We talk a lot about designs and competition on the forum but not too many people have touched on team dynamics. 
What are some things that improve team dynamics and what can ruin it? Does your team continue to contact each other outside of VEX 
or do you guys strictly keep everything VEX related 
?
And for teams that have a strained relationship, what are your future plans and how are you currently handling your situation? 
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Some thing that ruin team dynamics areā¦
Multiple people fighting over roles such as driver, programmerā¦
People not coming to meetings.
People having different goals for the team (do you want to win or have fun?)
People saying they will do something then not doing it.
As long as you donāt do the above things you should be good!
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Something that ruins the dynamic is dating somone Inside robotics and then breaking up 
Next season is gonna be roughā¦
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Something that would definitely ruin team dynamics is if you have lazy teammates. Our team had some slackers and did kick off one team member but the other 2/4 members including me did help us get all the way to worlds but barely. We always argued with each other about stuff but we always forgave.
Something that would help team dynamics is to have a team group chat. This helps you and your teammates brainstorm ideas for what your going to do next and will help whoever takes the notebook have an accurate description of the day from different points of view,
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This was a response I wrote to a similar thread, you should probably check that thread out.
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Oh my gosh! Yeah that sucks. I knew this one couple that got in trouble for kissing in the supply closetā¦ they broke up later and then they started arguing all of the time and it just tore the whole team. 
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Oh thank you! I didnāt see that post!
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Ah hahaā¦ good thing our team isnāt like thatā¦ 
Work alone.
20 characters
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Bro Sameā¦
2020202020
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I actually met a kid that was the only member in his teamā¦ his dominant arm was also broken. I imagine it mustāve been hard for him.
My softmore year in vex me and my team had some team dynamic issues; i felt that few of my ideas/skills were being used, and those that were I didnāt get any credit for. By the end of the season, I wanted off the team, and ended up forming my own team.
From this I realized that itās very easy too ignore a member of a team/ not utilize all the talent that a team has.
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No offense to your teammates, but this is the first thing that popped into my head after I read that.
Back to the original question, Iāve had a year where half of the team members werenāt as invested as the other half. So, sometimes you just have to take on more responsibility, and ask the mentor to talk to the other members. Sometimes kids have been removed from the team because they didnāt attend even a quarter of the meetings.
However, for the few that do cooperate and work well, we really bond and are still chatting with each other through Google Meet right now. And for those who donāt, making sure they know the teamās expectations is the best you can really do; if they refuse to cooperate, sometimes you unfortunately have to deal with it.
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My team has been together for 3 years with only 1 person added recently, so we have bonded very well, but sometimes we tend to argue over ideas like siblings will. This does create tension sometimes, so we like to hold team meetings where any idea is expressed and we work out team problems peacefully.
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We actually only met for 3 months (since we started late and it took a really long time to get our startup team approved) but it felt like we had known each other for years since we had to meet every other day to catch up with all of the other teams. But whenever we had a problem, the males on the team didnāt want to open up about it because they were uncomfortable with opening up about anything emotional. The problems ended up building so much that it negatively affected our game and now everyone just cut off. 
How do you guys handle driver conflicts? For example, you can use skills runs to determine who is the best skills driver, but what about matches? Sometimes one can be better at skills and another better at match play. Are there any good systems for comparing this way, besides just alternating at a competition?
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Our team of two eliminated this by using a partner joystick (not the best soulution)
Yeah, Iād rather not go that route. My initial plan is to just give runs to everyone who wants to ātry outā and then make the judgement call. The tricky part is that, unless someone surprises me, I will be the best, which looks funny when Iām the captain making the judgement call. Thatās what we did last year, but I have someone new who claims to be a good driver. Guess weāll just have to see.
we just have one person do skills and another drive matches. in my experience, its hard to determine how good a driver will be based solely on a ādriving testā like skills, esp when it comes to match play. you have to keep in mind other factors besides precision, such as quick thinking, the ability to adapt to different situations, keeping calm even in stressful situations, which is important in match play but not as important in skills. You also want to consider other things, like how often is the driver gonna be able to practice, is this person fully committed to the team, how badly do they feel the need to win, are they easily distracted from practicing, etc.
I feel like the issue is more complex than this. On the surface, being good at driving in matches doesnāt necessarily make you good at driving in skills. But make no mistake, the best match driver will also be the best skills driver. This is because driving is about being able to operate the robot in its full capacity.
Hereās why the issue is deeper than just a match driver not being so great at skills (initially). Skills is a very specific, predictable and repeated run. While it may seem that the match driver is bad at skills, this just means the driver has not practiced skills enough. Skills has nothing to do with intuition. Itās all about muscle memory.
I shouldnāt say skills has nothing to do with intuition, however, because a driver should be able to recover in the event of a mistake. You should work to make any mistakes rare, though. The point of skills is not to respond to any unpredictable events on the field as one would in a match.
So all this is to say that the best driver is the one that can have a very strong intuitive understanding of the robot in order to control it on the fly. Being a good match driver, but being poor at skills doesnāt mean you switch between drivers. Rather, it means you give the main driver more practice at skills. This will, in turn, make the match driver stronger at driving in general.
You might ask yourself how to evaluate whether or not someone is good at driving. Hereās how:
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Can the driver move the robot fluidly? (evading defense, playing defense, or controlling the subsystems)
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Does that person know the ins and out of the robot? (both hardware and software)
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If not, can they learn it quickly? Can that person make feasible optimizations to the robot, or suggest feasible optimizations to constantly improve the driving experience?
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Can this person work well under pressure?
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Is this person willing to truly understand the game and come up with viable strategies in matches?
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