For my team this year we have gotten split up from our schools normal 2 returning veteran teams, 2 mixed teams, and 2 new teams; and we have gone with everyone getting shuffled around. We have 3 new members and 3 very experienced members (worlds multiple times & worlds awards). Before we started the season all of the returning members had ether worked on a cad, prototyped over the summer, or done a lot of notebook work. while the new members all have minimal experience. We have been trying to include them, but we already have had a plan since July on what to do when the season starts, so we don’t want to change that too much. What would be the best way to teach them and have them still have an important role on the team.
First off, thank you for wanting to make your new members feel involved. I’ve seen plenty of teams get new members and shove them to the side. Similar position as you, was on a team of 3 over the summer and now I have 8.
Sounds like you haven’t started building. Take things slow as you build your chassis. Be sure to explain not only what you’re doing but the why as well. You don’t have to explain all the intricacies of your cad and can do a bit of “trust me bro” but try to explain as much as you can. As your building, make sure to build your mirrored parts in tandem. That way they can just copy what you’re doing, learning the build system but not designing.
Eventually, you can work them up to doing smaller jobs on their own without visual examples. Like flip this c channel. Or change the gear ratio from 36:60 to 12:84.
Once they have a handle on the system you can apply a similar approach to other things. Copy my formatting from the building the drive entry to the build the lift entry but change the steps. Watch me tune the turn pid then do the forward/back pid. Just make sure as youre doing everything slow enough they can follow and explain the why.
And feel free to give lots of online resources if they’re eager to learn. And how far your teammates go depending on the person. Someone I was on a team with on my latter 2 years of high school never got to the point of coming up with her own ideas and implementing them. And on the flip side one of my new teammates who has only been on the team for 2 months has taken to reading all about the vex api and is taking the lead on implementing our custom sensors (VexU moment). That just depends on the person and how motivated they are.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ping me to reach out.
9motorgang makes great points.
Summarizing I’d say:
1: show them how you know what you know – where/how did you learn what you needed to know to get to and do well at worlds.
2: Create opportunities to emulate what you are doing – mirroring built things, extending programing things.
I have already made a post about this that might be of use it has a few things which are necessary to learn and know