1. Introduction to: How to Manage a Team a. So you have a team, now what? 2. Setting expectations a. Time commitment b. Contract or other document for by-in from both team member and parent c. Fund-raising – If your team needs to raise money who should work? d. Homework – During the early part of the season, giving homework to research items at home can get kids excited about what they learn and allows more information to be gathered before making a decision on which direction to go. e. Pickup time, late procedures, phone numbers 3. Team Building a. Can do team building exercises from the coaches handbook p30 b. T-shirt color/design c. Give-aways (save for later in the season after the project has been decided) d. Hand raising vs. listening/communicating (classroom vs. football team) 4. Making decisions a. Brainstorm on a whiteboard or somewhere everyone can see. i. Use GP – All ideas are good ideas ii. Go crazy, even crazy ideas are good ideas iii. Don’t let one team member monopolize the session 1. If this is an issue, use a ball, the team members can toss it to the person whit an idea, then that person has to toss it to someone else. 2. Go around person to person and everyone has to give something iv. Start small, try team name or shirt color v. Can be used for robot too, big tires, small ones, treads, gears... b. Brainstorming only gets you to a list of ideas, then what? i. Homework with report outs ii. Vote iii. Consensus 5. What needs to be done during the season a. Kickoff – Private, public – just do it! Sept 3 – 12pm www.usfirst.org or www.firstlefoleague.org b. Review all rules, robot and research c. Develop deliverables – robot + project + team d. Go to a tournament or 2 6. Coach/mentor a. Keep control, don’t let the team get off track. i. If you meet after school, rather than letting them run wild and have a snack, use the snack time to set expectations for the day’s work, do some brainstorming, assign roles for the day. b. Assign roles in the beginning so everyone can try everything c. Promote GP all the time for all people involved with the team i. Expecting people (kids and grown-ups to practice GP at a tournament when they have not been practicing it all season is tough. d. Understand the rules, robot and research. e. Answer questions with questions f. Don’t read new rules into the rules, they are literal and have no hidden meanings. g. Sign up for practice, tournaments and whatever else you can find. h. If things get stressful for you or the team, take a break, play soccer, basketball, tag. i. If the kids want to try something new, like line following, help them, it’s ok to teach techniques not using their robot. If you don’t know how, the help built into the FLL NXTG is great. If the kids want to use what they learn on their robot, they will have to figure out how to do that. j. Allow specialization, but not monopolization. 7. Team members a. Understand the rules, research and robot. b. Always work with someone – never alone (except for homework) c. Come up with ideas for all products d. Practice GP all the time with everyone, not just a switch e. Question everything (younger kids will do this more than older kids) f. Try everything g. Keep everything, if you tried it, write it down, know why you changed your mind. h. If it does not say you cannot do something in the rules, you can. 8. What should a meeting look like? a. Setting the days expectations, get team settle down and snacked. (5-15 minutes) i. Project needs to get started – whole team brainstorming 1. Sub teams start research on internet (20 minutes) 2. Present to rest of team – team votes (10-20 minutes) ii. Robot mobile base needs to get designed – whole team brainstorm 1. Sub teams start multiple prototypes (1 hour) 2. Sub teams show their work to rest of team, team votes (10 minutes) iii. Other stuff b. Break up into 3-4 person sub teams to start on expectations i. Work on individual missions (30-60 minutes) ii. Work on skit (30-60 minutes) iii. Work on shirt design (30-60 minutes) iv. Other things c. 15 minutes left…clean up and report out. What did everyone do today. 9. Where to go for help a. The FLL Forum b. For robot rules questions [email protected] c. For project rules question [email protected]