FIRST Robotic Competition at CHS: Objectives and Groundrules

Objectives

• Have fun. Both students and mentors should find this to be a fun and rewarding experience. Learning is enhanced. And students are more likely to gravitate to technical career paths if they have an positive experience with the FIRST project.
• Give the students as much responsibility as they can handle. Make them stretch. The best thing that can happen is that a student learns he can do more than he thought.
• Don't give the students more responsibility than they can handle. If a student founders and fails that is not a useful learning experience. And it would discourage the student from pursuing a technical career.
• Succeed. The best teacher of success is success. And successful motivates.
• Mentors model good behaviour to the students. Show respect. Compromise. Encourage each other. Practice good teamwork.
• Lead by example. By showing the students how a project can be well managed, we are teaching how to manage well. If students show aptitude for leadership, we can transfer some of the management rolls to them. But a leadership vaccuum will cause the project to founder, and there is no time in the schedule for that.
• Mentors need to encourage students to report on troubles early. They need to feel that this is a safe thing to do.

Groundrules

• We have to have enough discipline to field a working robot at the competition.
• We will keep to our schedule.
• Mentors must model good team behavior for the students.
• Mentors will provide guidance to students, allow them to work to their level of ability, help them grow their level of ability, and do work where students lack the capability.
• We will lead in our areas of responsibilities and respect the other mentor's positions.
• We will speak openly and feel free to ask for help.
• We will coordinate all projects with each other and avoid side projects.
• We will arrange for replacements when we have to miss commitments (Randy can help fill in here.)
• If any person, thru lateness or absense, is not around for a decision, they should not question that decision without a compelling reason (e.g. safety or official rules).

Meetings and Attendance

• Meetings will start promptly at the posted time.
• All students should plan to attend every weekday 3:00-5:00 and possibly on weekends.
• All mentors should plan to attend every Monday and Thursday 3:00-5:00 at the least. More is better.
• Each Monday and Thursday the teams will report on progress, roadblocks, issues. We want to re-verify at these meetings that the work of each team is compatible with the work of the other teams.
• If a mentor cannot attend a time for which he has committed he has responsibility to find a substitute.