We are starting a 4th grade IQ team. We only have 4 brains, so we can only have 4 teams. That is about 16-20 kids. Does anyone have experience with this, or a suggestion for how to choose team members? There will be many kids that apply that will not be able to participate. Thanks for any input!
Hands down, the most important thing when deciding teams is making sure everyone can work together effectively. The better the harmony between different members of the team, the better the experience will be for everyone. If there are a group of friends or people who know each other, it might make sense to put them on the same team, and if not, mingle and figure out who works well together. You might try building a really simple base in groups of 4-5, and have each kid write down which people they think they can and can’t work with.
Other than that, I wouldn’t worry about team division. If one team is a little bigger or smaller, or seems to have more skilled builders, or has only guys or only girls, it honestly doesn’t matter. As long as everyone can collaborate with everyone else, your teams will have a better experience and be more successful.
I hope your program can get off the ground! Best of luck!
For VEX IQ specific topics, go here: http://www.vexiqforum.com
(Though you can ask here, too.)
Thanks. The IQ Forum doesn’t have many members who seem to post ideas, so I thought I’d try it here to get more responses.
I will have about 80 kids who will want to join the team, but only 20 spaces. How do you recommend I pick the kids who get to join? Based on grades? Make them write an essay? Draw a robot? Let the teachers pick? Pick the ones whose parents will volunteer?
See who…
- can follow directions
- can work with a team
- knows a little bit about robotics concepts beforehand
- is motivated to learn
One way to do this is to hold a week (or thereabouts)-long “workshop” and observe people.
Another way involves giving some basic questions on a short assessment.
Having people draw a robot may just show you one or two people you would really want.
We just ran 3 weeks of “Summer STEM Robotics Camps”, open to the public. After seeing how these kids acted in camp, I could fully agree that this would be the best screen for who would do well!
Having the applicants take a tough assessment or fill out a very tough application would be very beneficial as well because mostly only the students that really want to be on the team will take the time to research and put thought into a tough application. I believe there should also be a grade requirement of straight A’s or at least all A’s and B’s.
It really depends on the goals of the program. If your goal is to win awards, then screening should be done based on knowledge and experience they already have. If it is something else, the screening should be done based on those goals.
What are the goals of your program?
4th grade… that’s tough. Its exciting you have that much interest though. We’d be thrilled if we had 20 interested kids.
I don’t think grades are a very great way to tell if someone could be an engineer
If I had this type of interest the first names I would take off the list are students in other activities. It’s annoying to show up after work and half your students are playing tennis.
Buy more brains. It doesnt feel good to be cut from a team that isnt even a sports team. If you get cut from a school sports team, then there are often recreational leagues you can join, but there is no recreational league for robotics. For a team of 4, a brand new IQ kit, registration costs and competition fees only cost around $180 per student, and the nextra year it goes down to about $60 per student due to reusable parts. Ask for donations or make it pay to play, but try not to turn away 60 kids from robotics.
In my experience, you’ll lose about half that interest in a week. Granted, I work with middle/high schoolers (8th graders), but I imagine 4th graders would be about as fickle. I would try to accommodate everybody for the first week. Talk about robot design, the game, what you’ll be doing, etc. See who’s still there in a week, and buy more robot kits to match.
At such a low grade, I believe that only kids with great grades are the ones that will try to succeed. Getting good grades in fourth grade (this is just my opinion and in no way is meant to offend anyone) is easy, so the students with good grades usually show the ones who try. Trying and a small amount of responsibility is all that is required in elementary school for good grades. I can see where grades play less of a role in middle and high school though.
I respectfully disagree. I got eh grades in elementary school but picked them up by middle school and I’m near the top of my class now. Also, among some really top teams, I know people have some less then top grades.
+1
I have earned frustratingly close to straight A’s in middle and high school, but I had quite a few failing grades when I was 9. Imperfect grades doesn’t mean kids are incapable of hard work and passion. In fact, kids with less than stellar grades will probably benefit more from the program because it will show them how much fun STEM is, and therefore motivate them to work harder in math and physics. Grades in elementary school are more indicative of how much the kid cares about school than how smart or responsible they are.
These are good points you have brought up and I see where you are coming from. Just to make sure there are no hard feelings, I didn’t mean to insult anyone. I just brought that up from my experience because even when I was in 3rd grade, I was interested in robotics and there was a grade requirement. There was also a grade requirement in my middle school VEX team and my current high school FRC team.
I concur. Interesting one I heard the other day (roughly): “I don’t think I’m going to come back. I didn’t think this would be serious, I thought people just got together and built things.” I guess not everyone wants to kick butt and take trophies!
I’m actually very grateful that we have as many people sticking with it as we do! We actually have two subteams that are mostly new people, and lots of freshmen with VEX IQ experience, so that’s awesome!
Thanks for all the suggestions! I do hate to turn interested students away, but our space, finances, and number of adults is limited. Hopefully we will be able to grow our program in the future.
Sounds like a workshop is the way to go. I don’t want to turn away kids who are struggling with traditional academics who might be able to find success with robotics.
Generally speaking, I would actually not put some students on the teams, but rather teach everyone and let those who are really interested in being on a team be part of said team.
I would also like to note that it is generally best not to put friends with friends, as they 1. either end up messing around for the duration of robotics time or 2. if not everyone in the team were friends from the start, the friends end up excluding the others.