[bigbeezy]

How did this work for the 2nd year? Or has this only been a 1 time thing so far?

I'm very interested in this. We had a very similar experience after the 2014 season. 2013 we won our first regional and 2014 we had another very successful year. We also began more heavily recruiting our 2nd high school. The combo of all that lead us to having over 90 kids in fall 2014, 60 of which were new. By the end of the year we were down to about 45-50 total. 90 kids in the fall was brutal on us mentors and the veteran students. So last year we started 3 FTC teams at our schools to help manage the load. These students would only do FTC in the fall and would not join FRC until the summer (now). We had 35 new kids take part in FTC, we brought 10 former FLL kids and 7 younger siblings to FRC this past year. We look to have about 15-20 FTC members joining FRC this coming season, 6-7 of the FLL kids and 6 siblings are remaining with the team, the rest have dropped. This puts our FRC team about about 60-65. I'm looking for a more sustainable way to get the dedicated and motivated kids on the team and exposed to FIRST.

I'm interested in how you made/administered the aptitude tests? Who were the graders, adults or students? How did students with zero background in programming or manufacturing handle the tests? What are some things that you would change for the next year?