I want to rant about and ask for advice about my team. I compete in a school robotics club, and my team has four members, two 7th graders and two 8th graders.
I’m one of the 7th graders. The two 8th graders are frustrating to deal with. It not a personality issue. In fact they have very nice personalities. It is just that they both have strong ideas for what we should do with our robot and how we practice. They often suggest doing things in inefficient or just unnecessary ways. Often when I try to suggest an idea, they say it either won’t work, we don’t have time for it, or the robot is already fine the way it is. They aren’t ever mean or impolite, but they just don’t see sense a lot of the time.
What makes it worse is that one of them is the team captain since our coach said that only 8th graders could be team captain. Apparently this is because they have more experience but most of us have been doing vex iq since elementary school, so it isn’t a large difference. The other one is also not a native english speaker which can make it hard to get points across to him sometimes. The other 7th grader is a girl that is friendly but doesn’t contribute that much to the team. I don’t mind her.
When I do get them to see sense and approve one of my ideas they generally get discouraged when the very first iteration of it doesn’t work and has to be improved upon. We then waste a lot of time debating wether to go back to how it was before, keep it the way it is, improve it and if so how. After multiple cycles of this the robot does improve just not as far as it could and slowly. This wouldn’t be too bad if the debates were a bit sensical, but they often disregard my reasoning with irrelevent principles or reference previous events that are hardly substantial. Then propose their own ideas which mostly waste time or are even counterintuitive.
The team leader is often grumpy and when I try to explain my logic and evidence to him he often just gets tired and gives up on reason. Sometimes he gives up in my favor, but most of the time he gives up and just says, “ugh, no.” I do just want to reinforce that they are never mean. Sometimes slightly pretentious, but mostly just they have the wrong ideas about things. Although the team leader is often grumpy he doesn’t take it on anyone in the group.
I also have a few complaints about the coaches. They seem to have the problem that some teachers have where they just don’t think students are very smart and don’t really trust them much. They have admitted themselves that they only became coaches last year and often rely on student to inform them on robotics things. But, that attitude doesn’t seem to come up when they are actually doing thing or talking to students. One of them chastised a student for disassembling a pneumatics air tank which they obviously should not have been doing, but she showed her ignorance when she said that there was a specific amount of air in that tank and he had just wasted it all. Total nonsense. That would be such a huge scam if they were one time use tanks that are only 30psi. They also tell us that we shouldn’t give the batteries to them to charge unless they are at zero because it is apparently bad for them. I know for a fact that that is a myth.(at least when it comes to lithium ion batteries) And, it can even damage them more to be ran down to zero every day. This also causes problems in keeping our robots charged as currently we don’t have many batteries and if it is at 10% at the end of one day they won’t let you charge it and you will only have 10% of charge to practice on the next day.
I have the opposite problem most people have that they are forced to do all of the work. I would be happy to do all the work as I enjoy working on and practicing with the robot, and it would turn out well. I suppose I could relinquish control and do what they say, but it is hard to just do what they say when there is an obvious better course of action. I just wanted to rant and ask for advice on what to do about it.
Ps. Sorry for how long this is.
I let this through because, although it is a bit of a “wall of text”, the thoughts are fairly well presented.
Lets remember to keep the discussion generic, no team numbers, names etc.
Maybe discuss this with your mentor, instead of posting it on a public forum.
Please use the forum as a way to help you considering vex, not to rant about problem that we have no control over.
If I were you I’d ask your coach (though they may seem ignorant to you, they are still people, and they will want to help you)
Also. If you want to have a change you don’t complain about it; you have to actually take an initiative.
They don’t agree with anything you say? Ask them what they think, why they don’t agree.
They don’t contribute enough? Make them want to contribute. Encourage them though, don’t force it on them.
They have unrealistic ideas? Tone the ideas down to something that you all agree will work well on.
People are grumpy and seem to not care? Give them some reason to have a tiny bit of weight off of them, they can have other contributing factors and pushing them will only worsen it.
The coaches don’t know enough about robotics to your liking? Teach them, shoot them an email of every update you see and all. Doesn’t matter if they read it, just proves that you care enough.
You want to take initiative? Take it with your team, maybe split up the work so that you can get the work that you desire and have something to be proud of.
That should be for all roboteers; Nobody here can change how your team is and if you want it to be different- change it yourself and everything will slowly fall back into place.
When I was typing it out I indented and added paragraphs. I do not know why it didn’t format here. It might have something to do with the fact that i’m on mobile.
You’re right. I just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas on here first since I feel like my mentor would probably just tell me to “work it out with my group.” Not that it would be bad to work it out with my group but I generally don’t like to be very confrontational and would want to see if anyone can suggest any other aproaches.
Thanks for your reply. I will definitely take your advice.
Sometimes seeing is believing. Maybe consider pulling out a piece of paper and try to explain through visuals or through YouTube videos that can explain something much better?
Repeated full discharges are harmful. In fact, for most batteries, leaving a battery fully discharged for a long period of time (such as left fully discharged for longer than a month) can permanently damage the battery. There is a reason Nintendo suggests charging your Switch to 50% if you plan to store it long-term (like 2+ years) to prevent permanent discharge. I would suggest that they charge the batteries whenever it needs charging at any battery life, and let the smart battery firmware handle battery health.
I would encourage to instead of clashing with someone, to instead try to follow the same wave as them but “steer” things naturally to the right direciton through compromises. For example, you can respond with things like “that is a good idea! Let’s try that” or “that’s a good idea, what if I add onto that with…” or “I’m not sure, but what if we give it a week trying it out. And after that week, we can decide if we wish to continue or to pivot to a new design?”
To add to this I would recommend just doing something one time and see if they like it, a saying used to go, if someone says you can’t paint the wall, paint it and then ask if its ok!
Your English is superb, wish I could be more like this in 7th grade 
On that note, I actually do have experience working on a team with people do ig “just don’t get it.” This is an extremely common problem and I am having to deal with these situations all the time. One method I took to is having a 3rd party person to sit in when the goings get tough. This makes the debate a lot more manageable. Maybe you could get a friend who is not in robotics (hopefully someone who exemplifies rule G3) to sit in if you are having an argument. And then you can put the decision on that person (who is not in robotics) to just make the call.
NOTE: Im not completely sure if this method that I am giving you is breaking the G4 update. I personally think that having a 3rd party person who is not in robotics to lighten the mood is a powerful and underused method. But ofc, now that might be illegal 
Thanks it has happened a few time where we ask for advice from one of the other teams. It usually works out well then. I will try to get another person in there more often.
Thanks for the long reply. Your advice and 71300ficia have been the most comprehensive.
This is an approach I do try sometimes, and it usually does help a lot. Thanks.
I will try that. Thank you.
I can relate to many of your struggles.
One team mate of mine was rather pushy and even passive aggressive which just made things even worse. We would fight often as we typically had different ideas about things. He was the builder, so he hogged the robot. Once he completely denounced an idea that I had for the notebook (I was the notekeeper) and didn’t even have a reason despite the fact everyone else on the team agreed with my idea, lol. Obviously we did it anyway and it was one of the factors that made our notebook surprisingly competitive.
The best way I dealt with it was speak softly and carry a big stick. Fortunately for me, I was the team captain and would often have final say. One time, when the robot was clearly under a massive amount of strain, I suggested a way to reinforce it. He just said that strain was “normal”. Anyway, I fixed it and he did nothing and just let me do it.
Another team mate is friends with the other guy and just didn’t want to do anything, but seemingly didn’t know his lack of effort and thought very highly of himself. Unforunately, there’s not much we could do except continuously asking him to help.
He’s very nice and is actually still a friend of mine, so not trying to dis him on a forum, just saying most teams have at least 1 person who’s kinda bored out of their mind…(still have one now)
Of course, things might be different for your team so maybe you can’t just do what you want, but that was my 2 cents.
Anyway, I get you!
Cheers,
Based on how well you presented this, and how well you’ve responded to suggestions made by others… I have a bit of bad news for you…
You are going to find yourself in this situation a lot, and it will happen for the rest of your life.
You can see the solutions, and you understand (better than most) how things will work. There will always be people who are resistant to change, and people who don’t want to accept your suggestions. Another student may say “we’re in 8th grade, and we’re not taking suggestions from a 7th grader” (even if they don’t say it out loud) You can’t expect them (everyone) to change how they act. You have to change how you act. You have to find another way to make the suggestions.
My suggestions for you
(1) Don’t tell people they are wrong. Everyone hates that. Don’t say “your way is bad”, say “your way is good, but this way may be better”
(2) Make (help) people think it’s their idea. If you can talk through an idea to the point that they come to the same solution before you’ve told them, they will be more willing to implement it
(3) It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. - Harry S Truman
Please accept this in a positive way. Good luck
Steve
You might want to discuss this with your mentor/coach, or your teammates. I used to be like this, kind of, and I had no idea that my teammates felt like this. Try talking to them calmly and politely.
If you’re 100.0% sure that you enjoy this and will stay in it… you might consider getting a kit for home. Then you can think, build, test, etc…
After your skills ‘level up’ from this, you can pick better teammates.
Thanks. I will try that.
I understand that there will be times like this at many points during my life. I do like the advice you gave me. I will try to follow it.