Our team noticed how often rookie teams started, attended their first tournament, and then never returned. We discovered that many rookie teams would enter their first competition unprepared and become frustrated. The team decided to try to find ways to help rookie teams be more prepared for competition and know what to expect.

Students on the team discussed what they found most difficult when they were rookies on the team. Together they decided to design a workshop around the most important things we believed new teams needed to know before competing in their first tournament. This was a workshop for teams and their coaches. Time was built in for questions and handouts were given to outline items to bring to tournaments, important tips for competition days, as well as resources for core values exercises, how to make the core values poster, project presentation, and robot tutorials. Topics discussed were the general schedule of a typical tournament, what to expect in each judging room, and the overall rules and procedures to the robot game. We knew teams would have additional questions after they returned home, and we wanted to keep the lines of communication open to help rookie teams to do their best, so we made sure the teams attending had our contact information to be able to ask additional questions anytime.