What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

While all of these answers combined make a strong team my question is which aspect most contributes to a team's success.
I'll go with experienced mentors. The students are a variable. At the most they can stay four years (six if you take them in middle school and in rare cases they have been around even longer) but veteran mentors who stay with the team year after year after year are the ones who keep the fire going. And even after they have graduated many of the students become those mentors who take the lead (which is partially what Dean wanted. Take what you have learned and pass it on to the nest generation). The other things are nice and all but team can and have lived without them. Without good mentors teams don't last long.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I believe experienced mentors contribute MOST to a teams success. With experienced mentors you can teach a student how to machine something, weld, run wire, program etc. I agree with Koko Ed, after 4 (or 6) years students leave. We are graduating 50% of our team this year, we will only have ~7 students returning next year, but at least we know that 2 programming/electronics mentors, 3 mechanical mentors and 1 awards mentor will stick with the team.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Why do we need a mental exercise to put only one group on top?

All are important. All bring something unique and important to the endeavor.
GP usually guides us to try to stay away from creating pyramids of importance when it comes to people's contributions. Every group and individual should get accolades for their contributions without getting their nose rubbed in the assertion that there is someone more important than they are.

Reminds me of the some conversations I've heard that try to assert that the animation subteam is less important than the mechanical subteam. Those assertions dramatically limit the benefits of FIRST and overall team cohesion.

I lead the mechanical subteam- and I'll dive into a lecture about GP when any other mentor or subteam member starts trying to convince others that their function is more important than someone else's. The pie is as large as you make it. Appreciate everyone- stay away from which group or function is the most important.

If anything, I would say the volunteers and sponsors that are not affiliated with any specific teams are most important- they only give - they don't get to compete or win anything. They make the benefit pie huge.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

As Ed notes, these factors all lead toward success. However, some of them are essential to success.

I voted for dedicated students. As important as mentors are, without students there is no team. The mentors can only do so much; there must be students there to inspire. That said, good mentors can provide inspiration so that students become more dedicated. See what I mean about several of the factors being critical to success?

Similar connections can be made to support by sponsors, school and parents. Without sponsors, there's no money to fund the team. Without parental support, the students won't be there to get inspired. Etc.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

From what I've seen, dedicated students get that way because of strong leadership, usually from a mentor (who is just as likely to be a teacher, as an engineer, or some other title)

The big thing is that the team works as a team, and everyone pitches in.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I went with dedicated students, and by extension student leadership. Experienced mentors make great resources, but if kids are dedicated, and motivated (which can be done by their peers) they can find the answers to their questions.
I would take a group of 15 dedicated students with full access to the internet over 10 incredible engineers and 15 students who think it's a club.

A great example would be team 2345. I love those guys. They built a competitive robot with minimal resources out of a parents garage with only 11 kids.

And if you think it's resources, my example brings in team 1939. As far as I know, they have a cordless drill, a socket wrench set, and a hacksaw. Last year was the first time they missed elims at KC and they made up for it at their second regional as a finalist and #2 seed.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Other: A valid (rigorous) design process.

Inexperienced mentors, some half-hearted students, mediocre facilities, support, sponsors, scouting, etc can all be managed, but without a solid design, (produced bya good process) the robot will generally not perform well - and nothing can make up for that.

This was a tough question Ed, thanks for bringing it up. :D

I thought really carefully about this, because (as noted) all play a very important part in a team's success. But all of those factors can be fairly sub-optimum and you can still end up with a great robot.

Just below design is "Driver Practice", because a superb drive team can overcome a lot of bad robot. This sort-of implies a practice (or prototype) robot.

We have built 2 robots for the past few years, and it makes a huge difference (and thanks to Paul Kloberg for pointing that out to us). The first one is "good enough" and finished around week 4, then we take what we learned from building that and make our 'production bot' in the last 2 weeks. They don't have to be identical (pretty close though), but they always must use exactly the same software.

The advantage to continuing development on code and driver practice after ship date makes the difference.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Ed,

I think the answer to this question really has to do with how you define success. Is success defined as a blue banner or a moving robot or just the teams teamwork?

My definition of success is the teammembers leaving the team with a better understanding of what they want to do (and don't want to do) with their lives ... and with that I'd say Experianced mentors teaching not only about robotics, but about life in general.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Dedicated Students.

Without the students pushing to get the robot done, there will not be a robot. The mentors will not finish the robot for the students. Experienced mentors is up there too, but without the students, what is the program? I believe the core of the program is the students, has always been.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Fun.

If you're not having fun, you aren't inspiring students.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Dedicated students:

Without the students, there would be no robot in the first place.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I vote for dedicated students. As one of the student leaders on my team, I can say that it's been a difficult year for many reasons, but mostly because there have been students that don't seem to care. They just have no idea on the engineering process. The students that don't do much or don't seem to care don't realize how much work needs to be done. They are the people who think that you can draw up a design, and in a few days or weeks, it will magically appear.

Another very important factor, which is right below dedicated students, is good student leadership. Team 573 has the philosophy of students doing almost all of the work, unless something is dangerous or nobody knows how to do it. For a team like ours to operate, the team needs a few senior members who have the technical know-how and a decent engineering base. That way, they can teach other team members and make the jobs of the mentors a little easier.

Another point that I feel is worth mentioning is more of a competition specific factor, but it still makes or breaks a team. A good drive team is necessary. Over the years, I have seen students trying to drive robots where they either couldn't control it(either it was too complex or it was a design flaw) or they just didn't know the technique. Last year, I saw plenty of teams who either drove back and forth in a straight line, had trouble getting against a wall, or getting penalties because they drove somewhere they shouldn't have. A good coach is just as important. They need to know how to communicate with other teams and watch the field at the same time. The human player also needs to know how to do what they are supposed to. Lastly, they all need to know the rules inside and out.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

A team is a team because it is a team.

Dedicated students inspire parents and mentors, dedicated mentors inspire students. They both work together to get dedicated sponsors who are inspired by the TEAM. The partnership inspires the school to be more supportive.

Perhaps I define success in a different way than you do, but my conviction always lays with one of the best quotes I've ever heard:

Build a good team, good robots will follow.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I agree with all the choices, but would say a balance between collaboration and participation by all team members, students and mentors is something that will sustain a team year-in and year-out.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

In what I have seen this year a successful team has a balanced between dedicated students and mentors. No students= not bot or team. No mentors= lost students.

This was our 5th year as a team we had ~15 good strong members on the team 5 seniors, 3 juniors, 2 sophomores, and 3freshmen and 2 great mentors. But after 2010 we had lost all of our seniors, who had been there since the first year. Our main mentor found a great job and had to take a break for a bit and A couple of team members had to take a break for school. This left us with 3 seniors, 1 junior, and 3 sophomores and one mentor. After regionals we had met a GREAT mentor who has been in first since 2001? So now we had 2 great mentors. At the start of the 2010-2011 season, we had 30 newbies come in. We jumped to a small team, to a team around 35 (2158 has never had a team this big). After BEST and VEX, at FRC kick off we had only lost 10 members. so we were around 25 strong, still a HUGE team for us. During the FRC season because of our dedicated mentors, we probably have built, and cadded one of our best robots. Because of some very dedicated students and even more dedicated Mentors we did it. Designed and build a great bot. But that's not all we did, came up with a KILLER chairmen essay, started on a real web site, and much more stuff. All with 2 mentors 1 teacher and 10-15 very dedicated students. Here's the catch, we didn't have a ME mentor, but we had, One mentors who is an EE, the other is getting her PhD in physiology. This shows how very dedicated mentors and students will make a successful team.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I voted for "Parents". If parents are involved with the team, their students are probably going to be dedicated, and the parents can do some things that mentors may not be able to do due to regulations. A dedicated group of parental boosters, while it doesn't show up as much as the mentors and students with their heads stuck in the robot, can be as vital or more vital than the rest of the categories.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Dedicated students. More specifically, students WHO GET THE POINT OF FIRST.

I bet that the majority of people who didn't answer students are involved with a team that already has good students. If you were on a team without them, you might vote differently.

Because unless participating students are capable of wanting to learn, wanting to have fun, and wanting to help others do the same, nothing gets done. The final robot is something nobody learned from, built almost completely by mentors who are worried about having nothing to compete with. Enthusiastic mentors and students with ideas and motivation get tired of trying to get the majority of students to care about what they're trying to say. They also get tired of trying to design or build a robot or component while everyone else plays online video games, watches pirated movies, or play cards and board games. Some of the non-contributors become trolls, and tell dedicated and interested participants that their ideas suck while doing nothing themselves.

Being the majority, the lazy people and trolls stay. A very frustrated and fed up dedicated minority abandons all hope and stops showing up.

I'm unfortunately speaking from my experience this year and last year. Most interested and experienced mentors and some dedicated students have stopped showing showing up, and recently, I have too (although I will be at the regional competition on the last day to meet some successful teams).

I honestly don't know why most people on my team joined. Because they literally couldn't care less about Gracious Professionalism, the engineering experience, or anything else FIRST tries to promote. The only logical explanation for them being there is the school's free internet connection or that it would look good on their college application. And the only reason they were accepted into an remained on the team was because we needed to prove we had above a certain number of students to be sponsored this year, so there were no restrictions on joining or staying.

For the reasons described above, the robotics team isn't taken very seriously at all at my school, and students that should be the most interested in FRC don't join. It's a death spiral.

CONCLUSION: If you don't have enough students that want to learn, have fun, or participate, everyone who does will pack up and leave, and the team will implode. This is why an FRC team's rookie year is the most important. It sets the standard.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

My team is 100% student everything. And I still think that mentors are the most important factor. Without mentors a team will end up like mine. having literally no continuity between seasons, essentially being a rookie every season.

Mentors are also what guide the students. Even if the students build the robots completely, they need a mentor to show them how to make a robot or do anything. You simply cannot learn what is never taught. A few students are self-starters and who can learn on there own, however FIRST is about inspiring the kids who wouldn't be able to do it on there own. Thus for a team to truly be a success it needs mentors.

Students come and leave but mentors and teachers stay with the team. My team's history goes back only until 2008, and that is only because me and one other student have been on it that long, otherwise it goes back until 2009, and then 2010 once those students graduate. Thankfully, we have mentors now, so hopefully team 691 will be around for a while after me and the other student leaders leave.

A great student member exists for at most 5-6 years, a mentor doesn't have a set amount of time with the team.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I voted "other" because honestly is making FRC 3320 pull a 180 this year and become so impressive now is because they meet all year round.

Each student has been training and self-teaching LabVIEW, Inventor, or 3ds Max Design since June 2010. The team has the dedicated students, mentors who care, and everything else listed in the choices but I think what really gave 3320 the change this year is that they've had the seat time to hone their skills off-season.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Looking back, around May/June 2010, N.A.C. Team 93 had a group discussion about the next step to take. And as part of it we were asked what in or on the team was the most important. We came up with a list about 10-15 items long. What wasn't included on that list was the robot because it isn't the robot that is important. It's the people, because FIRST isn't about building robots, it's about building people by using robots as a fun and exciting tool. What I'm seeing here is that that is very much true because it isn't anything like the practice robots or facilities that are overwhelmingly important. It's the people.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Experienced Mentors, hands down... whether they admit or not, all FRC teams would be nowhere without 'em.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Given that the mission of FIRST is to inspire students to become leaders in science and technology, the measure of success for a team has to be measured by how well they inspire their students and other teams students. Therefore, I would have to say that mentors are the most important aspect of success because they are the ones actively inspiring the students, giving them something to be excited about and showing them how to make something as complex as an FRC robot a fun thing to build and compete with. Of course winning helps inspire students, so that is a part of a team's success, but it isn't the whole picture. Mentors are also the integral part in establishing the professional setting for students to interact with professional engineers to overcome a difficult challenge together.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

The strength of Plan B. The strength of Plan B depends on all the other facets of the team and how well-developed they are and in tune with flexibility, adjustment, and change they are.

Examples:
- What is the backup plan to a lead mentor who cannot remain committed to the build/competition season?

- What is the backup plan to the sudden withdrawal of sponsorship from a sponsor who has stood by the team through the year(s) but can no longer do so?

- What is the backup plan to a sudden increase in team membership or a sudden decrease in team membership?

- What is the backup plan to a facility change/cancellation or closing?

- What is the strength and organized support of the parents as a group?

- What is the strength of the team that can carry it from sudden uncharted waters into smooth sailing?

The answers to these questions can help you determine the team's success and achievements and set goals for garnering more.

Jane

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Money and the ability to know what to do with it. (Other)

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

A clear definition of "success" for their team, and a solid plan for what it takes to be successful. A solid plan includes an assessment of goals, stretch goals, actions required to make those goals, and the assets required to take those actions.
That and Caffienated beverage of choice.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Personally, I believe one mentor that truly "gets it" is the most important part to a "successful" team.

Then again, I consider a "successful" team any team that manages to compete year after year.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Yes, I can see that now. I guess we do take our good students for granted.
I understand your limitations regarding team size and sponsorship, but frankly, we do not tolerate "lazy people and trolls" on our team. I have no problem challenging those kind of students to get active - or asking them to leave. We're not a babysitting service, or free food.

Students need to earn their way to Regionals, and non-contributors are informed of this very early in the season. Yes, we did lose 20% of the team since Kickoff, but guess which end of the performance curve decided to stop showing up?

Any student can be given a task, even if it's just sweeping the floors or taking out the trash. Games of any type - except 5th Gear - are not permitted at all. Sit around enough, even the student leaders will get on your case. (Exception: If you're doing homework. Health, Grades, Robot - in that order).

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I will still say, that a student can only be as good as what they have been taught. (Most) Students cannot design, build, program, and test a robot just using what they are taught in school.

My team has been lucky enough this year to have a 4 mentors who show up to most meetings. At these meetings we average about 20-30 students, in the past we averaged 10-15. Those students are all dedicated and hardworking, but they do not always know what the next step is, or how to make a certain part, or how to wire this or that. Our Mentors provide our students with the tools (knowledge) necessary for them to implement their ideas into the robot, without them this would just be about "building" rather than actual engineering.

I understand how a team cannot exist without students, but just existing does not always mean true success for a team. For a team to have the greatest impact possible on its students it needs to have those dedicated/experienced mentors to to give those dedicated students the ability to turn their own dedication into a finished product.

This is just my opinion though.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Why is there no 'All of the Above' answer? I think that all of those different factors are necessary to a team's success.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

If we stricly are talking robot i said facilities. Not because its the most important thing for first, but i think its the most important thing for a succesfull consistant robot. NOt just facilities though, someone who knows how to and can train others to use it (whether that be mentor or student). Our school finally got a metal shop and our robot should be better then ever because we could acuratley machine parts and create the robot we deisgned. Though mentors and students are far more important to first, there will always be more mentors or students when current ones leave (well i hope so atleast, they aren't expendable but somehow there always seems to be somebody). So in my opinon, and based on looking at many incredible robotos who year after year create outstanding robots, facilities are pivitoal to a ROBOT's succes, FIRST as a whole is a different story.

p.s. as for a robot, i define sucess as continualy increasing preformance each year ultimatley leading up to consistanytly being a top robot. For my team we still are on the journey up so making an allinace and whening a qulaification match to me would be success for our robot.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

That's the easy way out.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Actually, I think "all of the above" is more the gracious professionalism way out. ;)

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

What so graceless about answering a question?

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I vote dedicated students is 70%, good mentors is 15%, and the other 15% percent is somewhat equally distributed to the rest.

As part of team where there was a dedication shift in students, I can vouch that the results are tangible.

Yes. This is a big reason that good mentors are still important but...

This is why I disagree with the "experienced mentors" being the biggest contributor (as well as facilities): 1625

Now, I hope they don't mind me using them as an example: but they don't have a fancy shop, and their head mentors aren't engineers. One is an architect and the other works with special ed students. I think they have maybe one or two engineers associated with their team but I know that they don't come to meetings frequently.

And they win. They win regional champ titles and chairmans. How, might you ask?

Dedicated students. I know that those kids are in their shop throughout the year. When experienced students leave the team, younger students are trained to become robot-experts (okay, so this is Aren Hill's doing and he's technically a mentor, but still...). These kids are working hard all the time to be the best they can be. They don't have any mentors who have been in the program longer than the team itself and even in their baby years, they were still winning regionals.

And when kids on my team got dedicated, things happened. Good things happened. The year with the most mentor-input (to my knowledge) was possibly one our worst (no offense, mentors... I love you!). This year, most of our students did a 180 and all of a sudden we had a robot built and working BEFORE ship. Who'da'thunk!

Dedicated Students is the biggest piece. You need (a) coherent mentor(s) from year to year that holds things together, but if you have your students going then you have good things happening.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Here's a hypothetical example:
Which family member contributes most to the success of a nuclear family: Father, mother, sister, or brother?

Is it gracious for the mother (or the father) of the family to pose such a question to the teenage children and the spouse? Is it gracious for the mother (or the father) to call copout when someone indicates that "everyone" should be an allowed answer to the question?

Such a question is no more relevant or helpful than trying to vote on whether the mechanical team is more important than the programming team or the fundraising team.

GP is for all involved to help inspire students to find themselves and learn skills and enjoy aspects of engineering. Trying to identify though voting which group members are most important raises some up at the unintended expense of considering other people as less important.

Publicly appreciate everyone- without needless: some jobs are more important than others polling, it's the GP thing to do.

I think most mentors already internally know how important they are without wanting or needing a poll where they are proven to win out over sponsors or students.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

It's rather the square peg in a round hole scenario when you create a thread/poll such as this that tries to drive 1 single most important aspect of a team forward. What purpose does it serve?

Jane

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

We learn when we ask difficult questions. I agree with Ed, saying the entire team is the most important is a cop-out. Obviously, there are strong teams, but how did they end up that way? Just accepting that strong teams spontaneously pop into being by virtue of being a good team sounds a lot like spontaneous generation to me. Someone's gotta plant the germs.

I think it is absolutely dedicated NEMs (or EMs acting as NEMs). I've never run a FIRST team, but after running a college club I'm pretty sure I don't want to. There are so many forms to be filled out, meetings to attend, and decisions to make that have nothing to do with the 120 pounds of robotic goodness that goes onto that field. It is draining (at least for me) in a very different sense than building the robot. Give me a pot of coffee and I'll stay up all night designing/building/testing mechanisms, but a stack of paperwork is the death of me.

Dedicated students are obviously important too (here comes the chicken-or-the-egg bit), but I its easier to get students interested when you've got dedicated mentors as opposed to getting mentors interested when you've got dedicated students. To deal with the vast amount of stuff that goes with running a FIRST team, you've really got to love it. It's not a temporary gig, and you can't just do it for your kids. You've got to love it (or learn to love it). I know lots of dedicated adult mentors probably get involved because of their kids, but they stay involved because they love it. And if they don't, they burn out real quick.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

An engineer should evaluate this is a systematic fashion. Compare each factor to every other factor.

Can facilities give you practice robot? No. Can facilities give you a good sponsor? maybe, but probably not. Can a good sponsor give you facilities? Yes. Can experienced mentors give you dedicated students? Yes. Can dedicated students get you experienced mentors? Yes, but it takes a few years.

Complete that for every pair and you've done a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pairwise_comparison] and it should be trivial to see what is the most important.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

The purpose of this thread was simply to create thoughtful debate, Jane.
Nothing more.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Another technique is to find those with the success you want and discuss assets, methods, and capabilities with them. Compare and contrast what they have, and what they do with what you have, and what you do. Make sure you talk to a lot of good teams as they often get impressive results with less than you would expect.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

What is interesting about this thread is that everyone thinks that their contributions are the most important. Mentors think they are the "soul" of the team and students feel they are the reason for the team being there in the first place.

If both groups stop and think for a minute, who are the people that allow you to have a successful team in the first place? involved parents. They are the ones who ferry students back and forth from the practice field to the work site. They are the ones who feed my group on our long work days. They are the ones who do all the little things that make my team run smoothly.

As the adult leader of my team, I could not do my job without strong supportive parents. They free me to do what I went into teaching to do: inspire young people and make them tools for a bright future.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

On the field: Solid engineering, which usually equates to having experienced mentors.

Off the field: Tireless organization, which usually equates to having experienced mentors.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

A lot of the debate seems to be treating the question as asking about what makes a successful team. That's not the same thing as contributing to a team's success. A successful team is undeniably a partnership. No single factor can be pointed to as the most important reason. But is there something specific one can add to any random "struggling" FRC team and reliably increase its success? I believe there is.

I also think the definition of success should be aligned with the mission of FIRST. Students are absolutely the target, but mentors are explicitly the foundation on which the programs are based. Without good mentors, this becomes just another science fair.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I think this is a great exercise. One of the great things about CD is the fact that we can have civilized, academic discussions without fear of offending or alienating persons or groups.
As our team continues to grow, I find it beneficial to see what other accomplished teams' members feel to be critical to their own successes; as such, we can align our team's growth to parallel that. It helps us prioritize our efforts, it helps us recognize if our efforts may be misdirected or simply not as fruitful as we think.
Keep asking the hard questions. Be introspective. That's how we as a team, and we as a community, continue to grow.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Not me....I speak from the experience of things going well, then not so well, and thinking long and hard about what changed.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

not on the list, but very important: being located at a strong supportive school or other strong sponsor.

we are a regional team and our students and mentors come from all over. this makes life very difficult because we normally can only work on friday evening, saturday, and sunday afternoons. regular attendance is a problem; many of our students are too young to drive. we also lack the ability to integrate team activities with any school curriculum, such as programming or solidworks/inventor. we get by but it's tough.

well, we love it anyway. wouldn't miss it. up here in vermont it helps us get through the winter; by the time march 5 gets here, winter is losing its grip.

jim wick

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I would place that as facilities.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

That is on the list. That is either
Facilities (typo in the poll)
Strong Loyal Sponsorship, or
Good Relationship With Affiliated School
depending on what you consider most important in your statement (location or sponsor/school). I think it is facilities (a place for everyone to meet) based on the rest of your answer.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Hands down, dedicated students...

I have seen teams with amazing mentors and great coaches that have done far below their level, not because the robot was not good or the robot was not robust but because the students dont seem to carry as much dedication towards it, I am sure there are a few but when a larger % of students dont follow the team its tough.

Not only that but these teams become harder to sustain, not as many people bringing in sponsorship or fundraising and not as many people traveling etc.

A lot of the mentors you will see are driven by the students, by seeing the students enjoy and learn from the process. Their dedication make us want to do it that much more.

I have been with 2016 for 5 years now and every year a new batch of kids comes in and find their way through the maze of a team we have... But they are there every night, every weekend for all 6 weeks. Thats what makes us want to be there. yea we enjoy building a robot and all, but if there are no students there to drive the robot theres no use having a good robot.

:) love having our students around.. and especially getting them to challenge the mentors idea's thats when it gets really fun!!

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

The "titude" is the difference between an A+(titude) and a F.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I voted for experienced mentors.

We are a second year team.

Both years we have had incredibly hardworking student team members. I am so proud of their FIRST first year effort.

But, this year we had more mentors with experience. They were able to direct the students to use their talents and energy with the most effectiveness. And with the same hardworking team members (and more), our team excelled!

So, without the students, there is no team. But if the students come down with long-term frustration, can they maintain their numbers and enthusiasm?
Effective Mentors can reduce frustration and help sustain a team.

;)

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Akash,
I like your thinking... and I like the way you define success.
It isn't about plastic trophies and banners... it is about inspiration and the way student's AND mentors lives are changed.

Having a real TEAM does that... working together.
Students and mentors seeing that they CAN do this and have fun and satisfaction in the process.

What more success can one have than developing life long friendships and a personal satisfaction in knowing that one can make a difference.... students and mentors alike...

thanks for posting

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Blake thinks that Daniel hit the true nail on the head.

In the absence of a definition in the OP of "success", the answers here are interesting, but are largely not something one can draw many conclusions from.

Even the asnswer(s?) that used "inspriing students" as the defintion of success is still using a term that is useful but (purposefully I think) left vague enough within FIRST to resist quantification when it isn't paired up with a few modifiers that connect it to observable, measureable outcomes.

However, this might not be a bad situation. It simply is what it is, and it is a reason to think twice before using sentences like "What contributes most to a team's success?", or "Wow, they are really successful this year." Success is a slippery term.

Blake