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.