[FRC Blog] Volunteer In-Training, Shadowing, Oh My!

FIRST General Forum
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Posted on the FRC Blog, 12/14/2017: Volunteer In-Training, Shadowing, Oh My! | FIRST

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Volunteer In-Training, Shadowing, Oh My!***
Written by Amanda Bean, FIRST Robotics Competition, Volunteer Resource Coordinator
*Hello FIRST Volunteers,

As you know, FIRST Robotics Competition is an ever-growing program and as FIRST Robotics Competition grows so does our need for volunteers. FIRST wants to ensure that we give you, our volunteers, the best training and support that we can, while creating a great volunteer experience. We are constantly looking for ways to enhance the support we provide.

One of the FIRST Strategic Pillars is to increase Diversity. FIRST is striving to create a more inclusive and welcoming place that will further our goal of fully reflecting the communities we serve. The FIRST Robotics Competition Volunteer Shadowing and Training programs support equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) by making efforts to recruit and include additional volunteers for training.

This season, FIRST Robotics Competition is adding a new volunteer shadowing program to help volunteers try out new roles and grow into Key Volunteers. This shadowing program will enhance our already successful In-Training Program and help nurture you through the ranks of FIRST Volunteers.

In- Training Volunteers

Many of our events use “In-Training” volunteers at their events. In-Training volunteer roles, also known as “Trainees”, are volunteers that are positioned to move into a Key Volunteer role at an event. This positioning is especially useful for regions that are ready to expand, or move into the district model. This process helps to create succession plans for specific volunteer roles where individuals might be leaving their roles soon.

The In-Training Program is available for the following roles:

  • Control System Advisor
  • Field Supervisor
  • Game Announcer
  • Head Referee (practice day only)
  • Judge Advisors
  • Lead Robot Inspector
  • Lead Queuer
  • Master of Ceremonies
  • Pit Supervisor
  • Volunteer Coordinator

The In-Training program benefits volunteers as it allows the Trainee to receive official hands-on training for a Key Volunteer role while being supervised by an experienced volunteer. The Trainee acts as the Key volunteer while the experienced volunteer supervises and teaches the trainee.

For example, an In-training Robot Inspector has the opportunity to have hands-on training with the Lead Robot Inspector and simulate the responsibilities of that key role throughout the event. (Acts as Lead Robot Inspector with someone assisting when needed)

This season we will add an evaluation process to all Trainee positions. The evaluations are designed so that the experienced/supervising volunteer may provide feedback to the Trainee volunteer to highlight areas for improvement and where they are excelling.

Volunteer Shadowing Program

FIRST Robotics Competition has always allowed volunteers to shadow at events, but we have not had the right guidelines in place to successfully implement it as a wide-scale program until now. The purpose of this program is to allow a volunteer to observe a role to determine if the role is a good fit for them. It’s a stepping stone for volunteers that are interested in growing into Key and/or leadership roles. For example, a Field Reset volunteer that aspires to become a Field Supervisor. This shadow program gives the volunteer the opportunity to Observe the Field Supervisor and further understand what the Field Supervisor role does throughout an event.

Shadow Volunteer Requirements

Must have been a volunteer at a FIRST Robotics Competition event during the previous season.
Volunteers must be of age with some exceptions. Volunteers that are interested in a Key Volunteer position that wouldn’t normally meet the role’s age requirements may shadow the position 1 year under the age requirement.
i.e. The Field Reset volunteer who is shadowing the Field Supervisor may do so at the age of 18.
An event can only have one (1) shadow volunteer on the field and two (2) shadow volunteers off-field.
The Shadow Program is available for the following roles:

Field Supervisor
Field Technical Advisor Assistant (FTAA) (setup and practice day only)
Game Announcer
Lead Queuer
Master of Ceremonies
Pit Supervisor
Referee (practice day only)
Scorekeeper
Volunteer Coordinator
It is important to note that neither of these programs are required to grow into leadership or Key volunteer roles, nor does shadowing or training in a role guarantee that a volunteer will move into that role in the future. Every event is run differently and volunteer assignments are determined by the Volunteer Coordinator and/or Regional Director of your local event. There are only so many key roles needed for an event and some events already have dedicated volunteers for certain positions. Please speak to your local Volunteer Coordinator if you are interested in moving into a more key volunteer role.

We at FIRST Headquarters understand that there is a shortage of open Key Volunteer positions in certain areas, and we are working across programs and departments to develop more opportunities for volunteer mobility in the future. Please be patient as we try to develop these growth and succession plans. We love the passion that our volunteers have and you can always reach out to the Volunteer Resource Department by emailing [email protected].

Thanks for all you do, Volunteers POWER FIRST!

Amanda Bean

FIRST Robotics Competition, Volunteer Resource Coordinator

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Oh good, so I still can’t shadow a Judge Advisor :stuck_out_tongue: (a role I held, gosh 3 years ago?)

(I’m pretty sure I could get grandfathered in but that’s not the point!)

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Andrew - It looks like JA’s are part of the “In-Training” group rather than the “Shadowing” group. It’s interesting to see where there’s overlap between those two groups and where there isn’t.

I suspect (But I don’t actually have any information) that it’s driven by the requirements for each role. For example, a JA requires 2 years of judging experience. That means you spend 2 years working with the JA, so having a more hands-on role with in-training may make more sense than a hands-off shadowing roles. The same is true for a role like LRI - you’ll already be an inspector, and from my experience training up new LRI’s, training is a bit more hands on.

Compare that to a role like Lead Queuer. Previous queuing experience is helpful, but not required for the role. So someone that already has queuing experience could be more hands on and in-train, while someone who doesn’t may just shadow the role, so it shows up in both lists.

So no, you can’t shadow the JA, but you can in-train.

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Pretty sure the issue was the age requirement, which presumably the “in training” volunteers are supposed to have met so that they can be “next in line” for the KV role, whereas it sounds like shadows are for perspective volunteers to find out more about the role.

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Dude, I was a Judge Advisor in 2015 and 2016 and have been judging since 2012. (2014-2016 at the CMP level, I skipped CMP in 2017 due to medical stuff).

Sooo, now I can ‘in-train’ for a role I’ve held successfully multiple times in the past but apparently can’t do anymore because I’m young. Oh goodie!

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I get it, but honestly… this blog post had nothing at all to do with the age requirements (other than a statement that you can train 1 year before you meet those requirements). If you want to continue to complain about the age requirements, there’s already a thread for that. Or do you want to derail this thread right from the start?

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So do LRIs in training attend LRI training? FTAs? Or are they acting as that role without the same training by FIRST?

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Given I can’t even “train” for a role and there’s still nothing official on the books as far as grandfathering. Sure I’ll derail it. I was hoping FIRST would add the sane clause in with their discussion about training and shadowing (which is needed and awesome) of “and after thinking about it for even half a second we turned our brains on and realized that we needed to make it clear that if you’ve done a roll before you’re grandfathered in”

So given it’s still pertinent I don’t view it as derailing. But I guess that anything that isn’t “gosh first sure is doing something great guess I’ll go from recruiting judges ans managing them to sitting and handing out safety glasses” seems like derailing to you. I just want to use the limited volunteer resources we have effectively instead of wastefully putting stupid limits with no clause for exceptions to be made.

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Judging by this, there is no in-training or shadow program for FTAs. There appears to be shadowing of FTAAs on practice days only. I have actually never heard someone explain exactly how to become an FTA. I was kinda hoping that this blog post would include a process for becoming an FTA. It seems to be something like:

  1. Volunteer as an FTAA or CSA
  2. Know the right person
  3. ???
  4. Co-FTA an event
  5. Congratulations
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Yeah, put me down for derailment as well.

The connection between this official volunteer training program and FIRST’s strategic pillar of increasing diversity seems really tenuous. Is there data to indicate that these efforts actually increase equity, diversity and inclusivity within the organization? It seems like the recent age restrictions actually lessen the diversity of the volunteer corps by eliminating an entire potential class of participants.

Why does FIRST not consider offseasons in this official volunteer training program?

Finally, it’s interesting to see that there has apparently been a change of the Volunteer Resource Coordinator for FRC.

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Andrew, have you tried talking with your even’ts RPC or the local RD about getting grandfathered in? If this is such a big issue for you, I would think that would be a much more productive path than complaining about it online.

Mike - that’s a great question. We’ve been doing shadowing/in-training here in MN for a while now (at least since 2013, and probably before then), but without any formal process that I’ve ever seen from FIRST. Those individuals have never attended the official training, but now that there’s an official process behind it, I don’t know if that would change.

The way I’ve handled LRI in-training was to have them stick near me as much as possible. There are some parts of the job (speaking at the drivers meeting, talking with the rookie teams) that most inspectors haven’t seen before, and I want them to experience those aspects first hand before they actually do them. For other things, they can take the first stab at it. For example, dealing with bag and tag forms. I talk with them about the normal stuff we see and deal with, then have them handle it as much as possible. If there’s something severe enough to warrant a non-compliance form, then we talk about it before anything actually happens. When it comes to making the tough calls on items of questionable legality, I’ll take them with me, introduce myself and them to the team, and ask the team if they would be OK with the in-training volunteer taking a stab at it while I observed. That lets them get the experience working with the team in a tense situation as a quasi-final authority, while I can still be available to step in if needed, either to change the ruling or to offer further explanation. And at the end I confirm that I agree with the ruling and explanation the in-training volunteer gave.

So, I’ve never just thrown them in to sink or swim. It’s very much been a guided exercise that requires a commitment and participation from both parties throughout the event. You’d have to ask one of the 3 LRI’s I took through it how helpful it was, or if they felt missing the official training affected them in that year. All three did make the transition to LRI successfully, have attended the official training when they made that transition, and are still serving in that role :slight_smile:

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The fact that you bunt the problem to local RDs is disgusting. If this policy is coming down from on high you are effectively requesting the local RD/RPC to ignore the policy. The policy should be designed in a sane way.

It DOESN’T impact me, I took off most of last year for personal reasons and I’m planning on doing the same this year.

I’m using me as an example because I know the role and requirements best. There’s dozens of volunteers out there who aren’t “qualified” any more. And the fact that you can’t understand why that statement is offensive and unhelpful to longer term viability of this program is more telling than anything else you’ve ever said.

Actually, here I’m going to expand on this because now I’m actually angry about it.

Frank, I know you read CD so pay attention to this. I don’t want to get an email. Don’t talk to me, fix it.

The messaging coming from FIRST to those of us in the younger crowd - you aren’t good enough. You can’t do this role because you haven’t been on the earth long enough.

FIRST’s messaging is supposed to show us that Engineering is MFD and that everyone can go pro but what this messaging is saying is “well, you can go pro but only if you’re a certain age regardless of competency or qualification”.

You CONSTANTLY pester us to come volunteer (I get dozens of emails a year from events around the country that I’ve volunteered at saying they need volunteers) and for money yet apparently I’m NOT GOOD ENOUGH to continue in the role I’ve done previously.

That random person from a company that wrote a check is better qualified than people who have given years of their lives to these programs by the mere fact that they have a few more gray hairs.

FIRST is literally saying sit down, shut up, put in your time. Children should be seen and not heard.

That’s your messaging Frank, fix it.

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An organization that is always desperate for more volunteers shouldn’t be making their existing volunteers do extra work to continue the same jobs they’ve done previously.

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Perhaps you missed this… https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159463

We understand that in a few circumstances, exceptions will be requested. Since this wasn’t obvious in the original role descriptions, we’ve now added this line to all the roles with the age requirements: “Exceptions may be granted by event Volunteer Coordinators after review and approval by FIRST Headquarters.”

So… request an exemption. The option is there. And I bet prior experience in the role will help the exemption process. What more do you want?

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I want them to fix the messaging. I want them to stop telling those of us who give a crap about team experience because we lived it that we have to jump through EXTRA hoops to continue doing our jobs.

I want sanity. But maybe more importantly I want to say there’s other programs out there that have sane volunteer requirements and DON’T abuse their volunteer base. Maybe we should all just go there and let people like Jon here continue to have issues finding enough key volunteers.

I want the same respect that the person that LITERALLY threw a microphone at me at an event for doing my job and has yet to apologize gets. I want to be able to be in a new judge room and not have people assume I’m not equally as qualified as them to do the role.

I want to stop hearing “well you’re just a kid I don’t care about what you say the judge handbook says even if I can read word for word what you’re saying”.

I want to be able to stop having to work THAT much harder to do the same role as someone half as qualified.

I want to stop having to have other people submit work I did because “I’m too young”.

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Sorry for wanting to keep a thread on topic. I’ll bow out now and let you continue ranting all you want. After all, why should we bother talking about a process that is actually designed to help people get into those key volunteer roles?

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I’d love to shadow but since I was on drive team last year with no chance to volunteer at any event I cant. How’s that for “on topic?” Any senior last year didn’t send their last season as a student volunteering is screwed over this year.

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Yep. I’ve been involved for FRC for six years, I would think I know my way around a field by now. But since I took the opportunity to mentor a team last year, I can’t shadow this year?

So in order for me to be eligible to shadow, this year I should volunteer for field reset for a few hours. This somehow more qualifies me for an FTAA position all the way in 2019…? Since I spent half the season debugging the Radio Disaster of 2017*, I’m not eligible to shadow as an FTAA.

Also, 3 shadows per event? Excuse me? Please tell me I am reading this wrong. I understand wanting to limit the number of slots. That’s okay. But 3 total, when there are 9 positions? Ok, the regional decides they want a shadow for pit supervisor, scorekeeper, and master of ceremonies. Great! But now there are no FTAA shadows. Maybe next year?

Aight. Cool.

Yeah, I’m probably coming off a bit salty. But I think I have every right to be if they are intentionally limiting the number of people who can volunteer and help this program grow. With all the discussions around scalability problems (in every aspect), you would think they’d be more open to scaling the number of people helping out.

*This got not just me, but hundreds if not thousands of people, emotionally disturbed at the state of comms. We finally “fixed” the issue when another team told us, “Oh yeah, the second ethernet port only works 30% of the time. Buy a switch and only use the port closest to the barrel connector.” This is another story for another thread, but…

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I can see where FIRST is coming from with the restrictions on how many volunteers can shadow, as it is important to realize that you shadowing is not something that is zero cost to the event or to the volunteer coordinator’s time.

That being said, FIRST is making an important decision with these new rules around volunteering-- faced with the choice of making it easier to bring new volunteers in and making it more difficult, they have chosen to make it more difficult for new volunteers, and in particular alumni, to volunteer.

I think that’s a shame, but fortunately there are other ways alumni can contribute to the program.

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As a younger volunteer, I appreciate FIRST clarifying a lot of the requirements and duties of different roles. I also appreciate them formalizing these training programs. I eventually want to fill one of the higher roles, and these updates show me a clearer path to get there. At official FRC events, last year (my 7th) I did setup and the safety glasses table. This year (my 8th) I’ll do setup and Inspecting. I think I was qualified to do some role other than safety glasses last year, but, whatever, someone has to do that.

I’m guessing that enough VCs recognized maturity and other issues with younger volunteers to raise the ages and add more limitations for key roles. There are tons of alumni out there who are motivated and knowledgeable enough to come back and volunteer for key roles, but there are a lot of other things that need to be done, too.