Building Leadership
1511 works on building leadership throughout the team, year round. All students are encouraged to take on leadership roles at throughout the year. Here are the major ways 1511 promotes leadership!
1. Leadership Boot Camp & Training
The Leadership Boot Camp 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 Boot Camp Presentation
- Leadership Boot Camp Workbook
- Leadership Boot Camp Suggested Schedule (10 – 15 students)
- Leadership Boot Camp Suggested Schedule (24 students)
- Leadership Boot Camp Certificate of Training
- Leadership Boot Camp Compromise Activity (Please note, this is original material created by 1511’s Team Leader, Larry Lewis, based on an actual FRC game.)
- Leadership Boot Camp Survey – this is the survey we provide at the end of Boot Camp so that we can modify it for next year. You can also modify the survey to ask these questions prior to a Boot Camp to determine what your students would like to learn about.
- Presentation from the 2022 Championship Conferences: Inspiring Student Leadership On Your Team
- Presentation from the 2015 Championship Conferences: Leadership Boot Camp: Training Your Students in Leadership
- Presentation from the 2014 Championship Conferences: Leadership Boot Camp
- Our former Lead Mentor, Kim Eckhardt, first presented this camp in 2006. She also presented “How to run a Leadership Boot Camp” at the Championship Conferences for two years, as well as a seminar on “Motivation.” The documents can be found here: How to Run a Leadership Boot Camp, Motivating Yourself and Others
2. Student Leadership Selection
Rolling Thunder’s leadership selection is a 4-step process:
- Anonymous Application – 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 - Interview – low-pressure, questions and answers by a team of mentors. Mentors ask candidates questions about personal experiences, how he/she can help the team as a leader, and what he/she wants to learn by being on the leadership team.
Interview Questions - Speech – the candidates who made it through the first and second steps come up with a speech (up to 5 minutes) about why they should be elected to their teammates.
- Vote – After the speeches, the team votes on who they think would make the best leaders. The elected leaders should represent each class.
3. Student Leadership
Here is a list of the Student Leadership Roles and their duties. These change every year based on the new student leadership’s preference, what the team’s goals are for the future, and what are the team’s needs. Students will select which role(s) they would like to fulfill. Also, note that we have primary and secondary students in each of these roles so that the senior students can train the new students in these roles, working side by side.
4. 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 responsibilities of keeping that subteam’s wiki page up to date, taking attendance, keeping meeting notes, and writing task notes among other responsibilities.
5. Student-Lead Events
To keep student initiative high, students are encouraged to lead events such as robot demonstrations, community service activities, fun team events, and fundraisers. They set up times, dates, and organize all the details associated with creating and running an event.