How To Start A Robotics Team Or Club With No Robotics Background

I never built a robot, but my team are world champions.

VEX Robotics Competitions are rigorous, high-level STEM activities for students in middle school, high school, and even university. Each year, an engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game and students (with guidance from their teachers and mentors) use the VEX Robotics Design System to build innovative robots to solve the challenge and compete.

Each student creation is designed to score the most points possible in qualification matches, elimination rounds, and skills challenges. In addition to having fun and building with cutting-edge technology, students learn important 21st century skills such as leadership, collaboration, and social skills.

So you want to build a team and offer your students this amazing opportunity, but where do you start?

Coaching a Successful Robotics Teams

Middle School robotics clubs are often seen as a way of stimulating interest in technical vocations and reinforcing math and science concepts outside the classroom. It’s true that students must use coding skills to successfully design and program their robots, but they must also collaborate in teams in order to achieve success.

During my 10 years as a STEM educator, I coached 30+ teams to domestic and international robotics competitions, and my students won the Excellence Award for the Best Overall Team at the VEX US Open Championships. We also qualified two teams for the VEX Robotics World Championship in 2015. These teams traveled to Louisville, Kentucky and competed at the highest level against dozens of other teams. Students achieved success collaboratively and were able to excel through a basic knowledge of coding, engineering design, and effective collaboration.

In order to create successful teams in a middle school robotics club year after year, there are some foundational elements to establish. A group of four students is ideal for a robotics team, as is a set of dedicated mentors. It is important to consider personalities, technical skills, as well as leadership qualities when matching students together.

Take some time at the start of the semester to get to know your students and what their motivations are for participating in competitive robotics. Are students curious and enthusiastic? Do they already have experience with computer science or design? The same goes for mentors: Who shows up regularly to parent interest meetings? Who promptly responds to emails? What kinds of skills and personalities are dominant? It may take some trial and error to create the right team for your first VEX Robotics Competition, but these early observations will serve as a strong foundation.

Building Your Perfect Robotics Team

One of the most important things to consider when building a four-person team is the personality traits of each student. Experience with robotics is less important than demonstrating resilience, patience, and leadership qualities. Since robotics is typically an extracurricular activity, it is a good idea to match students who already express interest in working with each other. This helps keep their team motivated, bonded, and dedicated to success. 

VEX Robotics Competitions happen all year round which means students will have ample opportunities to revisit their designs and rework problems. As a coach, consider a student’s availability when placing them on a team. Robotics teams can still compete with two competitors, so you want to make sure at least two members of each team are consistently present and not overcommitted to other activities. 

Leadership qualities are perhaps the most important element for a successful team. At least one student should be goal-oriented, know how to delegate tasks, and be willing to listen to others. This doesn’t mean that all the work should fall on this student, but that they can motivate their team and present a realistic picture of their progress. This student (or students) is often the first point of contact for a coach or mentor to gauge what a team needs to overcome persistent problems.

Above all, successful teams have a mix of enthusiasm, resilience, motivation, and healthy communication. It is also helpful if at least one member of each team has some kind of background with coding or robotics, though this is not absolutely necessary. Remember: your students are young and still developing many of these skills. With the right mix of teammates, students should be able to learn from each other and their mentors in order to grow in weaker areas.

Finding Dedicated Mentors for Your Team

Try to recruit as many enthusiastic and committed mentors as you can. In reality, you may only be able to find two or three each competitive season. Mentors can be older students who have completed your program (I leaned heavily on our feeder high school for students who had already competed on our middle school teams) or adults from the local community who have an interest in robotics (these can be involved parents or local professionals who want to volunteer their time). Either way, you are looking for solid, dedicated mentors who have some technical skills and can be patient with students. 

As much as possible, mentors need to be present at every robotics team meeting and every competition, so be sure to give them a list of dates early on and harp on the importance of their attendance when they sign up. Of course, everyone won’t be able to make it every time so try to find enough mentors to have a back up for each competition. You can even ask a fellow teacher to be a backup mentor! Clear and consistent communication between the coach, team mentors, and students is essential in building successful teams.

Being Flexible When Choosing Robotics Teams

These are kids, afterall. Some students will drop out before the end of the semester, and new students will be added throughout the year. You will have a chance to shuffle teams around, add students with growing technical expertise, and reassign mentors to the teams that need them the most. As the year progresses, you will be able to see who works well together and what additional support is needed.

One of the real world advantages of participating in VEX Robotics Competitions is the strong correlation to the job duties of engineers and STEM-related professions. The competitions involve time constraints, size restrictions, and performance demands that students must adhere to in order to be successful. Working on teams allows each student to be dynamic, responsive, and access the combined knowledge of its members which helps develop both interpersonal and technical skills at a young age. Plus, it is so much fun!