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Our close‑knit, collaborative team culture has been the foundation of all our meetings, outreach events, and competitions. Below is a list of key elements that Curiosity recommends for taking collaboration—and coopertition—to the next level!
FIRST's Guide to Collaboration
Element 1: Conflict Resolution/Anger Management Plan
Coming together to outline your future protocol for handling interteam disagreement begins with a teamwide discussion about the ways that every member wants to approach conflict, helping your team learn how everyone else deals with dissension best in order to create a streamlined plan with concrete, unambiguous steps. Having this plan as early in the season as possible will help to control discord as it comes rather than allowing contempt to foster, promoting honesty and clarity throughout your season in hopes that your resolution plan won’t become needed.
As a team, we all sign a team plan agreement at the beginning of the season that we can refer back to if conflict ever arises. This agreement serves as both a reminder of our shared values and a practical guide for navigating challenges together. By committing to these principles up front, we ensure that every voice is respected, conflicts are handled with fairness and transparency, and our focus remains on growing as a team throughout the season.
Here is a tutorial on how your team can create a conflict resolution plan!
Element 2: Team Roles & Structures
Having a system for operating your team throughout the season is key to understanding how every member can contribute through a format that best suits your team. Every successful squad has a different team structure. Whether you have a leadership council, captain(s), department leaders, or an entirely different arrangement, ensuring that everyone understands their role from the beginning of your team journey, as well as establishing how changes in leadership may be made, reduces risk of conflict over task division and creates clear niches for everyone to fill.
Here are 10 effective ways you can structure your team!
Element 3: Clear Team Communication and Documentation
A clear system for team communication and updates on robot progress is key to any successful FIRST team. Whether this is through a team group chat, email correspondence, or an engineering notebook, having a reliable method to share updates, decisions, and progress ensures that no one is left out of the loop. Regularly documenting build changes, design choices, and meeting notes not only keeps everyone aligned but also creates a valuable record that can be referenced later in the season.
Element 4: Team Bonding!
Team bonding is a widely undervalued opportunity in FIRST! While healthy collaboration doesn’t require everyone to be best friends, providing your team members with the chance to build meaningful relationships and lasting memories with one another is both a huge part of what FIRST stands for and an amazing way to create a team that is less like a machine and more like a well-run, friendly community working together towards a common goal (🦾🏆!)
Here are some fun ways that Curiosity collaborates as a team!
We all take an Onshape CAD course over the summer.
This ensures that every team member is on equal footing when it comes to CAD for the season and has the capacity to contribute to the robot hardware. Every single member of our team contributes to our CAD model and this collaborative approach not only builds confidence but ensures that our robot reflects the creativity and effort of the entire team.
We play games together and participate in fun team bonding activities!
Curiosity loves to play games together with a team favorite being the cooking game Overcooked. Not only are these games fun, but they also foster important teamwork skills such as communication, adaptability, and problem‑solving under pressure. These activities strengthen trust and camaraderie among members, helping us build stronger connections that carry over into meetings, outreach, and competitions.
We value clear and concise documentation.
Having a clear way to document progress—such as maintaining an engineering notebook, updating a shared CAD log, keeping detailed meeting notes, or tracking tasks in project management tools like Airtable—ensures that every team member can stay informed, contribute effectively, and build on past work with confidence.
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