Plastic antweights or Plants, are an excellent way for us to introduce new members to combat robotics, or robotics in general.

One of the biggest challenges with a club like us is not having things for people to do. We don't have unlimited resources, and can only have so many people on each project. However, when someone new is interested in the club and they have no prior experience in robotics, placing them on a project and getting them up to speed fast would be great for member retention.

Plants are a program we have just started implementing here at Comet Robotics. All new members go through a series of workshops, build nights and design reviews all for one reason- to build their very first battlebot. At our kickoff meeting each semester, we welcome many prospective members to the club. At this meeting we go over the Plant program. At the end of the semester, we hold a club wide competition where every completed Plant enters a bracket to compete against all the other Plants people have been working on that semester. Once a member has 'graduated' from Plants, they can be picked up by team leads for their project.