Tips for Veteran Teams

With all of the tips for brand new robotics teams, it’s important to keep in mind the growth that occurs between rookie seasons and veteran seasons, and in the seasons following. Growth, competitively and in other arenas, never stops! So here are some tips for veteran teams!

• Learn from your rookie/past season
  
  • The most important thing teams can do is learn from their past experiences. Rookie seasons are really good ways to make mistake and learn what works and doesn’t work for your team. Teams need to be able to look at their past season and grow in response to it. In all areas of life, acknowledging shortcomings and trying to improve upon them is crucial. The teams I’ve been on have always intentionally put a focus on meetings where team members can address problems that the team is having and the team can brainstorm ways to change. This has been crucial, as has been trying out the different ideas for change to find what works best for the team moving forward.
    
• Work harder to set and meet goals
  
  • Starting out in your rookie season, there’s a lot that teams don’t know! It’s hard to goal set and put together a timeframe for your season when you don’t know what your team is supposed to be doing. Once you have experience with one or two seasons, it becomes easier and more crucial to set and work towards specific and detailed goals. A tip is to break down your team’s objectives into very specific checkpoints, and set deadlines for those checkpoints instead of setting deadlines for the giant team goals. An example of this would be to set a deadline for something like having three prototypes built rather than set a deadline for the construction of an entire working arm.
    
• Start early
  
  • One benefit of the robotics season is that it can last as long as your team chooses to. Technically seasons end when your team ceases to advance to the next level of tournaments. However, there’s a lot of work that can be done outside of the competitive robotics season like fundraising, creation of branding materials, outreach, and spending time improving technical skills. The use of the offseason becomes a valuable head start for teams that utilize it well.
    
• Offer help
  
  • My favorite part of the FIRST community is it’s tendency to share knowledge. Rookie teams need help! Lots of it! Teams with experience should help teams that need it. Experienced teams can use mentorship as valuable outreach and as a way to form valuable connections. When teams work together in mentor-mentee partnerships, they make each other more competitive.
    
• Ask for help
  
  • Even though your team has experience, every team will have questions it needs answered! Just like how it’s a really good idea to share experience, it’s also a fantastic idea to ask for help when you need it. It’s never a bad thing to ask questions. And it’s even more important for teams to look past competitive rivalries with other teams and reach out. This type of collaboration allows for teams to become closer, more competitive, and more welcoming.
    

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