Points

What are points?

KnightKrawler uses a points system to acknowledge, measure, and celebrate contributions on the team. Students receive their own points sheet at the beginning of each season, and are required to continually update this document with information about projects and tasks they worked on at or outside of meetings. A point is defined as “3-4 hours of focused work on a central project or task.”

We also use a “points deadline” system to track eligibility for opportunities on the team through different point milestones. For example, these are the point deadlines for the 2025-2026 season:

By October 31, 2025, students must have 4 Subteam-specific training points to remain on the team.
By February 20, 2026, students must have 10 overall team points in order to participate in overnight travel.
By May 1, 2026, students must have 20 overall team points to receive a varsity letter.

Additionally, team 2052 recently implemented a two-season format for our team due to an influx of new Students early in the season, in order to keep numbers at a manageable level going into kickoff. This means that there are certain criteria students who were part of the team during “Fall Season” are evaluated on prior to the “Winter / Spring Season” in order to stay on the team. One of the primary criteria used during this analysis, on the same level as leadership positions, is the number of valid points a student has accumulated throughout the “Fall Season.” This year, the points deadline prior to cutoffs was December 12, 2025, after our MinneTrials competition participation came to a close.

In this way, points are the primary metric for progress tracking across our team of 50+ students.

What counts as a point?

Activities corresponding to a point logged on a student point sheet must be team-related, but there are a wide variety of point types students can track across subteams and leadership / team management roles.

Examples of Subteam (Programming, More Than Robots (Media), Build) points include tasks like completing a scale drawing or model of an intake, putting together clips for a reveal video, or programming and testing a new drivebase system. Students may also gain points for attending certain events, such as Jumpstart or information sessions at MRI (Firebears Minnesota Robotics Invitational) if they include a photograph of notes they took at such events.

Non-points include tasks like “put a wrench away,” “downloaded programming resources,” or other work that would not require 3-4 hours of engaged work. Attendance at meetings is also not eligible to earn a point.

Additionally, KnightKrawler places emphasis on points as a representation of completion or significant progress on some task or activity. Points are not meant to represent an accumulation of smaller, unrelated or day-to-day tasks across a 3-4 hour period that are combined into one singular point. Attendance and productivity at a meeting is not necessarily a point, but a student working on a focused project across multiple meetings for a total of 3-4 hours and reaching some significant milestone in their progress is.

Students may also put down outreach points, which are related to attendance and active support at events such as concessions at an FTC event or an elementary school demonstration. Students are required to acquire at least 1 outreach point in a season to letter.

How are points tracked?

Student-side

As referenced above, students receive a personal point sheet through a Google Classroom assignment at the beginning of each season. Within the point sheet, each row represents one point, designated by the number on the left-most column.

The second column includes space for students to fill out a “description” of the activity or task they engaged in for 3-4 hours of focused work, earning them a point. This description must align with an activity that fits into the criteria provided above for what counts as a point, and provide an accurate representation of that student’s specific contribution to some project or task.

After filling out the task description, students attach a date according to the completion of the task they put down (even if the task or project took multiple days), and re-submit the assignment on Google Classroom to alert mentors that they have more points ready to be signed off.

Mentor sign-off

A point becomes valid after a mentor is able to sign off on the right-most column of a student’s points sheet document to confirm they witnessed or gained confirmation of the student’s progress or completion of some task. Therefore, mentors usually sign off on points in accordance with the subteam they spend the most time with, or for events / projects they were heavily involved with the student in.

A mentor can choose to put their initial down next to the point to sign off, or ask for more detail to understand what the student completed. Mentors are also able to delete points if they do not accurately represent student contribution to some project or if they are related to an activity not eligible for a point.