Post-Season/Summer

After a short break from the team's last competition, planning commences. The team's banquet must be planned (See Banquet page for details), leadership must be selected, and the team should have a discussion about what went well, what didn't, and what could be improved on and how.

Evaluation

This is a discussion that should take place amongst everyone on the team, of course, other activities can occur during this time as well (such as parent meetings to acquire new mentors and boosters). As many students and mentors as possible should be involved. 

2023 examples:

Goals and Implementations

Team Proficiencies

Leadership Selection

Leadership selection and the team structure are determined based on interest and commitment. Students and mentors work together to figure out the best way to choose a team captain (an election typically) and then the team structure is created. See Team Structure to see how these played out.

Summer

Summer is typically the time when team improvements, leadership planning, outreach, and possibly further training can take place.

• Organization of the team's storage can take place

• Leads plan fall training in reflection of the goals and proficiencies

• Leadership training has been taking place virtually for the past few years. Taught by a mentor.

Pre-season/Fall

August

Summer improvements are finished and/or plans for continuing them are finalized. Student orientation interest meeting is planned and fall-training plans are completed before school starts.

September

Beginning of the year, fliers and announcements for the new student interest meeting are made. Interest meeting typically occurs in mid-September and goes over what FIRST is, who the leads are, what the rookies will learn, and what the rookies will get out of the team, and they'll have an overview for each of the subteams. A week after the interest meeting, training meetings will commence. The parents will have their first meetings in the media center during the first two training meets. Safety training is started and preferably complete virtually during this time. Rookies choose their first sub-team preferences to receive training. Returning members begin work on projects and/or R&D projects. Typically logistics for off-season competitions are complete. For the first few meetings ice-breakers are done before training commences.

October

Training for all sub-teams continues, BusDev has a lot of activities with outreach, merchandising, fundraising, etc during this time. Battle of Baltimore (an off-season competition event) takes place this month so rookies can get their first taste of competition. The robot is improved during this time for training purposes and members are given the option to learn strategy, scouting, and driving before the competition. Meet your mentor and other teambuilding activities occur before meetings begin this month.

November

Training continues, BusDev continues to have activities, and the leads typically take a bit of time to start planning Build Season & Kickoff. Team building activities and mentor-guided lessons continue pre-meeting during this time. 

December

Training finishes and kickoff prep is finalized. The structure of the kickoff is decided. Team leads and mentors finish the schedule and project management timeline. Members work together on interdisciplinary projects so everyone gets an idea of how to work together and how everything comes together.