Keeping Interest - Beyond the Robot

[Bharat Nain]

Honestly, most of our team's activities do not revolve around the robot itself. After build season, only a core group of 4 or 5 get selected for the pit crew. The rest are focussed on scouting, PR, chairmans, Serving invited guests, Cheering, Working year-round events(for example, our team is hosting a bodybuilding & health expo on saturday), demos, efforts to recruit new teams, developing software for scouting, developing website(s), fund raising and sponsorship events, lego league summer camps, parents meetings(our RPM group), animation team development/training through out the year, student recruitment, developing relations with school district, community service, recruiting lego league teams, hosting off-season events, etc.

So you see, there are a ton of things your team can do. With such a wide area of interest, many different kinds of students join our team. Some only have an interest in media, or others in cheering. What is important is that they are having fun while working in an engineering environment. At some point everyone gets to work on the robot and they think its "cool". You need to figure out what is fun to do on your team and what the people on your team like. People having fun is naturally attractive to others people. Everyone wants to have fun. They need to see that being on a FIRST team is actually fun. The best way to do this is to get them to off-season events so they stick around for the season. When it is not fun, it is time to leave. That is what our team coach, Wayne Cokeley has taught me. Our team has a smooth year because we have secured funding every year, so we know we will at least be at 2 events. We also have a great leaders who make sure all the projects are headed in the right direction. Building a team takes time and you find people one by one who are willing to take up that responsibility. Good luck.