Quote:
Originally Posted by Owen Busler
This year we are thinking of doing a little less recruitment so we get kids who really want to do it. Now this is kinda against FIRST ideas because our goal is to inspire new people, but we cant possible support a 100 person team.
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Part of running a team is recognising your limitations. That's how some teams produce consistently good robots - they build within their limitations. It's also why some teams will fail horribly one year - they set their goals too high and couldn't meet them in the limited time we have.
So, it's ok to put your recruitment at an appropriate level for what you can support - there's nothing wrong with having a smaller team where everyone has something to do, when the alternative is a larger team with half the members playing games on their phones out of boredom.
The key in this situation, perhaps, is to identify those limitations (space? Number of tools? Number of mentors? Ratio of experienced vs inexperienced members?), and work on a long term plan to address them. The plan could take many shapes - finding a larger place to build, fundraising to buy more tools, demos at local companies to help recruit new mentors, growing the program a little each year until you max out the interest in 3-4 years, spinning off an FTC team or two for underclassmen as a sort of JV program... Take a look at what's stopping you from including everyone you know you could have, and build a 5-year plan around fixing it. I know, it's a little more long-term than we're used to thinking, but having a long term plan is something that can help your team keep moving forward year after year.