At the end of each season Team 34’s mentors get together to review our accomplishments and failures for the past year. Sometimes, feelings get hurt and arguments are started, other times praise is given and thanks are handed out. Last night we had our meeting. It’s tough to be self critical and try to face your problems, but it has to be done. If not for your team’s sake, for your own. I can say that the meeting went well, a few bruised toes maybe, but nothing too bad. In the end it’s about the betterment of the team as a whole.
If you don’t mind, share some of the changes each of you are going to implement in the coming year and some of the reasons for these changes. It’s always been helpful to me to hear other teams discuss their ideas, because we all face a lot of the same challenges and we just might find a new idea to help ourselves out.
After every major event, we hold a pluses and deltas discussion with the entire team. Focusing on the team and situations, not external forces or individuals, keeps it productive.
We, as well hold “after action” meetings after each competition and one at the end of the season.
The topic which surfaces each and every year and always seems to be a work in progress is the manner/criteria by which students are selected to attend away competitions including the worlds. We’ve been blessed to have made it to the worlds 10 years in a row and each and every year it is horrible to have to let some students know that they won’t be able to attend. By directive of the superintendent of schools we are limited to 20 students attending the worlds. We have a rubric which is modified annually and all students know in advance how it is formulated but there nebulous or subjective aspects which cannot be objectified and those become the sticking points.
In all, these meetings are where our team makes its greatest growth. Although most people just want to take a break and relax after the arduous season, now is the time to sit down and do the hard work. We have made tangible changes from the design of the pit and projected purchases for the lab, to strategic and policy changes as to how the team will be run and organized. In 2010 we happened to share a hotel with Team 341 Miss Daisy. They had just won National Chairman’s award and spent 30 minutes in the lobby telling us how they organized their team. Two days later we were home implementing many of those ideas and have been modifying them since. They were very gracious and helpful in sharing anything and everything with us, especially this idea of reason reviews.
I cannot emphasize enough the value of sitting down with the entire team (maybe not all at once) to evaluate the positives and negatives of the season.
It is open to the public, so anyone who can get there on their own …
Maybe the “official” team are students under 18. The 18+ students (who can travel on their own), and students who’s parents come with them, can be the unofficial part of the team.
One of our mentors conducted an online poll with the students and mentors and we reviewed those findings as well. It was eye opening to get their honest/candid thoughts.
We have had a very successful first year and most of the feedback from our students was quite positive. However, there were a number of things we need to change for next year. We are blessed with a large number of students interested in software, with varying levels of software knowledge. We had struggles getting enough projects for each student to have some engagement and ownership, and then had to figure out how to share the available hardware between all the different software teams. Not everyone came out of that fully satisfied. I think the students who had very little existing experience felt the most intimidated, especially toward the end of the build season, since we are scrambling to get things working and they are least able to contribute during this phase. We will try to balance things better next year.
If the students are missing a day of school to attend when they are not officially given a “school field trip” absence, it will be counted as a cut for each of the days missed.
3946 does this at several levels, including “full team”, “team leadership (students and mentors)”, and “mentors”. I got a tumble that there was also a “student leaders” calibration last year (sometimes the best way to teach is to set an example, no?). The leader group meetings (that I am part of, in any case) are more heavily weighted on processes and the full team is heavier on techniques, but everything is fair game across the board.
I usually kick off the process with a “lessons learned ramble” on e-mail (or this year slack) in which I just try to identify points before I lose track of them. The main meetings are usually 1-3 weeks after our season ends, but the tweaking and tuning of this stuff runs for months and eventually becomes part of our team DNA.
We’ve decided to not plan quite so much robot building this summer, but we are working on a team handbook, sprucing up our workshop, and tweaking our air cannon and 2016 robot in preparation for our first off-season event in the fall (Redstick Rumble). Our meeting this Monday focused on core values. Several mentors talked in general about what core values are, then we had the students work in groups of four to six members to come up with a list of up to 5 core values for the team. As expected, there were commonalities and differences among the groups. We were only a few minutes into trying to deconflict the suggestions when Tiffany (Opalstone) pulled it all together elegantly with keywords that spell “TIGER”. I expanded the definitions a bit, and we have as a working version:
TEAMWORK – Through common goals, trust, caring, and effective communications, Tiger Robotics works together on the field, in the workshop, and in the world to meet challenges together.
INITIATIVE – Every team member shall act with persistence and energy and responsibility to find ways to get things done. Every member assumes leadership in accordance with their experience and ability. If you want the job, do the job.
GRACIOUS PROFESSIONALISM – We build each other up, including our competition. Compete with grace, succeed with grace, fail with grace: always learning, always teaching, always inspiring.
EXCELLENCE – Through continued growth in our technical and leadership abilities and the pursuit of perfection, we achieve excellence.
RUN BY STUDENTS – Student team members not only do the tiger’s share of the work, but assume the tiger’s share of the decision making and responsibility for team performance.
Don’t be surprised if some form of T I G E R enter the five empty teeth of our sprocket logo in the next year or so.