need experienced pit crew people to fix the robot when it breaks.

We typically take ~14 people out of 250+ on our mailing lists (college mentors and high school students combined). This process works pretty well for choosing the people who have really put in time and effort and are going to be valuable at the event.

Hope this offers you team a little help. It's still one of the most difficult parts of the whole thing (people have emotions, robots don't!), and our team has been in it 13 years! Any questions, feel free to contact us.

Best of luck!

[snake]

That was a great help to out project
you could cover the chain with plexiglass or plastic