in terms of our actual recruitment activities, we have something called “Intro Day” before we have “Narweek”. basically what Intro Day does is get our incoming members hyped about the team. they’ll cycle through our departments and see what the team vibe is like (yes we also show off the robot and zoom around). after Intro Day, if members decide they are interested in some aspect of the team, we invite them to come back for a Narweek day. each of our department hosts a day and we do activities with them specifically based on the department. this year we tried talking to teachers and targeting certain classes ie art classes, business classes, freshmen classes in order to target that demographic for recruitment by hanging up posters and general word of mouth. we also held interviews this year as we had a lot of interest and wanted to interact with our candidates on a more personal basis after reviewing their application. we also get some people through continued interest from summer camp and outreach.
in terms of engagement, i’d like to say we’re pretty hands on with our new members. for our business and marketing department, they have curriculum alongside working on actual projects. for our technical departments, they have curriculum until offseasons start and they can put their newfound skills to good use in the pit or scouting. i would say if you want to keep people engaged, you should introduce hands on experience quickly as that is usually what draws them into frc.(for marketing maybe thats making social media posts and for strat, having them scout or help make match strategy)
hope this helps!
