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Re: [FTC]: Ideal team size for FTC team of middle schoolers
FTC has evolved some since I had hands-on experience with it, but unless you are investing quite a bit into custom and semi-custom parts, I am surprised that you aren't wishing you could reduce each team's headcount down to 8, or fewer. Extrapolating from my experience, and from my VRC experience, ...
The number of students/mentor won't change (same number of mentors, same number of students, more teams).
The number of teams per mentor will go up. That does add a little more paperwork, and some more balls to keep in the air during tournaments. Delegate the tournament stuff to the students.
The students per machine will drop and give each student more opportunities for a hands-on contribution to, and experimentation with, the STEM activities.
Also, for a team to do well, more students will have opportunities to contribute to the parts of team performance that aren't explicitly STEM.
Blake
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Blake Ross, For emailing me, in the verizon.net domain, I am blake
VRC Team Mentor, FTC volunteer, 5th Gear Developer, Husband, Father, Triangle Fraternity Alumnus (ky 76), U Ky BSEE, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Kentucky Colonel
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