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Unread 11-11-2015, 09:36
Christopher149 Christopher149 is offline
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FRC #0857 (Superior Roboworks) FTC 10723 (SnowBots)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Rookie Year: 2007
Location: Houghton, MI
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Re: Why do team's fold?

There's a couple teams near us that folded that I have a semi-decent idea as to why.

2153 - team was run as a class so they only had about 4 hours per week to work, and a couple years ago lost major programming mentors from a company when their employer altered volunteer / paid time off rules. The team had been struggling for several years.

4363 - big part was the team was mentored mostly be the one shop teacher, and he burned out after the first year with the time commitment and no one came in to replace him.

As anecdote to other options on the poll, 857 and 2586 have both lost build space at least once and have been through financially difficult times and are still around.

Quote:
Originally Posted by waialua359 View Post
Those that have done FIRST heavily and successfully with the right mix of mentors, understand what it takes, which makes it even tougher to replace anyone. The best and most common examples of setting up contingency plans that I have personally seen involves former students becoming mentors.
The last two lead mentors 857 has had have both been former 857 students (though the arrangement is interesting because they were also college students, and I think almost everyone previous was a former member of a different team).
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