Introduction and Recruitment

This is my first real attempt at blogging so please forgive any inadequacies in blog etiquette.

First, an introduction - I am a mentor for the FIRST Robotics Team (FRC) #2601, the Steel Hawks. The team operates out of Townsend Harris High School (THHS) in Flushing, NY.  This is my fourth season as a mentor.  I started out by helping the kids with their robot code in the middle of the 2011 build season for Rebound Rumble. Since my background is in software development, I helped them debug and clean up their Java code for competition. I am also a parent of one of the team members.  We got hooked on robotics when we went to see a competition at Rutgers over 10 years ago.  My brother was a mentor of one of the teams playing - so it's become a family thing.  My brother has since gotten married, had a kid and passed the FRC torch to us.

Last year, we had a change in leadership.  The previous coach who founded the team in 2008 retired and was replaced by a new physics teacher.  We also had a new principal.  With new blood on the team, we were able to make a lot of improvements.  We were able to bag the robot a few days early and complete a second robot for practice.  That was something the team talked about doing but never happened.  We played at 2 regional competitions - historically, we registered only for NYC. The team won the Gracious Professionalism award at NYC. We had drive team tryouts, quiz on the rules, and started to actively fund raise.  We participated in several outreach events and even had some build time over the summer to work on a new drive train.

Fast forward to today - we recognize that we still have a long way to go before we come even close to one of the elite teams.  One of the issues we need to address is that this year, about half of the core team are seniors.  Once these seniors graduate, the team is in danger of losing robotics knowledge. Therefore, members of our student run Executive Board (EB) have been working hard at recruiting and training.

Team recruitment usually begins with a Club Fair in September.  Here, each club in THHS can set up a display and try to sway the freshmen to join.  We had our robot on display and many students signed up.  The next day, we held the first meeting with the prospective Robotics Club members. The classroom was full but that is not unusual.  Many drop out by the time we get to Kick off in January. Students join the Robotics Club before they can qualify to be part of the Robotics team.

The EB has put together a new training program with more emphasis on hands on activities.  Last year, we tried a series of presentations and short videos but people quickly lost interest.  In the first session, the new Robotics Club members got an introduction to FIRST.  They watched one of the matches from Chezy Champs :)  - of course, they didn't really understand the game, the excitement nor could they really appreciate the robots that were playing but I think they got the general idea.

The new members were split into smaller groups and were asked to invent a game to play. As we mentors observed in the back of the room, I noted that there is a remarkable difference between the freshmen and seniors in terms of maturity, how they present themselves, and of course, in height. Some of the shorter kids are just about half the size of the taller ones. It is hard to recall what these seniors looked like in their freshman year.

The new members were asked to vote for a game to play. The winner is called Robo Kart (like Mario Kart).  Once the new members left, the veterans discussed:
1- how the game would need to be tweaked and further details added to make it work
2- how to set up the field and where to put it
3- the next steps in training for the next 2 weeks (4 sessions)

The plan was to have the groups rotate among 8 stations for introductory lessons on Strategy, Design, Control Systems, Programming, Safety, Fundraising, Spirit and Engineering.  These lessons are to help the groups build a robot to play the game.  The aim is to have them experience a condensed robotics cycle.  Another idea that the veterans had is to simulate fundraising where groups would have to go solicit sponsors (aka veteran members) to get "Ishabucks" - named after one of our members.  They need to raise enough Ishabucks to buy parts for their robots.

Observing from the back of the room, fellow mentors and I were able to see that some students were very interested while others were not.  One in particular left early and indicated that he probably wasn't coming back. When asked why, he said that he wanted to build. We tried to explain that this is all preparation for the building.  Some of the veteran members noticed that this person did not fit well in his group.  That led to a discussion whether or not to re-balance the groups to 1- even out the number or people in each group and 2- allow people to move to other groups.

When we discussed the other groups, one issue observed was that people with larger personalities overshadowed those who were more quiet. I suggested that if we had enough veteran members, to have one assigned to each group in order to help bring out the quiet ones.  The veterans were to be more aware and try to keep the quiet ones involved.

We also talked about how to ensure that group members come back in the future sessions.  It wouldn't be fair if some groups lost members.  We can have each group elect a leader.  It would be up to the leader to make sure his/her members all showed up.

Lesson plans are due on Saturday and I'm looking forward to them !