I am starting a team of 4th graders. What is the best way to decide on students? I did the marshmallow challenge to watch their team skills and design capabilities. However, I would like more ideas to go about getting the best kids for our first robotics team.
Here’s an alternate idea, take the number of kids who are interested, divide by the number of students per team (usually 4-5), and then start that many teams. VEX IQ Challenge teams aren’t that expensive, and you might get lots of parents who can chip in $100-200 to get the club started – it’s still cheaper than most kids’ sports. I understand that you may not be able to do this, but I would like to suggest that it is better to make the tent bigger than pick the number of kids that can fit in the tent. The club I work with has never turned kids away until this year, because there is simply no more room in their build space. Returning team members were given spots, and the others were chosen by lottery. You might consider a lottery instead of hand-picking members.
Totally agree with Rick. You’d like to give everyone a chance, especially at that age. If you end up with more kids than you can handle, then enlist parents to help with coaching.
Starting a team of 6th-8th graders too. Thanks for this post, I like the idea of the lottery system. We initially only wanted to keep 20, as there are only two of us coaching and this is a brand new “club” to our school.