Freshman on Drive team
 

Hey guys, I was wondering if any other teams at CMP have freshman on their drive teams. I know there probably aren't many, but I have no way to gauge.
See you next year!

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

All of 193 on Carver is freshmen.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

freshman driver on 1640.

1306's Coach is a Freshman.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/41718

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

This wasn't planned, but our drive team has one member from every grade. Our freshman is manipulator.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We weren't at Champs this year but our driver and human player are freshmen, our operator is a grade 10, and our coach is a senior (Grade 12). Generally we don't change our driver every year, but we might be changing our human player next year to adapt to the game.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

3467's operator is an 8th grader.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

All of 193, MORT Beta, is freshman/first-year members. They're a training team for 11, MORT.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

I'm the freshman co-pilot for MARS 2614. However, this is not my first year in FRC.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Our human player is a freshman, but he was human player last year when he was in 8th grade, and is fairly good at it.

Fun fact, this year our drive team had a:
Senior (Drive Coach, Me)
Junior (Driver)
Sophomore (Driver)
Freshman (Human Player)

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Our human player (Feeder Station Robot) was a freshman this year, and the operator and coach were both sophomores.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Electro Eagles were 2 alliance captain on carver. Entire drive team and human player were freshmen. But they have been drivers, spec ops or drive coaches on our FTC teams. Ftchartland.org.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Same with the Robolions our drive coach is a senior main driver is a junior secondary driver is a sophomore and i'm a freshman (our human player).

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Oh god. I just realized that our entire drive team was seniors this year.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

537 had a freshman driver on Newton

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Same with us. However, in 2013, one of our drivers was a freshman.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Our human player on Newton was a freshman.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

2415 is a Freshman drive team. We are looking into 2 year dynasty set ups.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

No freshmen this year at Hub City due to travel conflicts, but I did get to be my former team's human player in 2011 as a 7th grade student.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Better start training

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

1640's driver this year is a Freshman.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We ended up having all seniors on our drive team except for our coach for some of the matches he was a junior.

Our team has driver tryouts, a rules quiz and an interview to be able to tryout for drive team so anyone can tryout, it just happened to be all seniors.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We didn't make it to champs and our drive team changed a couple times due to complications but our drivers were either a junior and a senior or the same junior and a sophomore. our coach was either a mentor, the aforementioned senior, or maybe the aforementioned sophomore. our human player was either a senior or the aforementioned sophomore (we had some issues with availability and personal issues it was honestly a mess we're hoping to avoid next year)

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Being a driver as a freshman was an accelerating experience. It was partly due to a very large amount of time and effort I had put into our 2012 robot compared to other upper class man. I then drove all 4 years of my FRC career and loved it. My drive was due a lot to being rewarded for my time and effort put in. This year, we had a freshman operator and human player, and they did just as well if not better than many others I have seen and worked with.

-Ronnie

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We were not at champs but that's what happened to us a year ago - we won't make that mistake again. This year we had a senior (HP), freshman (manipulator) and 8th grader (driver) this year. We will re-open drive-team tryouts every year.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

3504's drive team has seven members if we include the non-field roles. We had three freshmen this year (human player, strategist and pit liaison). That said, the human player and strategist were both on the team last year as 8th grade interns.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

We have always had at least one freshman on our drive team. And this is the first year that we don't have an 8 th grader as well

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

I can only think of one time in 3467's 5 year history where both drivers were in the same grade which was 2013 (Juniors). Unless your team has a strong program for training new drivers which includes some off-season event(s) along with hours and hours of in shop drive practice with realistic circumstances keeping some experienced students down on the field can be a good thing.

Never let age get in the way of putting your best individual on the drive team and never let it be a permanent position from year to year. Nothing can hold back a team more than guaranteeing a position on the field just because of their position or age on the team.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Just curious how do you have an 8th grader on the team? Is he/she 14?

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Late birthdays (November/December) have some kids start school almost a year later than others. Hence some 8th graders are 14 in time for FRC cutoff.

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.

Re: Freshman on Drive team
 

Very true it just depends if FTC or even Vex is available for someone to participate on. FTC isn't that common up here in New Hampshire but Vex is however there hasn't been an easily accessible program like FTC or Vex in our immediate area for students who are in between the two. Starting one has always been discussed but the efforts have always been placed in FRC or FLL programs.

I think its good that there aren't strict age guidelines in FRC so teams and individuals have that flexibility. A team that does this might organize it differently with X number of slots available each year for these "Junior Members", increased parent involvement, less frequent meeting schedule, decreased travel privileges with the team, etc.

At the end of the day it is all about kids learning and if you can start them younger the more time you have to better their experience. :)