I know that we have many tutorials about starting teams, and how to get financial support, but I really don’t see anything out there on how to maintain a team. I wondered what people’s opinion on this topic are. I am very concerned, especially for Florida Teams, but for the rest of the FIRST community as well that veteran teams are simply dropping off for a variety of reasons.
I was prompted to this question after seeing a very long standing veteran team just simply drop off the radar. My father, a team coordinator for Florida FIRST, contacted them and found that they are most likely not going to come back unless something dramatic takes place. We are working with them to try and find a solution, but I wanted to know your opinions since we have such a diverse group of them.
So how do you maintain a team? What elements do you need? How does it work for your team?
All a team needs is someone to believe in them. If can be a parent or a parents group. It can be one of the team’s sponsors, or it can be one of the mentors.
FRC is advertised as a high school competition, but in the real world, the real support and the heart and soul of a team come from the supporter’s mentioned above.
Some teams are lucky to have great school support, but it isn’t necessary. One teacher that believes in the program is enough.
There are teams here in CT, which must find an off-school site to meet and build their robot. They have great corporate and parental support.
Our technical mentors have no connection to any present or former team member. They were hooked on FIRST by demos we ran while looking for sponsors. Our non-technical mentors, parents of present and former members, run the business end of the team.
It’s all about believing you can do it. Gather the students and give them the whole story. If the students want it, then the parents will want it and so on………
It used to be that the average FIRST team would last only a few years but there were always a few teams that managed to find someting to keep them going. I’d like to think that we are one of them and we are entering our 9th year.
So here are a few observations-
the team should always be doing something- you can’t drop the team right after the competition season and expect them to return 8 months later all ready to restart. The interim time should have lots of fun events like replay competitions, fund raisers, new projects peripherally related to the robot, social events. That way the “team” exists even if a robot doesn’t,
companies get tired of money flowing to places where there is no return- so give your sponsors a return. They are the next best thing since sliced bread and they should be told that wiith good press coverage of the team, thankyou letters and gifts and good will of your community. An active team sets all this up as a part of their plan. The big killer of teams is loss of funding.
adult mentors- those adults with vision look into FIRST and see what it CAN be. But many see only the now- lots of time and money spent. If the students show the adults how much FIRST is changing them for the positive and how their efforts are appreciated I am sure more would be excited to participate and help support any team.
I guess you might say that the robot doesn’t make the team, the team makes the robot. Build a good team and the robots will be there. But building a team that has fun together and places value on their time for robotics will assure that they stay together.
I recommend trying something like team-building exercises to keep the team together. Such exercises can promote trust, problem-solving, and especially a love for being on the team. There are always upcoming generations of people who would love to experience being on a FIRST team… Don’t let the opportunity for them slide because of issues with the current team.
The first thing is finacial stability. It is very hard to run a team when you are unsure of where the money is comming from. There’s a reason there is only 5 orginal teams left. Becasue their sponsors had their back and the other teams did not.
Next you need a strong nucleus of mentors who will keep the team going year after year after year. They set the agenda, maintain team focus and set the examples for the students to follow.
You need the constant and firm blessing and support of the school (or schools) becasue if the school or district do not care about the team it is amazing how qucikly and horribly a team can die no matter how strong the tradition or how much money they get.
And last but definately not least you need a nucleus of dedicated student leaders who will provide leadership and prime examples to newbies who will become future team leaders.
It is also good to offer the students something in return for their participation whether it be scholarships or just an award make each person feel apart of the team. If i didn’t feel needed on the team i wouldn’t have returned for my 3rd year.
I think team members always have to have one eye on the future, because it’s to easy to try to maximize yor own FIRST experience at the expense of future generations. For instance, this year we’ve got 3 people including myself who really do most of the work and design, which works fantastically right now. We could get things done much faster if we just did everything ourselves and ran into projects gung-ho. But I realise that next year I will be the only member of the team that was there during the first year, the only member who knows how to program, etc. So this year I’m trying as hard as possible to include younger members and teach them what they need to know, even if I could do things much faster myself. It’s worth it though, because next year I can see my effort pay dividends as former lackeys turn into productive dynamos (fingers-crossed ;)). I also came up with the idea of an arcade machine as an offseason project, as it will give the team something to do and it will provide a fairly constant revenue source, even if it’s small. People who care about a team are not a garuntee to longevity, what’s really important is you don’t find yourself down the road with a team of kids who don’t know jack because they’re teammates didn’t bother to educate them.
