Getting Started
New to Tesla Works? Wondering how to get involved? You’ve come to the right place!
Come to a meeting:General meetings -- every Friday at 5 pm in Keller 3-230 -- are the easiest first step if you’re looking to get involved. Every weekly meeting has a Friday Night Project, like model rockets, heated gloves, or a DIY air hockey table that everyone can help build, zero experience necessary. These meetings are also a great chance to talk to our officers and project managers, and hear what our current projects are up to. If general meetings don’t work for your schedule, don’t worry! Most of our building and planning happens at different times, decided by the teams of each individual project.
Join an existing project:Every project team builds on its own schedule, separate from the Friday night general meetings. All of our current projects are open for anyone who’s interested to join, anytime! A list of current projects, with meeting times and contact people, is here.
- Find a cool-sounding active project (or more than one!) on our Projects page, or by talking to people at a general meeting.
- Tell the project manager you’re interested in their project. If you can’t talk to them in person, their email is listed on the Projects page. They can let you know what’s currently going on in the project, as well as the next meeting time and location. This doesn’t mean you’ve committed to anything! You can always change your mind if the project isn’t as interesting as you thought.
- Show up to the next project meeting and get going!
If none of the current projects catch your eye, you always have the opportunity to start your own project! To start your own project:
- Fill out the Project Application Form
- Show up to the officers meeting you specified in the form and pitch your project. This doesn’t have to be a super detailed presentation; the officers just want to hear your idea and your general timeline
- If your project gets approved (you usually find out about 10 minutes after you pitch it to the officers) you will get to present at a general meeting to bring in new members to your team. You’ll also be given a copy of the Project Playbook, which will help guide you in managing your project and tell you more about how to get funding, storage, work space, and anything else you might need!