Monday Presentation

Transcript (may have errors):

Good job, guys.
Hello, we are Team 20194, the Jackbots, from Moorefield, West Virginia.
As a growing robotics team, we've learned that staying organized and working efficiently is very important. That's why we use monday.com—a project management tool that helps us structure our team, use professionalism, and work smarter.

Today, we're excited to share our journey with you in navigating teamwork and steering your FIRST robotics crew using monday.com project management.

We run our team like a professional business. We've organized into two main branches: robot and outreach, each with several subteams that focus on different areas. For example, our media team handles our social media and also promotes our events. Each subteam has a team leader who regularly reports to our project manager. The project manager oversees the big picture and keeps everyone on track. They also use monday.com to organize tasks, lead meetings, and help us meet our goals.

On monday.com, we list all of our subteams like programming, media, engineering, and outreach. Once tasks are listed on Monday, we can then assign an owner to them—typically the subteam leader or individuals responsible for that task. Team leaders ensure the tasks are completed and can change due dates if needed.

We can break big tasks into smaller ones. For example, under "build robot arm," smaller tasks might be "connect servos," "cut and assemble C-channels," and "test movement." Each task shows its status, like "to-do," "working on," and "done." That way, we can track the progress at a glance. We also set priority levels like high or low so that we know what to focus on first.

One of the best features is that we can chat directly in the task. That keeps all the communication in one place and we don't lose track of our meetings. We can also upload files like coding snippets, outreach files, or CAD drawings so everything related to that task is in one place.

Each week, we hold a Monday meeting to keep our team aligned and on track. These usually happen once a week, although we meet more often if needed—especially during crunch time. Our project manager leads the meetings. Each subteam leader gives a quick report on what their group has been working on. We review what we've accomplished the previous week, check off completed tasks in monday.com, and then assign or adjust tasks for the upcoming week. We always wrap up with an open discussion so that the whole team can give input, ask questions, or bring up anything that needs attention.

Using Monday keeps communication clear across our subteams. They also have a mobile app, which makes it easy to stay updated on the go and gives us notifications—since, as we know, teenagers need a lot of reminders. This makes it much more helpful than using a traditional spreadsheet or another method. It also helps us track our work for portfolio documentation and simulates a professional workplace, which is great real-world experience. Overall, it helps us stay organized, efficient, and professional in everything we do.

Thank you for listening. We'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

So, Monday offers a free version for FTC and FRC teams. You can sign up with the QR code below. It's available for up to 10 users per sign-up.

Another way to get around that is to sign up subteam leaders and project managers separately. Each sign-up gives you 10 more users.

Audience Questions & Answers:

Q: When you say users—are they admin or guest users?
A: All team leaders and subteam leaders are admins, including the coaches and project manager. Yes, that’s part of the 10-seat limit.

Q: How is the learning curve for new students?
A: It's pretty straightforward. There’s a lot you can customize, but it's easy to learn and change. You can write what you need, assign it to someone, and they can check it off. Notifications also help when something new is posted.

Q: Do students mostly use the mobile app or computer?
A: Mostly the mobile app. For typing up longer updates, project managers use computers. But most of the time, updates and checking tasks happen on phones. Notifications also come through faster that way.

Q: How early do you set up your build schedule, and do you copy it for next year?
A: This is our first year using Monday, so we haven’t copied anything yet. It was easy to set up—just made a few teams and went from there. Weekly Monday meetings help keep us on track.

Q: How do you organize tasks?
A: The project manager is in charge of that. There's no rigid system—we communicate and adjust as needed. The project manager is actually a student and currently a senior.

Q: Are you with a school district, and did you face privacy issues using Monday?
A: Yes, we are with a school district, but we didn’t have any issues. Only our team can access our workspace. All students signed up using their school emails, so everything is trackable. We confirmed it wouldn't be flagged by state filters.

Q: Who counts as part of the 10-user limit?
A: Subteam heads get their own accounts and can add 10 more users each. So the number of users scales with team leads.

(From another coach):
We went through the nonprofit program and got 8 seats. All students are invited as “guests” to boards, with edit access but not delete privileges. Only owners or admins can delete.

(Coach of Team 20194 adds):
Originally, only subteam leaders had edit access. Others had to request changes through them. Once everyone got comfortable, we opened up access. No issues since. Our structure helps prevent problems.

Q: How many people are on your team?
A: We have 12 people on our FTC team.

Q: Do you have an FRC team?
A: No FRC team, but we have two FLL teams and 16 F...

Q: Can we get your slideshow?
A: Yes. The slideshow will be available on our website after this week.

Thank you all for coming. This means a lot to us. We hope what we shared helps you too.

[Applause]