Listen to the episode: [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/entry-12-viva-las-vegas.mp3″]

Tip #1 is not to isolate yourself! Talk to as many other teams, engineers, and mentors as you can. Go to local scrimmages so you can see what the deal is and what kind of robots and outreach other teams have.

Tip #2 Go to tournaments and meet FTC teams before you actually start or join your own team, instead of blindly plunging in.

Tip #3 is to spend plenty of time doing the boring stuff like reading the FTC manual and looking up tips online. While it’s not super fun, doing things like looking at award winning engineering journals, websites, and PSAs, can really help you get a grip on what’s going on.

To Summarize:

Tip #1 Talk to many teams, engineers don’t try to do it by yourself.

Tip #2 Go to tournaments and talk to other FTC teams before you begin.

Tip #3 Spend time doing the boring stuff like reading the manuals.

 For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM.
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/

Listen to the episode: [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/captains-log-4-crystal-catastrophe.mp3″]

Tip #1 is that outreach is just as important as any other aspect of FIRST, if not more so! You need to put a lot of time into it. It’s a good idea to have at least one person in charge of outreach coordination!

Tip #2 is to have a large variety of different types of outreach, not just to pigeonhole yourself with one project. You should not only reach out to the public, but to the engineering community and even other teams. Start with, look up engineering events happening in your area or talk to engineers that you or your friends know. For example, I joined SWE, or the Society of Women Engineers, and also periodically attend National Defense Industry Association, or NDIA conferences. Going to these events and talking to engineers could help you get a great mentor, some funding, or get more volunteers involved in FIRST. You’d be surprised what engineers know– they could not only give you design tips for your robot, but help you organize your team and maximize your work output. Get the word out there, guys, and along the way you’re gonna meet some talented and experienced people who can help you better your team. Remember not to just talk to engineers though. Reaching out to the general public and raising awareness about robotics is equally important. Our team mainly does this through robotics camps and this radio show! However, in December a couple of team members are traveling to India and doing outreach at a children’s home!

Tip #3 This also ties into fundraising, as we raise money through the camps and by contacting potential sponsors. There are plenty of other ways to reach out to the community too, including FTC’s Promote Video! And in previous years, my team has held everything from bakesales to concerts- so get creative, and mix up fundraising, talking to the community, and having a good time!

Tip #4 Don’t forget to reach out to other teams within the FIRST community. Networking is important in both FIRST and in real world engineering. Go to scrimmages and hook up with other teams to practice! Or have your own radio show!

Tip #5 You can also mentor an FLL or Jr. FLL team, as Jamie does, or try to help people get their own FTC team started. It’s a good teaching experience and spreads the “FIRST fever”!

To Summarize

Tip 1 is to realize outreach is very important and to put plenty of time into it.

Tip 2 is to partake in a variety of different outreach. This includes the engineering community, the public, and other FIRST teams.You can attend engineering events or join groups, hold bake sales, camps, or email people, or even mentor or start your own team! Get creative! And don’t forget to incorporate your theme into it and document everything in your engineering journal.

Tip #3 is to fundraise

Tip #4 Reach out to the community

Tip #5 Mentoring other teams is a good teaching experience and spreads FIRST.

For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM.
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/

Listen to the episode: [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/captains-log-3-troubling-tribbles.mp3″]

Tip #1: For most teams, the Engineering Journal can be a pain in the butt. It’s really easy to get behind on or to not effectively convey what you did well. So firstly, DO NOT let yourself get behind because it’s very hard to catch up. Tip number one is to have someone in charge of the journal as one of their team roles, so that they can keep on top of everyone.

Tip #2 is to not create an opportunity for procrastination. Remember that the longer you wait to write the journal, the more you’ll forget and the less well you’ll get the message across. The person in charge of the journal should make sure that anyone working on an entry has it properly formatted and turned in before they go home at the end of the meeting, and that they’ve done a good job documenting what happened that day.

Tip #3 is to take turns writing the journals, but also take turns checking journals; having more team members working on them leaves less room for error. The person who’s in charge of the journal should probably only be in charge of making sure that they’re turned in on time, in the right order, and maybe briefly skimming them to make sure they have pictures or drawings and are correctly formatted. They should not, however, do all the work writing and checking them.

Tip #4: on top of having people both writing and checking journals, it’s probably beneficial to have multiple journals written per meeting. It’s a ton of work for one person to write about what everybody did in the meeting and for another person to check that. What our team does is have several journals written based on who did what. For example, if two people worked on the robot, and three people worked on outreach, then there could be a journal assigned to both groups.

The people who worked on the robot would select one member to write the journal and one to check it, and that journal would be the “Engineering Team” journal. Those working on outreach would be the “outreach team” and would likewise write a journal. This means that people writing journals don’t have to pay attention to everything at once, and if the people on the engineering team are wondering what the outreach team did that day, they can just read the outreach team journal.

Tip #5:
You can handwrite your journal or do it electronically.

Tip #6 is to use templates. We use templates to ensure that all our journals are written consistently with each other and so that it’s easier for team members to organize their thoughts and convey them clearly. We have three templates: one for meetings, one for event summaries, and one for personal progress reports. The meeting template includes goals, which should be written down before the meeting starts, then tasks and reflections, and bullet points going into more detail about them. Remember that including diagrams or pictures that document your process are very beneficial. The event summary template is used when you attend or host an event, but it isn’t a meeting. It’s very useful for outreach opportunities. At the top of the page there’s a paragraph summary of the event, and then there’s one task and reflections box and some bullet points going into more detail beneath all that. Then there’s the personal progress journals. These may not be necessary for all teams, but if members are working on robotics things outside of meetings, they can be used to document what they’ve accomplished.

Tip #7 is to take notes during the meeting. Write down your team’s goals before you start, and then document the process as you go so you don’t forget anything. If you do this, then by the time you actually write the journal it’s almost just copying your notes down and takes far less time.

To Summarize:

Tip 1 is have someone in charge of the journals to make sure they get turned in on time.

Tip 2 is to write the journals during the meetings.

Tip 3 is to split the work equally: have one person write a journal, another check it, and then the person in charge of the journals skim it to make sure everything’s in check and organize it with the rest of them.

Tip 4 is to have multiple journals written during meetings depending on what team members did.

Tip 5 is that it’s probably beneficial to write the journals digitally.

Tip 6 is to use templates

Tip 7 is to take notes during the meetings instead of just trying to keep it all in your head.

For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM.
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/

Listen to the episode: [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/entry-02-kickoff-extravaganza.mp3″]

Tip #1 would be to start brainstorming ideas for a theme at the very beginning of the season and incorporating it into all your work. Why? The main reason that I see is that it makes the entire experience that much more fun and easy to retain a sense of interest throughout the season.  

Tip #2, is have fun with it! The point of having a theme is to give your team a unique twist, so you stand out.  It really gives me a sense of purpose, finding a cool way to incorporate the theme into what I do. A couple years ago my team didn’t have themes, and at tournaments it was kinda like “woo, go team!”… that wasn’t bad, but now it’s like “YEAH, THEME MUSIC! BEAM ME UP TO THE LAND OF AWESOME, SCOTTY!! WOOOO, GO TEAM!!” Yeah! But remember not to let it get ridiculously out of hand: tip #3 is to try to find a theme that’s practical, but still fun. You don’t want to have to devote huge amounts of time and money to make incredibly complex costumes, and you also don’t want to be making obscure references all the time that no one will understand. So make sure that your theme is something that a lot of people will recognize. Last year my team considered doing Team Fortress 2, but we decided that wasn’t well known enough and the costumes would be too hard to make. This year we chose Star Trek, because firstly it’s awesome, but also even people who haven’t actually watched the show will know who we are.  

Tip #3 is to take care when choosing a theme, and find something that is easily recognizable, not too hard to incorporate, and cool. Anyone can have a theme, this goes for FLL, FTC, and FRC teams.  Having a good theme is awesome, fun, and gives you references to shout at tournaments and slip in in your engineering journals and website. It really makes you stick out!

To summarize:

1: Start thinking of themes at the beginning so you can include them in what you do throughout the season

2:  Enjoy doing it, and allow it to make your experience that much better and make your team that much more unique.

3: Take care when choosing a theme, and find something that is easily recognizable, not too hard to incorporate, and cool.

For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM. 
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/

Listen to the episode [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/entry-01-entering-orbit.mp3″]

Tip 1: It’s very important that every team member has distinct roles on your team. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t do multiple things, simply that you have definite roles and when you go to tournaments you know them and are prepared to talk about them to judges and other teams. Even if everyone helps some with the robot at meetings, you need to have at LEAST one main job that you’re the lead of. Plus, you don’t want absolutely everyone to be crowding around the robot at tournaments. There’s just not enough room, so everyone should have their own job they can work on!

Tip 2: There are some roles that are more fun than others, and there are some that nobody wants to do– like the engineering journal. However, it’s important to compromise with your team members and split work and fun equally. No one person should be doing more work or hogging, even if they’re more experienced in certain areas.

Tip 3: Even if you’re not experienced in a lot of areas, don’t immediately just pigeonhole yourself on one role, branch out a little! Even if you are dead-set on building the robot, that doesn’t mean that’s all you can do on the team. Try helping out with fundraising or programming, you might find you like it. You can be the person in charge of one role and the assistant with another. Or you might find after experimenting that you don’t want to be a robot builder at all, and would rather do media. The point is to at least try several things before you decide on your role or roles. The important thing is that you’re not just randomly helping out with things. Experiment a little until you find a role or roles you like, then have those be your official roles and take charge with them. That way you’ll get more experience with more things and may discover a hidden talent you didn’t know you had. Obviously if you’re on a smaller team you’ll have to manage more roles, whereas if you’re on a big team you might just have one.

To summarize:

1: Know what your distinct role or roles are

2: Don’t just hog the fun jobs even if you might be the most experienced at them

3: Don’t be afraid to try new things

For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM. 
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/