Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Our operator is an 8th grader, and other than that I'm (driver) a Sophomore and our human player is a senior.

Your going to need to get a hp from the swim team

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

One of 900's drivers is a freshman. She's awesome! She is going to be a force next year after her experience this year.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

The team has always had an open policy to allowing younger students who have aged out of FLL the opportunity to come to join the FRC team as a Junior Member. Many teams have mentors with younger children who hang around the shop and help out and when the FLL teams at the Windham Middle School grew too large some of the older students who were ready for something more challenging could apply and spend time participating in FRC. The operator joined last year (2014) and this year is the lead student programmer. Its a great way to train up new students and pass on knowledge from more senior members to help transitions from year to year.

To a degree its a gray area in FIRST since its for "High School Aged Students" however no where does it say what age/grade they need be in to participate in FRC so its open for teams to decide.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

I don't know for certain, but I am pretty sure that the entire 2056 drive team is made up of freshman. They have only had 3 drive teams since their rookie year in 2006-2007.

Each drive team started together their freshman year and stays as the drive team through senior year. This drive team rotated in this year since it is the 9th year that they have been competing. It seems to work pretty well since they have won every regional event they've attended since they started.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

One of team 1619's two human players was a freshman in high school this year, but a second year member of the team. Having a freshman is not any sort of disadvantage if you are picking your drive team based on ability and maturity rather than seniority. Our team uses a tryout system along with peer reviews (each candidate says who they think would be best for each role in a private setting with a mentor) to decide the drive team each year along with a minimum required rules competency.

This year's breakdown was as follows:
Driver: Senior
Backup Driver: Junior
Operator: Junior
Backup Operator: Senior
Human Players: Senior and Freshman (the senior is the backup operator)

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

To a degree its a gray area in FIRST since its for "High School Aged Students" however no where does it say what age/grade they need be in to participate in FRC so its open for teams to decide.[/quote]

Having only done a quick search, I did find on the FIRST home page FRC is 9th-12th grade ages 14-18. While not date specific, would guess as long as the students are registered in STIMs all is well.

And as far as having freshman on the drive team, all for it. Allowing students to become "vested" in program responsibilities will assure their interest is maintained.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

The age for FRC participation seems to have been intentionally left as vague as possible to ensure that everyone who wants to is allowed. That being said, the FRC game manual has for the past few years stated that driver positions are limited to "Pre-college" team members. My old team, 3043, interpreted this as "any student that has not yet reached college-going age." This is how I was able to be human player in 7th grade, and being on the field really sparked my desire to continue my FRC participation for as long as I possibly could, and was a factor in my being elected co-captain of team 4301 as a freshman. It was truly a transformative experience, and I would encourage anybody in the position to try to do so. I do seem also seem to recall seeing an all middle school FRC team at kickoff 2013 in Lubbock.

I would recommend that we try to maintain our driver selection criteria on the skills of the driver, rather than the age of the candidate. My teams have found success there; YMMV.

Source: That's me feeding in the bottom left corner at 2:35 in the video.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We weren't there this year, but last year's 4901 drive team had three freshmen at Championship. Then one had to leave Friday night for a family funeral, so it was two freshmen...and an 8th grader.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We had freshman/middle school guys driving at Orlando this year, but yeah not at champs this year. S A D B O Y S.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

One of our pit bosses is an 8th grader. When she did FLL she had nerves of steel on the game board and we are hoping for more of the same next year.

We were under the impression drivers need to be grade 9 or higher.

Eric

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Age out of FLL is why the FTC program exists, no? I don't want to harp on this issue, nor discourage anyone. Odd with all the rules that are so direct and succinct that this one with age eligibility is so open.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

This year we had a freshman human player, a sophomore primary and secondary driver, and a junior coach.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Our first stick (driver), second stick (operator), and human player were seniors, and our drive coach was an alumni/mentor who is moving away this summer, so next year the entire drive team will be new. it will be interesting!

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

I didn't age out of FLL; I was just too obsessed with FIRST, and so was doing FRC and FLL simultaneously. In 8th grade, I was captain of both my school's FLL and FTC teams while still doing FRC.