[ThirteenOfTwo]

As one of three team captains, I act as a bridge between our students and our mentors. I am a sounding board for ideas and strategies, with the caveat that I can never flat-out tell people not to do something. I can tell them when I think an idea is impractical, or if I think a strategy won't work, but I make a point of never giving straight orders to anyone.

I mediate disputes within the team and stay informed on everything that is going on. I can design parts of the robot--for example, the preliminary CAD for our claw this year was by me--but that isn't my main function. I spend more time with the mentors than other team members do so that I can explain to the rest of the team in layman's terms what the problems are. I am responsible for getting more and younger members involved, but not directly for teaching them. I also send out minutes and keep the team informed on rule updates.

As qualifications, I have to get along fairly well with everyone on the team so that I can mediate and sound ideas without hurting anyone's feelings. I need to have my fingers in all of the design pies, but not too deep in any one of them. I need to have a pretty good understanding of the engineering process, so that I can communicate it to the rest of the team when the mentors are busy. I'm expected to know a reasonable amount about every part of the robot, but not everything about any one part.

Essentially, a team captain herds cats. If you tell a cat to do something, it gets resentful and angry and doesn't do it. If you give it little nudges, it does.