We are a rookie team and I have a great bunch of kids working on this challenge. The problem is that I see kids starting to experience “burn out”, and it’s only the end of week two! I gave the entire team off Friday and had only a handful show up on Saturday. What can I do to keep these kids going strong until the robot is in the crate and the FedEx truck is pulling out of the school? Maybe I have given too much to too few to do and need to spread the responsibility around in the future.
While your team is in a little different situation i would say to read up in the following two threads. They both have some great ideas on how to keep a team motivated and dedicated through out the year.
Coming from a student on the team, food is a great motivation. Make sure you have plenty of it around all the time. Giving students responsibilities is good too.
For the first four weeks or so, my team meets from 3PM to 6PM Monday through Thursday. We don’t work on the robot on Friday; we do things like brainstorming and strategizing instead. Those meetings last from 3PM to 5PM.
We don’t meet on the weekends or on days when school is off until we hit the last two weeks, when we need the crunch time.
That said, having the weekend off whenever possible is a good idea. Taking a two day breather helps. A lot.
As a rookie it is a bit more challenging to keep motivated because no one knows what they are getting ready to experience at the competitions. The previously mentioned ideas are all really great. Try pointing your team to this website and also let them get a little off task once in awhile, the break is good for the brain and the bonding is good for the team. My rookie team had 5 students, the closer we got as friends the better we worked together.
Food usually does the trick. Also make sure that all members have something to do. It is a real dissapointment for most people to go to the workshop and not be able to get their hands dirty.
Well, if you delegate work out to the kids, and tell them that such and such has to be done each day, that usually works. also letting the kids play around with the prototype, drivetrains. that works too. or if you really want, tell them that only those who work will get to go to the competions, and keep logs, yeah i know they are a pain, but they really work.
Mohsin
Team 772
You dont work, i pull out INCENTIVE
Try some team bonding activities. We normally play a game on Saturday afternoons. Like kickball, basketball, football, etc. That usually gets team moral up for the rest of the week and things get done a lot faster.
An important thing is to let them know that they are useful for the team. Give responsabilities and discuss their work are important, and always point their mistakes in a positive way.
Sometimes days off are not the answer to this problem. I heard a Lou Holtz quote as an answer to the question of “how do you motivate the unmotivated”. He said " You eliminate those who are not motivated." Now I know we can’t do that in this type of program but I think when the students have sacrificed something for the effort or bled a little for the cause their bond will grow stronger as a team. As said above if all else fails a couple games of dodge ball are also good.
Personal contact. Have someone from the team (team captain, head teacher, engineer, mentor) contact students one on one, and say something like, “Hey, we missed you at the last meeting.” or “I just wanted to let you know what a great job you are doing, and I’ll see you at the next meeting.” E-mail would work (as long as it isn’t a group e-mail), but a telephone call or talking with them in person is probably more effective.
Students will drop off of the team, and often, it’s for very valid reasons, such as slipping grades, other activities they are interested in, etc. but there are probably some students who leave because they get lost in the shuffle, they are on the shy side and slip away unnoticed because they feel like they don’t fit in. These students will especially benefit from personal contact.
If you’re dealing with students who are just being lazy or who don’t realize the importance of a deadline, keeping track of hours and having a requirement of hours put in to determine who goes on trips is a great way to go. It may be too late to start hours now, but consider if for next year. And speaking of deadlines, actually setting deadlines each week and giving rewards if the deadlines are met can motivate. Such as, “If you get your detailed designs done by Friday, we’ll have free pizza on Saturday.”
I think you are experiencing FIRST first year blues, and next year should be easier, especially when your team has the bonding experience of an actual competition. Good-luck!
For the most part with our team, we keep the members interested with lots of work. Everyone has a part that they can do, and the jobs are in PostIt notes on the front board of the classroom we work in.
We have meetings every monday and wednesday from 2:30 to 5:00, from 2:30 to 6:00 on fridays, and from 10:00 to 5:00 or 6:00 on saturday and sunday. Generally, only the people what aren’t involved with other stuff show up for the weekday meetings (we have 2-5 people there usually).
Weekends we see most, if not all the team. Every weekend meeting one of the mentors brings in food for the team (recurring pattern?) and we all break for lunch at the same time to have a team update session. This time is spent with the members chatting with each other, about whatever they feel like. Often the subject is what we’ve been working on that day but no matter what it is, the conversationbuilds bonds within the team members. Some members only get to see much of each other at meetings because they don’t have classes together or they live in different towns (our school serves 7 towns in the area that don’t have high schools).
I guess, to keep people interested, we always have work so they don’t get bored, we keep good food for the long sessions so the members stay energized, and we let the members bond with each other. Friends work better together than people who are merely on the same team. True, not everyone will be best friends, but there will be people that come to work mainly with other people.
