Every year our team hosts a few callout meetings to get students interested in joining. The turnout for these meetings are usually great for us, with about 60+ kids, but by the time the championship rolls around about 25 kids are left on the team.
So, your questions:
Why do the students quit throughout the year?
What can you do to help influence and keep students with the team?
1.) Most kids quit due to lacking interest of the program (ie they don’t battle), they can’t go on trips, they are kicked out for just hanging around, or they have to drop out for grades or such. Grades are more important than anything to us. We don’t want their grades to drop.
2.) If kids don’t want to be a part of it, they we let them go. No use having dead weight and making them do something they don’t want to do.
One big reason for kids to stop coming is that you just can’t possibly have all 60 students work on the robot, no matter how complicated it is. Sooner or later, some of the students will take charge, and work harder on the robot and others will feel that they don’t have a place on the team.
That is why a lot of teams have a lot more groups doing things other than working on the robot, such as the web team, animation team, chairman award team, fund raising team, PR team, photographers, etc. That way, you can attract a lot of people who aren’t interested in just engineerings, and expose them to the competition even though they don’t really like to work on the robot.
Ken is right. Everyone wants (and needs) a job to do, to feel like they are a part of the team.
60 people watching 5-10 others do all the work isn’t any fun. The meetings you have to generate interest should make a huge note that there is a lot of work to do BESIDES design and build the robot. In fact, the robot is the LEAST amount of work for many teams!
DJ–the main problem at Kokomo is the fact that everyone looks at the TKats as dorks…Most of the freshmen that come to the callout in the fall tell their friends about it, who then make fun of them. To a lot of freshmen, that’s good enough reason for them to not ever go again. That’s going to be the main reason at Kokomo…I still think the school needs to promote it more…if you guys had even 1/4 the amount of support that the sports teams have…I think you wouldn’t lose as many people as you are now.
just my 2 cents! 
The time commitment is also too much for some kids to handle. I’ve seen several leave for this reason.
Giving up six weeks of your life to go and build a robot is not for everyone and it take dedication and sleepless nights to truly respect and apprecaite robotics. Passion, which comes from the French word for suffering, recquires that a person gives up their sanity for six weeks, and for some people that is a hard thing to want to do. So in other words don’t worry that kids are quitting because not everyone has a passion for what we do.
During my freshman and sophomore year, when RAMTECH 59 had been looking for members a good 60+ kids did show up. In total about 40 kids finally joined the team. Yet throughout the period of 6 weeks they were dropping like fly’s. Came in and out as they pleased. When it got to the last 2 weeks or so, only about 10 kids and our Engineers (veterans of 59) were really working on the robot. It takes a lot of time and dedication and not everyone can put out that much…why they joined the team in the first place…I dont know…
I would have to say…the most interesting thing was watching the kids that joined the team sit around, empty trash, play cards and stuff…
I can’t really think of a way to get people motivated. Other then the fact that you give them something to work on and do, so they feel like they did contribute in some way…now im on a team with about 10 kids…(Team 1077) and we still have problems getting people working. I guess on every team there are going to be kids that do not work. Everyone has their days.
It is my experience that there are basically three types of people when it comes to after school activities. The first doesn’t do any, either because they don’t want to or can’t because of other responsibilities. The 2nd tries to be part of everything, but not because they really are interested in it, but want it for posterity or colege applications. These rarely stick around when the real work begins. The 3rd finds what they like and does it. Their dedication can vary. The first two are probably a hopeless cause. The third is just a problem of keeping them interested and fired up. Make lots of opportunities for people with different talents to get involved. Try to work with them to deal with transportation and schedule issues. If they still lose interest theres not much you can do. Not everyone is cut out for FIRST.
We have been pretty good at keeping students here. Our software team is a bunch of slackers, but other than that… Most everyone on our team works hard every night, off hand i can only think of 1 girl who doersnt activly help us inPit/Fab crew, but she DOES help elsewhere.
In order to keep students, you need to find the right ones. I, having exactly ZERO life, am the perfect candidate for a FIRST team. Throughout the school year, I’d talk about it in class rather loudly, and anyone interested usually came up to me and inquired about it. Flat out I’d tell them the commitment level. Robotics is more than just a sport or after school activity, it is a dedication for six weeks of your life. If they actually show up to more than one meeting, you generally have them hooked. Also, freshmen are extremely bad candidates on the most part. Of course, every once in a while a freshman space monkey that is truely a great person to have on the team (We are lucky enough to have such a freshman, who is almost as dedicated as I am) and these are the team captains of later on. Sophomores are a little better, but I’ve found that Juniors are the best. They still have another year, so they can still feel like they are learning something the first year and then contribute the next year, which is completely fine. I’m just taking the everyone likes to be important a little farther: If your students believe that in their time left at whatever high school they are in they can contribute to the team, they would be more than happy just learning the first year they are in the program. Last year was my first year, and though I actually contributed little, I am a team captain this year. Also, when someone new makes an excellent point, compliment them. If they have a good idea, make sure they know they are being credited with it. Veterans are notorious for stealing ideas from the new people, and this will drive away a good 50% of excellent students that would really enjoy the program. Just my thoughts on the subject. BTW, my AIM is therealaval so feel free to contact me.
We normally put everyone to use. We have lots of extra jobs that need to be done but no one is assigned to. Who is going to make the thousands of buttons we distribute at comps? Anyone who is bored 
We also collect 5c cans…so someone needs to sort/wash those.
We don’t keep the same people doing those…we always have other jobs. We also let the freshies file the burs off the aluminum 
Right now, we have the kids playing around with the edurobotics kit, they’re rebuilding our Chuck cart, some are helping us build our field, designing parts of the bot, designing shirts, buttons…etc. They always have something to do.
I would say that the people who quit are the ones that wouldn’t be very helpful if they did stay. Usually the more dedicated ones will stay in the team and will contribute a lot.
They quit because they are too lazy, too busy, not interested anymore, or have an attitude problem and got really mad at another team member.
Recruit the kind of people who will not quit Try to keep it interesting. Building a robot,lloking through new parts, discussing strategy, etc. is much more fun than cleaning storerooms or doing fundraising.
I’ve said it so many times before.
FIRST, is not only a team at BHS, it’s a class.
In the class, we don’t really learn, it’s more of a…do the assignment type situation. We recently had to build a bridge out of spaghetti. I’ve been with the class for 3 years, the last two years were great, but this year has been really boring. We haven’t had a chance to actually learn much of anything, and that’s what classes are for, right?
See, since the 6 weeks happen to fall during 2nd semester at BHS, by the time the first semester is over, kids who have taken the class and have found themselves dissatified with the class, make the assumption, and think that FIRST is the same way, and drop the class, and as a result of that…leave the team.
I think a major part of this is who makes it on the team. I know my team coaches (who do the cuts, ect themselves) were trying to get alot of freshmen and alot of girls. unfortunately, that led to us having alot of flirty freshmen girls who wanted to wear short skirts and make all the guys drool rather than maybe break a nail working on a robot or maybe put their hair out of place by doing anything. yes, i’m a bit bitter, as we’ve lost a good deal of our team because of this problem with the freshmen. We don’t tend to take new people in the middle of the year, so we’re shorthanded… again. it also means that alot of people who would have been very good members and stuck with it, were cut.
personally, i think alot of it is out of the students hands. it’s in the hands of whoever decides who makes the team. I know alot of people grow up big time in this program, and you have to give people a chance, but there is a burn-out factor, and a maturity factor that have to be considered going in. if people don’t have the maturity to handle long hours working with people they may not like and focusing on a task, they aren’t likely to stay.
what do people think of maybe taking a second draft during the year? obviously before build time (you go on our team’s bad list if you quit during building), but after the fall events. does any team do this?
*Originally posted by GILLIGAN!!! *
**Our software team is a bunch of slackers, but other than that… **
Is there any other kind? 
Anyway, we really don’t have a problem with retention, we just have a problem with recruitment. Each year, we only end up with approx. 20 people interested in the team, sometimes less. From a school of over 2000, it’s a very poor turnout.
we have about 17 people, in a school of about 4500. no idea why no one in the school knows about us…the district loves us, but the students don’t know we exist
*Originally posted by GILLIGAN!!! *
**Our software team is a bunch of slackers, but other than that… **
You wanna start something, Jimbo? 
Anyway, I think our retention rate may have been a bit higher this year because we did well last season, and because we took a bunch of the rookies to an off season competition at the beginning of this year. I suppose that hyped them up. 
We’ve organized the team better this year too, so all the rookies know their purpose on the team.
We are a school of approximately 1200 people
Our team started off with about 100 members at the beginning of the year. Considering the school population, it was an excellent turnout. However, as expected, this number has slowly dwindled. It rests at around 30 or so “members” and around 20 active members.
I don’t know how to solve this problem…maybe it’s inevitable? It is afterall impractical to have a 100 member robotics team and still expect it to function effectively. The nature of the demands from robotics requires small group teamwork.
That’s not too bad…we went from 50 students down to 3 active. And 3 isnt really a team… One of the problems is that its the last year for most of our students and a couple of them have to take a fiscal exam this friday…if you dont know what a fiscal exam is…here’s a hint…the exam is 12 hours long