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/