Team Meeting Tips

It is asked over and over again. What amount of time and structure works best. Well I don't think there is one great way of doing it. You really need to find what works for your group. I will outline our way and maybe it will help start you on yours.

We started meeting well before FLL kick off time. In fact we starting meeting in June. I felt since our team was all new we would start early to help get the team work and some of the program learning started. Our first few meetings was all about team building. This helped our kids to get to know each other but also gave them tips on working with each other.  One good team building game we done even used lego. We broke the kids in to groups of 3. One kid had to leave the room and look at a lego model that was built in the hallway. They looked it over for 30 seconds then had to go back in the room and tell the other 2 kids how to build what they saw. The hard part was the one who seen it could not help. All they could do was talk to them. We seen who could do it faster but with out telling them the coaches watched to see how the team who won acted towards the teams who didn't finish. We used that time to teach them if they handled the win or lost the right way.

After team building meetings we started teaching the kids programming tips. We started by playing "blind robot" one kid got blind folded and the others had to tell (program) him/she where to go. Now this was a blast and some kids got walked into a wall but they caught on quick that a robot can only do what it was told.  If the kids told the robot/kid to walk straight he/she really couldn't until they was told what leg to start with. 

When we started teaching with the robots we had the kids build a simple 3 wheel robot. When they built it we started the NXT-G programming. The team started simple in steps.

Step 1.  Have the robot go straight.  Step 2.  Have the robot turn left and right.  Step 3 we started adding sensors.  With each step the kids seen stuff work and felt good knowing they made it happen.

Team buidling should be something done all the time. Always look for ways to teach the kids how to work as a team!!

Now to go over our normal team meeting time and structure.  We meet for 2 hours every week. When the FLL challenge is released we start meeting more. The more amount is really on a as needed time frame Some weeks the kids will want to stay and keep working and then some weeks they might be getting upset at something not working and you has a coach could cut the meeting short to give them a breather. The meeting time frame is really one of those "what works best for your team" things.

Our team meeting outline

3:00 to 3:15 Coach talk. We go over what will be done that day and any new news.

3:15 to 4:00 Challenge work. Some of the kids are building robot attachments . Some are programming and some are working on the research project.

4:00 to 4:10  Time out. Go play or have a snack.

4:10 to 4:50  Challenge work. Coaches could split the kids up different. Our coaches watch and see if one kid is having trouble focusing they might switch them around to keep it going.

4:50 to 5:00 Clean up and review of the day.

5:00 to ?? Coach leaves open in case the team wants to keep working.