Kirk Lazenby
Cedar City
Design Engineer
Leadership Track

Coaching and mentoring of an FTC (First Tech Challenge) robotics team.

FTC (First Tech Challenge) is a group of children from grades 7th through 12th. These kids are challenged to design, build, program, and operate robots in a head-to-head competition. The team is to document everything that goes into that season’s robot, from fundraising, community clean-ups, who helped with the robot design, team failures, team successes, etc. FTC is geared to get kids interested in science, technology, engineering, and math. FTC is not about building a robot, it pushes kids out of their comfort zones and makes them interact with other kids and adults.

FTC gets into a person’s blood. Through-out the FTC season and even during the offseason both children and parents are a part of the robot building congregation. First Tech Challenge, as of 2017, has over 5,500 teams and over 55,000 participants. 200 of the Fortune 500 support FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and FTC. Kids that participate with an FTC team gain skills in problem-solving, time management, conflict resolution, communication, to name a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My inspiration for using this program as an EDGE project came after I had already started with FTC and FIRST. I was looking for a way to help young kids build a love for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). I wanted to help kids learn the engineering process, and in-turn learn more about it myself. As an engineer in training, I wanted to learn as much as teach. I felt that this program would get me in the right groups of people that had the same interests and goals as I had. As it turns out my stepson started with FTC shortly after I started, his schooling has changed dramatically. He has evolved from a “D” student to an “A” student.

I have encountered several challenges in coaching and mentoring this team. One of the challenges was finding out how to keep all the kids active in the project. Some kids have a higher want to build the robot, some want to program, and others want to focus on the team brand. I found that not all parts of the program have the same time frame. I had to design different tasks to keep everyone interested and busy. Another challenge I had was working around schedules of so many kids. As a team, we tried to set up a standard meeting time, but throughout the season we had many other events that people had to participate. I learned to schedule as far as I could in advance so that everybody could get their schedules laid out. One other challenge was determining how motivated the kids without pushing them too hard. I found myself holding the kids to a standard that was very hard for them to reach. I had to rethink my goals and not force my ambitions on them.

Many kids that are a part of FTC have chosen to pick careers in STEM-related fields. FTC allows kids to see what they can do with a little help from a coach or mentor. Some of these young kids did not even know that they could pursue a career in STEM fields. I enjoy seeing the spark in these kids’ eyes as they find that they can make a difference.

I have learned how to handle problems with larger groups. I found that genuinely listening to the kids about their issues allowed me to understand how to fix the problem and sometimes the way they thought about the problem. I feel that learning how to help these kids have taught me how to deal with other commutation issues with and business associates. I have learned that my ideas are not the only ideas out there and if you can listen to somebody else’s idea, their ideas may turn out to be great. I have also found that by listening, I can incorporate my ideas with theirs to solve the problem in a unique way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”Work smarter not harder”

“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel”