Wesley Reed | Robotics Reflections 2020

Over the last month I have been working with a group of students on the Lakota Robotics Team (FRC Team 1038) to code a robot to compete in the 2020 FIRST Robotics Competition, Infinite Recharge. I feel like I should be doing these reflections more often, however not a lot has been going on for the students I am leading. Currently the team is experiencing issues with attendance on the mechanical team and it is making the mechanical design and construction of the robot progress slower than usual. This is causing the controls team to have little to no work to do and limiting my usefulness on the coding front.

Questions to think about:

  1. Are all of the students involved?

The students that are attending the meetings are involved for the most part. I do see some kids sitting around waiting for work to do, and the controls kids are often sitting around doing nothing for the reasons mentioned above.

  1. What can I do to make sure all of the students are involved?

I could start giving the controls kids practice exercises to work on when they aren’t busy so that they might learn more from their experience on the team.

  1. How is the team progressing toward their goals?

The team is progressing very slowly toward their goals because of a lack of manpower. The competition is fast approaching and tensions are running a little high as the robot design isn’t finalized yet.

  1. What am I doing to help the team toward their goals?

I’m currently helping out any way I can to try and get the team back on track but unfortunately, I do not have much mechanical background so I can’t be super helpful.

  1. What can I do to be a more effective leader? What ideas can I bring to the team to help them further their goals?

One of the things I have been thinking about is ways to help the team grow. Usually, we have a lot of people who come early in the year and then after a few weeks the number of people drops significantly. I’ve thought of surveying the people as to why they do or don’t come to the meetings to try and see how we can retain more people.