Hi I’m a team captain and I have a bit of a situation where I have a decent number of students staying at home for various reasons. Last year we had a decent number stay home due to COVID and I felt bad because aside from having them read the rules there wasn’t much for them to do because they didn’t know what was going on.
I don’t want that to happen again this year and I want them to be able to have an impact on the team and unfortunately the group that is staying home isn’t familiar with CAD or programming that could be done from home.
Work with other leaders on your team to create an agenda to work through the manual, guide discussions, and develop strategy. If everyone is working through the same plan it’s easy to keep everyone involved. Just be mindful people who are remote may need more engagement to stay connected with the team. Ask more questions to them directly, make sure they can hear the room, and make sure the in-person group takes time to pause and listen to what they have to say.
Treat them just like they are with you in-person and everyone should stay pretty engaged.
We were in the same situation last year with my team and we setup a microsoft team call with speakers and microphones and the braisntorms were all done on the included white board so every one could chip in. Not much help with protyping but at least they were with us for the decision making
Definitely try to set up a zoom/teams/google meet with the team. It can be extremely helpful for everyone to be able to talk out their ideas right after the event, even if they can’t get straight to building. I would also read through the rule book together. This would help everyone, not just newer students, gain a better understanding of the game.
I would also make sure students have a way to clarify the rules as they read them, whether it’s a team group chat, email, etc. You don’t want them to get stuck on something and just stop midway through.
One thing I will be trying for this year is setting up an anonymous google form for the team to submit their initial ideas with. Sometimes students don’t want to share their ideas with anyone because they think it is bad. By doing an anonymous form, they should hopefully feel less pressure, and we’ll hopefully be able to get some good ideas out of it. In the past we’ve done similar with strips of paper in a hat, but for whatever reason we stopped.
Other than that, if nobody is at your shop, your best bet is to brainstorm ideas and become familiar with the rules for when you are able to get back in person. If some people are in person, they can use the ideas from the zoom meeting to start prototyping. If you don’t want to start that until the other students get back, you can always start building field elements, since those are generally pretty straight forward.
If the students are going to be out long term, I would try to keep them posted as to what progress is being made, so that they don’t have to catch up on as much when they do return.
Our team is a similar size. You can get a lot done in person with 10 people.
For the virtual folks, as I said, whether it be via call, text, or any other communication medium, it would be beneficial for everyone to go through kickoff together. Having someone to bounce ideas off of or ask questions to is super helpful.
If they need more specific instructions than “read and come up with ideas” maybe have them dive more into the strategy of the game. Have them start thinking about what tasks should be prioritized for the game. While the in person group is trying to figure out how to handle the game piece, they can start working out how the game should be played. Do we think defense will be important? Will most teams go for the high goal? Is it really that important to go for a traversal climb? Should gears be focused on more than fuel? Obviously it would all be speculation, but if those five put their brains together and try to put the pieces together, then maybe they’ll have a decent strategy when they come back.
Another idea is to have them work on other things that can be done virtually. Does your team have a website or social media? Have them write a post about the new game. Have awards been written? Have them work on a rough draft. Need new button/shirt designs? Have them sketch out some designs. Brochures? Have them write a brief summary of the game for it.
If there’s simply nothing that needs to be done that is possible for them from home, they may unfortunately just be stuck reading and brainstorming til they get back.
Splitting up into smaller groups to read the rules ~ 1 hr
Eating lunch
Splitting up again into groups to discuss strategy ~ 1 hr
Reconvening as a whole to discuss strategy ~ 45 min
Splitting up yet again to discuss robot design as a whole and produce a list of prototypes ~ 1 hr
Reconvening as a whole to discuss robot design and produce a master list of prototypes ~ 45 min
Splitting up for the last time to discuss individual subsystems based on individual interest ~ 1 hr
Reconvene for the last time to wrap any final thoughts up ~ 45 min
How does this apply to you? Well, depending on how many online members you have, you could break them down into small discussion groups to report back to the whole team during discussion times.