Leadership

Building Leadership

1511 works on building leadership throughout the team, year round. All students are encouraged to take leadership roles at different times through the year. Here are the major ways 1511 promotes Leadership!

1. Leadership Bootcamp & Training

The leadership bootcamp is a full day training held over the summer or in the fall. It is designed to be helpful to both students and mentors and is based on several very popular leadership books. There are lots of workshops and activities to get participants working on their new skills immediately. This has been a very valuable training for our student leaders!

Leadership Bootcamp Presentation
Leadership Bootcamp Workbook
Leadership Bootcamp Schedule
Seven Habits Weekly Schedule (Publisher Version)

Our Lead Mentor first gave this camp in 2006, she also presented "How to run a Leadership Bootcamp" at the Championship Conferences for two years, as well as a seminar on "Motivation". The documents are linked here.
How to Run a Leadership Bootcamp
Motivating Yourself and Others

2. Student Leadership Selection

Rolling Thunder's Leadership process currently is made of 3 main sections.

The first part is an anonymous and simple but extensive survey. It asks potential leaders about their morals, skills, and ideas for improvements concerning the team. Selection from this step is anonymously chosen by a set of experienced mentors.
Student Leadership Application
Mentor Application Review
The second part of our leadership 'try-outs' surround being interviewed (low-pressure, of course) by a team of mentors. Mentors ask them questions about personal experiences, how they can help the team as a leader, and what they want to learn by being on the leadership team.
Interview Questions
Interview Evaluation Sheet
The third and last part of our selection process is simple-- the remaining contestants come up with a speech to present to the rest of their teammates. After this, the team gets to vote on who they think would make the best leaders. They get to chose 2 from each year (2 freshmen, 2 sophomores, 2 juniors, 2 seniors). The top two from each class gets the leadership position.

3. Student Subteam Leaders

To manage the various sections of building a robot, our team is divided into subteams by subject. To keep those subteams organized, a student is appointed leader of that subteam, with the responsibilites of keeping that subteam's wiki page up to date, taking attendance, keeping meeting notes, and writing task notes among other responsibilities.

4. Students Lead Events

To keep student initiative high, students are encouraged to lead events such as demos, blood drives, and Intervol. They set up times, dates, and organize all the details associated with creating and running an event.

2010-2011 Student Leaders

Crystal

Senior, 4th year, Team Captain

     This is Crystal's third year on leadership. Crystal is a big part of the team
     communication as she sends out the weekly team email! She also works with the
     electrical and corporate subteam to get the word of FIRST out! She's known as
     one of the "small fearless" leaders, and you can always hear her from the stands
     wh en she cheers! Her favorite thing to do at robotics is to solder, and she's
     always willing to give a helping hand if you need her! She was also a 2010 Dean's
     List Finalist at the Boston regional.

Mike

Senior, 3rd year, School Relations & Treasurer

   This is Mike's second year on leadership. For the past two
     years, he has served as the team's Safety Captain, bringing
     us close to winning the Safety Award at most of our
     competitions. Although we aren't at competition right now,
     Mike still makes sure everyone is being safe. He is part of the
     electrical subteam and his goal is to be on every subteam
     and attend everything the team does. He hopes to attend MIT
     to major in electrical, computer and possibly mechanical
     engineering!!

Kyle

Junior, 3rd year, Team Activities & Meetings Coordinator

This is Kyle's second year on leadership. He has been on the mechanical
and field building subteams. He also helps the team with our community
service endeavors such as fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
He hopes to attend the Culinary Institute of America in New York City to
become a chef!

Matthieu

Junior, 3rd year, Public Relations & FLL Coordinator

Matthieu is now in his third year on leadership. He has been
on the electrical, corporate, webpage, and FLL subteams.
     He joined robotics because of a love for engineering. He
     likes the challenge building robots provide. Outside of
     robotics, he plays clarinet in the PHS Wind Ensemble and
     Solo Fest, working on his Eagle Scout, and an avid
     computer gamer. He loves airplanes and hopes to become
     an aerospace engineer.

941712833_roCVP-M.jpg picture by Esme_Cullen

Jason

                Junior, 2nd year, Communications

This is Jason’s second year on the leadership team. He is enjoying the
leadership team because he likes to see plans that he helped design get
implemented and become successful. He is currently on the Field/Crate
     build season sub-team and is enjoying it a lot. He built this year's field
     twice! Once for Rally and a second time for our 5-day demo at the
     Monroe County Fair! He recently obtained the rank of Eagle Scout.
     His favorite leadership quote is "Do not follow where the path may
     lead, Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail"
                                                                      -Harold R.McAlindon.

Jacob

Sophomore, 2nd year, Media Specialist & New Student Coordinator

This is Jacob's first year on leadership. He enjoys playing soccer when he's not busy helping build robots.

946367646_pypPk-M.jpg picture by Esme_Cullen

Alex

Sophomore, 2nd year, Treasurer

This is Alex's first year on leadership. Last year, he was on the corporate subteam. He was also our back-up primary driver for competition! He loves to juggle anything and everything from knives (with dull blades - safety first!) to rubber chickens. He is also a Boy Scout and is an Assistant Senior Patrol Leader.

Welcome!

Welcome to the digital home of Rolling Thunder, FIRST Robotics team 1511. The team is from Penfield High School in Penfield, New York and mainly sponsored by Harris Corp. To find out more about the team and FIRST, please visit the Who We Are page.

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This page last updated Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 10:36:11 PM.
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