Part #5: Setting Goals | SUMMER ROBOTICS: Tips and Tricks for Your Team

Now, you've got your team up and running, but what exactly are you guys doing? You shouldn't just be building the robot. There's a whole bunch of things you could be doing, but what should you work on right now? What about later in the season? You need to get your goals established before you start working on your robot, or any of that. Where does your team want to be this season and next season and the season after that? If you don't know what you're working towards there's usually one of two things that will happen: your team won't work hard enough or work too hard or your team won't all be working on the same goals (that will get you nowhere, let me tell you!). None of these situations are the place you want to be, especially for first-year and rookie teams. These are our top tips for helping you get those goals set so your team can move forward in the season with the same agenda.

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Tip #1: Reflect on your most recent or other past seasons

This doesn't really apply to rookie teams, but it is still useful information to remember and to implement in the next season. When you're making new goals for the new season, you could think up everything from scratch, but that'll take absolutely forever! Remember use your resources. You probably didn't achieve all of your goals from last season and achieved a fair number about halfway (if you did achieve all of your goals, congratulations!). As a team, go through your goals from the most recent season. Ask each other if you completed your goal. If you didn't or you only did part of it, boom! There's a goal for this season. If you completed it all the way, ask yourselves if you learned anything, like say it took you a lot longer than you had thought to complete this goal because you were not focused at your meetings. Make the things you learned into new goals like staying focused during meetings. You can also do this for your goals from seasons even further back, as long as you can remember those ancient days!

Tip #2: Make individual and team goals

Of course, everyone on your team is a little bit different and has a little bit different interests. But then, there's also the interests of the team as a whole. They need to be kept separate, so that the team as a whole knows what goals to work towards and each individual knows what personal goals they want to work towards. Have each of your teammates make their own goals for the season. You could write them down in the engineering notebook (this would probably be preferred so that everyone can support one another in their individual goals), but you need them catalogued somewhere so you don't forget! Make your team goals together (and make sure everyone is there and included in the conversation) and write them down in your engineering notebook as a record.

Tip #3: Make small goals too

You've got those big goals to win the world competition, but what about the little ones? How small can you go with your goals? The smaller and more focused your goals are, the more organized and focused your team is likely to be. Our team creates goals for each of our meetings! They're pretty small, but it's sort of like an agenda and it keeps everyone on track with what there is to do, what's already been done, and what still needs to be done. Your goals don't have to be that small. They could just be for the week, like "This week we need to finish the autonomous program, and start testing it". These little goals don't need as much thought as the big goals to become the best team in the world, but don't go making goals all willy-nilly. That's not to say big goals aren't important because they absolutely are, but small goals too, within your big goals, can break it down so your team gets there faster and easier.

Tip #4: Set realistic but challenging goals

Yes, it is possible that your rookie team maybe the greatest FTC team of all time and have that awesome story where you started out newbies and just worked your butts off to become the best. But...that's not really all that probable, and from one engineer to the next, that's not really how robotics works. The teams who are up there did work really hard, but rookie teams just don't win the world championship their first year. Don't overextend yourselves with your goals. They should be possible (and fairly probable if you put in a decent amount of effort) not impossible. But don't make your goals too easy. There's no fun in working towards goals that don't challenge your team. And isn't that the point of robotics: to be challenging? Don't go too easy on yourselves and ruin the fun. Set your goals with the mindset that they should be challenging, but also realistic and probable with a good amount of effort. And remember, a lot of goals hang on luck, and as situations change your goals might become too easy or too hard.

Tip #5: Always explain how you are going to or already achieved your goals

Once you know your goals and have them all written down in the engineering notebook (the judges really like to see your goals, so put them in the notebook!), you've got to make a plan. A goal is useless if you've got no idea how you're going to get there. Let's say your goal is to have a fundraiser and raise $1000. Well, your first step to achieving that goal would to be scheduling a time and place to have the fundraiser. Then you'd have to send out the invitations and let people know they can come support your team. There are probably a bunch of little things that go in between the steps for achieving this goal, but that's what you need to do: figure out each and every little step your team needs to make to reach your goal. Again, this breaks things down into baby steps that will keep your team focused and on track. Another tip: write down how you plan to complete your goals in the engineering notebook. It shows the judges that you really thought through your goals and plans as a team.

**BONUS** Tip #6: Keep updating your goals

This might be a little add-on to our list of tips, but it is so, so, so important! Situations change all the time; routines get disrupted and the universe surprises you. If you make goals at the beginning of the season, revisit them a few months later. The whole world might have turned upside-down and your goals are stuck in the past. Update your goals and the ways your team wants to work towards them a few times throughout the season and especially before competitions. You want to present your most up-to-date goals and plans to the judges at competition. Don't set your goals and then forget about them either! Whenever your team is not sure what to do next, look at your goals and your plan for completing them. It helps a bunch.

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Be on the lookout for our next blog post with more tips and tricks next week about sustainability for your team in future seasons. We hope you enjoy this SUMMER ROBOTICS series and put some of these tips to good use with your FTC team.