How to identify/recruit your programming team?

[gigemags]

Would anyone be willing to share their training materials?

[Lili_1868]

We run a series of workshops in the off season, and send out problem sets so those interested can get the practice they need to get ready for build season.

@gigemags

Would anyone be willing to share their training materials?

Some of our workshops are on here. We’ve got a couple more though, on PID, state machines, autonomous and vision, PM me for those.

[mikets]

@kelef

Although I really do understand where you’re coming from and the frustration you are feeling, making that a prerequisite may not be the best option and my restrict a lot of otherwise interested kids from joining. Many kids may not know where to even begin with the sometimes confusing world of coding and this may be able to jump start them in to the field. They also may not have the means at home to begin, as you have to remember some kids still don’t have access to computers. They also may not have had time previously due to family situations, other club involvement, etc.

After reading responses and thinking about it, I agree prerequisite may not be the right way to filter. But the need to filter still exist. I am just trying to figure out what is an appropriate way. Like I said, it is sometimes very obvious some kids have no desire to learn. If they always come late, leave early and play with their phones while you are trying to teach them something, you know they really don’t want to be there. Some of the responses here are very helpful. I like BrianAtlanta and techhelpbb’s ideas. I think we will try this in the coming season:

• From September to December, we will hold programming workshops for three different levels: beginners (don’t know anything about programming), intermediate (know some programming but nothing about robotics), advance (know programming and familiar with robots - most likely existing robotics members who’s been with the club for a number of years). The reason for the three levels is to avoid the situation where you teach beginner stuff and the advanced students get bored and you teach advanced stuff and the beginners got lost.
• At the end of the workshop, there will be appropriate assessments for different levels. Students need to prove they learned something in their appropriate level in order to pass. Students that pass will be admitted to the programming team. Students who are not even trying will probably fail and be filtered out.
• During the robotics season, students will be divided into sub-teams each owning different subsystems. Each sub-team will have a mix of advanced, intermediate and beginner (ideally one each) in the team so that the more advanced student will help mentoring the beginner students. Hopefully, beginner students will be advanced to the next level in subsequent seasons forming a continuous sustainable pipeline.

Any downside to the above scheme?