Preping for next season.

FIRST General Forum
1

Hi im from a 2nd year team that just started to get alot more members. 1089 usta have only around 12 members. Now we have about 22+ and we are new to the concept of committees within our team. In the past we had every member working on every task. Now I being the founder of the FIRST team at my school, and the captain, want to know how to set up a well working team.

In our last meeting we did a whole lot of fundraiseing ideas and we discussed new things our team can do for PR. So far we are planning the following fundraisers: Leaf raking, car wash, LAN party, resturant deally with part of bills go to us if we adervtise, selling bagels on half days(no lunch sold), and we are thinking about other small deallies.

With our PR we are designing and making a 8x10 banner with pvc pipe and we have a teacher helping us out. Then we have our buttons, just ordered another $80 worth of stuff, and our shirts. Also we haven’t discussed to much about it yet but our webpage. We also have cool tote bags! Hehe.

I suggested to our team coach teacher person that we should form committees around the two catogories that our team is working on at this time, PR and Fundraiseing. Then the allumni would do the misc. items like repairs to robot and stuff.

In my mind I had the committees running like this; first we would present new items to the team and new calendar items, then we would split up and committee leader would start of the committee with a topic to discuss… like pr talk about “what do we need to change on website”, then committee would think up ways to change or modify the website and later present a rough draft to the entire team…, then team would decide and get there 2 cents in on the final choices.

Please reply with ways to modify my team and our meetings to work more fluently. I would also appreciate suggestions for fundraisers and PR items we can make(not competition stuff)

2

Well, this past year, my team was a rookie, but I was on my second year. We had close to 30 members as well. During the build time, we had 3 committees, each with it’s own student leader. These committees were the Drive/Chassis committee, the Sub-Systems committee, and the Programming/Control committee. We also allowed a team member to be in any number of committees they wanted. It is a good thing if you have students that understand every aspect of the robot, they make good drivers…like me :slight_smile:
Anyway, It worked out pretty good. We had a problem with one family on our team, however, who was trying to take control of the team over the chairman of the board (my mom)'s head. And they overstepped every boundary we put on them. For example, we said that the time limit for a driving chassis was around the 3rd week. They kept intentionally slacking off, and giving the old “Well, what happens if it isn’t done by then?”.
So, we implemented a Project manager. The project manager is an adult (or student, were having both this year) who oversees the entire project, and sees that things get done (closely, at least) on time.
This helped, but it still didn’t solve out problem too well. They also gave us a big problem with the subsystems committee. During design time, they basically weaved a nice little plan to influence other team members with pressure to vote for their lift idea. It was way over the line, but we couldn’t kick them from the team, they were housing our build area. So, without proper testing, they focused soo much on that lift. Had people straying away from the drive/chassis completion to work on the lift. I knew it would be a problem.
Aside from the fact that it ended up only stacking 3-4 bins, it put us 20lbs over the weight limit.
We removed it at competition, and it hasn’t been touched since.
I would suggest that you form a good way of testing your ideas to consider weight/tolerance levels before an idea is accepted. If your’e spending alot of your time on a device, and I’t putting you behind schedule, and the device won’t even end up working anyway, then your’e really wasting time.
We found at competition, that even though we had a rough time getting there, we could still work as a team to get our bot going. So, we watched a few practice matches, and reformed our entire strategy. We focused on making our bot lighter, speeding it up a bit. Getting a successful auto mode going (our line-tracking was a dud), and being able to move bins well. And so, we did just that. We ended up as 90lbs of bin moving power, and we were the fastest at our regional, and one of the most powerful. Our efforts as a team landed us the Rookie all star award, and or teamwork at competition made us quarter-finalists.
We also have student leaders. Captain, Co-captain, Secretary, Treasurer, and this year, Project manager. As soon as our leaders are elected, they are responsible for running team meetings. We have a fund-raising committee that comes up with ideas, and we usually have the adult leader of that group plan out the calendar of events.
For corporate sponsorship, we put together 20 business packets. Each packet contains our Chairman’s award entry from last year, a cover letter, info about first, one of our business cards, and (my favorite) a miniCD burned in VCD format with a 2 minute business video we put together last year.
We have been blessed this year with parents on our Team. One of them works for GE, and they plan on getting some of our information to them. Another works for FlexiCell, a small company of roughly 30 employees, which is in the top 3 leaders of flexible machine cells in the eastern region. FlexiCell is interested, and they want us to give them a presentation. It sounds like we may have them a a sponsor of money, machine shop, and mentors all in one this year.
We also had a fun idea to make a Robot Bathing suit calendar. We were going to get together with some of the local teams, gather some swimsuits, and get some VIP photos of our bots wearing them, then put in beach scenes in the background. We havent made it yet, but it’s still in the works…

3

*Originally posted by Tton *
I … want to know how to set up a well working team.
Impossible!

Now in our fourth year, my team still has yet to reach well working. Well-enough to work is as close as we’ve gotten. Personally I see no need for structure, everyone just needs to be devoted, that’s it. This thing is supposed to be fun.

Of course when care for the program is lacking in students, then some structure is needed. Stucture makes the careless care. Structure gets in the was of those who care already. If FIRST robotics has a true meaning to the students, the students will govern themselves to make sure duties are completed. If there is not true meaning to these students, they better get some real soon or just go home.

That’s my $.02.

4

its not impossible.
im working on a rookie team. ive been on another team and am well informed in team stuff. all you really have to do is get participation as the number 1 focus. if you have ppl working hard andf participating your team can easily be a well working team. the rookie team im on now meets once a week and it is so far well working.
for money…try selling naming rights to companies and such. ask absolutly every one in town if they will give up money. if not money tools parts and materials to build a feild… things like that. every little bit counts. never fear my friend it will all be great!

and never forget…noting is ever impossible!

5

Tton,
your post has me wondering how many adults you have on your team - and are they teachers, parents, engineers, people who work for your primary sponsor?

the idea of FIRST is to show HS students what engineering and science is like, so you might as well include team structure in that.

Engineering teams are not a democratic group. You have one person who is the lead engineer, or project engineer, by virture of his experience and skills and abilities and knowledge. All the major decisions are made by him (there will be discussions and the free exchange of ideas, but at some point, the lead engineer decides “this is what we are doing”).

That one person delegates (assigns) responsibilities to other people. The other engineers have leeway and room for creativity to supply the thing the lead engineer has asked for, but they have to design and build that part as specified by the lead engineer. If an engineering project stopped and took a vote for every decision, nothing would ever get done (literally).

Fundraising should be the responsibility of the adults on the team. its their job to come up with money for registration fees, travel, parts, equipment, and to make sure the team has floorspace to hold meetings and work on the bot. the students might want to have A fundraiser to get money for team shirts or buttons or stuff like that

but if your team is ending up being run like a high school social club, then you are missing the whole point of FIRST.

Focus on the design cycle. You have six weeks to analyse the new game, plan your strategy, specify what you want your robot to be able to do, figure how how to design a robot to do those things, then build and test it. Put a week on each of those things and you have 6 weeks right there.

that means before the kickoff meeting you need to have people getting up to speed on how to program in C - how to hook up wires and pneumatics, how to draw a mechanical part so a machinist can fabricate it for you

and other things like your team logo, uniforms, buttons - that stuff should all be done BEFORE the kickoff meeting in January, so you can focus on bot during the 6 week ‘competition’ time.

I would say as a minimum, you should have an adult as lead project engineer, one as lead mechanical engineer, one as lead electrical engineer - and have students who shadow those key positions (they should really be taking over responsibilies as the 6 weeks progress)

If you try to listen to everyones ideas, and to make everyone happy you are going to end up with a kit of parts sitting infront of you on ship date, instead of a completed machine.

You can only build ONE design, you cant build everyones design, so accept that up front, let the leaders lead, and learn what its like to be a part of an engineering team (instead of being a member of a club).

6

Thanks you for your responses.

To Sachiel7: HEHE when i read your response I was laugh at the compairson to my teams first year last year. We had a family always annoying us to but that did help our team greatly. And our whole team did argue and stuff the all the time but when it came down to it we were like peanut butter and jelly on bread tasteing so good and working as one! And our team ran almost identical to what u said.

To Sanddrag: I think that our team worked awesome last year and perfect for us because we made a kick $@#$@#$@# robot for a rookie team and did well in competition. I dont think its impossible to make a perfect team structure but I think that your rite in saying that the true members do stand out!

To John Reese: Thanks for your optomisum(lol im glade i like science and math and not english). And I think in time we will build our perfect team for this season.

To Kenwitt: We have 1 main teacher running the group and one of are members father helped us with the building. It sounds like your an advisor. I think the problem with our team is that the teach wants to incorporate everyone with everything thats why I said that they present there makings to the team so that everyones involved. I think it sould be ran almost like a business (sorta how you sounded) but with more unitty and not just seprate groups working to join together there ideas to make some something.

The real question I have is how do I work with a our advisor? He is also a debate coach and its hard to plan stuff with him. He’s busy alot but still puts alot of time into the club. But when I talk to him out of school about robotics hes always tired and im always very annoying with my emails.

For our last meeting I set up a whole schedule…
Things to do on 10/08/03-
1) New Calendar Items!
2) Form committees.
3) Give people fundraising info.
4) Get committees running.
- PR- Talk about designs.
- Fundraisers- Brain storm up new ideas for money.
5) Committee shares ideas and then team makes decision.
6) People go home and work on them!

Then I also had a write up on each of the preseason committees…
Pre-Season Committees-

Fundraising-
Corporate- Ask companies for money and give out information about our team and FIRST.
Set-up- Set up car washes, leaf raking, lawn mowing, and selling of items at events.
Find Stuff- Look for new fundraisers we can do! What things can we sell?

Name E-mail Phone Number

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
(Need money for Bin Bash t-shirts, busses, and entry)
PR-
Website- Update website, calendar, and make it look more attractive! Take notes from meeting and put on website.
Banners and buttons- Make a banner and button designs!
Events- Find places and events we can show off team and robot.
(Need items for Bin Bash)

Name E-mail Phone Number

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Sub committee for BB-
We need a team to repair Quick Silver. Drivers need to practice.
Sub Committee Research- Find places to buy materials from for 2003-04 season!
These are some committees we need to fill to get stuff done before season starts! These committees are temporary and only for pre build season. Don’t worry about not being able to do the cool building and stuff right now. We need to get prepared financially and in our appearance for the competitions in March and for Bin Bash.

And last of all I had all this stuff ready for hand outs and stuff for the committees but then… At the meeting hes like I never saw this before and did his own leason. (I did send it to him in email)

Was very mad at all the work for nuttin when i have a job, school, homework, and sleep taking up 23 hours of my time a day.(I work like 40 hours a week)

7

Number 1, congratulations on almost doubling your team size in one year! That’s totally impressive. Now onto ideas. The best way for PR is to try to get the local businesses involved. Use something that will get them publicity at the same time, while making them look like the good guys. Something like a dinner (Halloween costume ball?) would be a great way to get the local restaurants involved, asking them to donate or give food for a reduced price. This helps in both the PR and fundraising departments, getting publicity through selling tickets, and fundraising by charging so much a plate, or however you choose to do it. That’s the best advice that I can give you, other than have a blast. As I’m sure you realize, FIRST is a great thing and a lot of fun, and getting into something is the best way to have fun at it. Good Luck! :smiley:

8

Beth thanks for your reply and I wanted to say that we have already thought of some ways to do those things.

We are planning to have a thing with Chevy that we advertise for them and they give us 10% of peoples billls or something we are still planning that though. And other things we do with companies are: booster adds on website shirts and robot with different size donations you get more and more things with your name on it.

Our main fundraisers rite now are:

Leaf raking + Car wash

Chevy’s deal

LAN party pay to get in and a tournament

Bake Sale (cause it works for everyone else)
Bagel sale during school on half days cause there is no lunch sold and you make over 400 for handing out bagels and cream cheese/butter.

Then we have company fundraiser thing that I said up top.

9

Tton,

hmmmm…???

if you dont have any engineers or scientist on your team, how are the students learing about science and engineering careers? Im not trying to be condesending, but I think this is part of the problems you are having. You are competing against teams that have engineers, some have many engineers, who are experienced in taking a concept from a wild idea to a working system

It takes years of training and experience to learn how to do that. Nothing against your teacher, lots of teams have little power struggles that go on, with the people from the school wanting to run the team like a sports club, while the engineers are trying to show the amazing things you can do with a well organized and structured engineering project.

Any chance you could recruit a parent or two from the school who are engineers? Im trying not to sound snobby or anything, but it would make a world of difference in your team.

I was on the Xerox / Wilson Xcats two years ago, and decided to move to team 578 because the Xcats had about 20 engineers, and team 578 only had 2.

10

Tton,

some steps your team can take to get some enginners:

  1. ask/recruit parents at your HS who are engineers.

  2. ask other first teams in your area to mentor your team and supply you with an engineer or two (some teams have plenty of engineers and can spare a few. Our team only has one engineer from our sponsor (Gleason). I work at Xerox, and the other engineer currently on our team is a professor at RIT. (BTW Xerox offically sponsors two other teams, and RIT officially sponsors a different team, not ours)

  3. Approach local colleges and universities and tell the engineering department you need a professor or college student to mentor your team.

  4. see if there are companies in your area that sponsor teams in other cities - if so, contact those teams and see if the local division of that company can supply a few engineers for your team - they dont have to be official sponsors, just loan you a few people.

Thats one thing thats great about FIRST. The teams are usually closely associated with one highschool, but you can have adult mentors on the same team from many different corporations, even companies that are competitors.

11

Our team is set up in an efficient way this year. People are put into 2 ‘categories’ - the people who will be working directly with the robot, and those who work indirectly with the robot or do Animation/PR stuff. We have 2 team captains this year, each overseeing one of these ‘categories.’ Now, that doesn’t mean the students that don’t work on the robot are completely sectioned off from the people who do. Team bonding time is important , so mix it up a little every now and then :slight_smile: Go see what the animators are doing, go see what’s happening on the robot. Team Interaction is numbero uno :]

12

*Originally posted by KenWittlief *
**Tton,

hmmmm…???

if you dont have any engineers or scientist on your team, how are the students learing about science and engineering careers? Im not trying to be condesending, but I think this is part of the problems you are having. You are competing against teams that have engineers, some have many engineers, who are experienced in taking a concept from a wild idea to a working system

It takes years of training and experience to learn how to do that. Nothing against your teacher, lots of teams have little power struggles that go on, with the people from the school wanting to run the team like a sports club, while the engineers are trying to show the amazing things you can do with a well organized and structured engineering project.

Any chance you could recruit a parent or two from the school who are engineers? Im trying not to sound snobby or anything, but it would make a world of difference in your team.

I was on the Xerox / Wilson Xcats two years ago, and decided to move to team 578 because the Xcats had about 20 engineers, and team 578 only had 2. **

I think that we learn alot of engineering. We have 2 parents on the team that teach us mostly. My dad (coach of team 25) and a handyman guy that we work at his marble shop. My whole team last year could tell you every what every little part on the robot did and they could also tell your any mechanical advantage our wings and arm hand. Team Mecury could also tell you anything about our gear box and how much torc + velocity we had.

13

T-ton,
Im not trying to criticize your team or put it down in anyway. I know how difficult it is to start a new team - what you guys have done is tremendous

and I also know of companies that tried to start a new team, and they could not get a single teacher at the new school to sign up for the program - it doesnt have to be a science or math teacher, any teacher can be the point of contact for the team, and they couldnt get anyone. The sponsor took its $80k and 10 engineers to another HS and started a team there. So I know how valuable your teacher/coach is to your team. Without that one person, you would have no team.

And I know that your students will learn a great deal by going through the 6 weeks design cycle, and putting a working machine together. These robots we build are not some kit where you simpy follow the directions and end up with a working system a few hours later - it takes a lot of independant inventiveness and learning along the way, for the students and the adults.

The fact that your team is growing shows you are off to a great start. I believe you can make your team even better if you can get some engineers or scientist, college students or professors to join the team.

The robot building contest aspect of FIRST is only a foundation that lets students experience the engineering design cycle, to see what its like to be an engineer for 6 weeks. Having engineers on the team allows the students to work with them directly, talk to them about their careers, get ideas for college.

Dont be afraid to ask other teams for mentors, assistance, or to recruit local companies for engineering support - thats what FIRST is all about - linking up HS students with engineering, science and technology professionals.