Right time to quit robotics

[sg999]

Before everyone jumps on me and asks why I'm asking this and if I'm going to quit robotics or not, allow me to state that I will definitely not be quitting robotics (unless something drastic and completely unexpected happened).

So what I want to know is, in your opinion, under what circumstances would you find it acceptable for another person on your team to quit robotics? Lots of teams have members that quit for various reasons. Which of these excuses/reasons will you accept and why? Under what circumstances would you yourself quit and why?

I'm not asking when would you ask a kid to leave the robotics team, but rather the opposite: when would you allow a kid to leave the robotics team? (Obviously, there really isn't much that can be done about a quitter, so by "allow" I mean accept as an excuse)

PS I'm asking this partly out of curiosity, and partly because our team had a particularly bad year in terms of quitting the team last year. I enjoy robotics too much to quit.

[Billfred]

I forget who first posted this, but I've been using it as the natural order of things:

Family, School (or work), Robots.

In my eyes, doing it in any other order is begging for trouble.

[sanddrag]

When a student wants to quit, why make him or her stay? We have plenty others who want to be there, and little room for those who don't.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the question.

[EricH]

If a student wants to quit, and isn't allowed to quit, they may decide to find ways of getting themselves kicked off the team. This potentially disrupts the whole team.

If a student wants to quit, or even just to take a step back to work on something else, let them. It could be lack of interest, it could be other activities, or it could be that the team isn't what they thought.

So here's my suggestion: If someone wants to quit, the only conditions I would place are: Team property comes back to the team, and tell the team why you're quitting. If there's something the team needs to work on, like team dynamics, then I really want to know about that! If it's some other set of circumstances, outside the team's control, then maybe the team can find a way to help out. Any reason the individual decides to quit, though, is accepted as a reason. They can always come back if the reason goes away.

[EOC]

The best reason for a student to quit robotics is that they no longer want to be in robotics.

[sg999]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

When a student wants to quit, why make him or her stay? We have plenty others who want to be there, and little room for those who don't.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the question.

While you may have a team that has plenty of people, we don't, and even one person quitting will make a huge difference. For example, our main CAD person quit halfway through the season (not sure why), and that left our team helpless in terms of CAD, because the only other CAD person was new last year.

And also, I completely understand the family, school/work, robotics thing, but what if the kid was really dedicated in something else, and wanted to do robotics as a side note (ie: choose something else over robotics when meetings coincide)?

[vhcook]

Originally Posted by sg999

And also, I completely understand the family, school/work, robotics thing, but what if the kid was really dedicated in something else, and wanted to do robotics as a side note (ie: choose something else over robotics when meetings coincide)?

We have this situation a lot, because our team is 10-15% of a fairly small high school (approximately 200 students total), and all of the students are involved in many activities that have the potential to conflict -- particularly sports and the school play. We've tried a number of strategies to work around the problem over the years, but basically it's just something you have to adapt to as it happens.

We ask our students not to apply for a leadership position if robotics is not their first priority extra-curricular activity (family and school coming before any extra-curriculars, of course). We don't discourage people who have other priorities from participating, but we try to avoid putting them in critical long-term jobs, and we ask that everyone keep the coach informed of conflicts that are going to make them unavailable. One of our less committed students might be doing important work on the most critical thing going on on any given day, but they aren't usually in charge of its long-term completion.

We also try to make sure we've got at least two trained people in any key position, at least one of whom is not a senior, because life happens. Priorities change -- people get sick, families move, people discover they need more study time, people slip on ice on their front porch and break their elbows... This is where succession planning and the rest of the business plan come in handy. Doing the planning ahead of time helps mitigate the damage when you lose someone, since you can't really control whether that's going to happen.

[bibleboy932]

For me never but college does come in the way a little bit

[wasayanwer97]

IMHO,when to quit is entirely up to the discretion of the student considering doing so. However, as others have stated before, it is a good idea to request they're reason for leaving, and see if it is something the team can help fix so thy can stay.

Other activities can be a conflict with robotics, especially sports. I found this year that having the main leadership role on my team didn't work very well while playing football. It's manageable nonetheless, if you really set your mind on it and have enough heart for robotics to do so.

If any one member is so essential to the team that you can't function without them, that is a problem. Dependence on one person is something you want to work to get you team away from.

It sounds like you have a relatively small team, and not too many new members. Start trying to work new skills into the ones you have. If CAD is a main trouble of yours, there are plenty of tutorials online, as well as a wonderful CD community here that would be glad to help your team however they can.

Returning back to my original point, if someone would like to quit, don't stop them from doing so. I would rather have only 10 happy members, ready to learn whatever I throw at them, then 50 members if half of them are sulking and don't want to be there. Unhappy people can and will only create problems for your team. Let them go, but rest assured that the people who can help your team the most are often the ones that come running to join. Work on advertising your team to your school though, you'll find great members in places you wouldn't have thought.

I know that was quite long, but I hope that helped a bit.
Good luck with the upcoming season!