[Clark Gilbert]

Originally Posted by monsieurcoffee

So how do teams select new members each year? The team size thread made me want to ask this.

Our team is limited to 25 participants. Veteran members pretty much get back on free. New members attend a couple of meetings which introduce them to the team. Applications are handed out, filled, and returned. This year, two people entered all the applications into an anonymous database - no names or handwriting. The applications were shown to the veteran members on projector and we voted based on qualifications such as seniority and ability to commit to the team (obviously very important). The votes were tallied based on approval. Each veteran member made a list of 8 people they would approve of being on the team based on the applications and then everyone's lists were tallied. The 7 most approved people were the initial ones to be on the team. The officers then went back and reviewed them carefully to see if perhaps someone else was close to being in that top 7 (yeah, we have a lot of returning members) and was still very qualified. A couple minor changes were made and presented back to all the veteran members. The teacher then approved/finalized the list.

I would consider the TechnoKats an equal opportunity team. Whoever shows up to the call outs and meetings will be on the team. Every year we would (and I'm sure they still do) get a large amount of people in the fall, and that number would reduce itself down to around 35. The TechnoKats do have a selection process for team positions such as team leader or robot operator, and there are a few different applications for many spots. After the adults recieve these there is a voting session held during a meeting to elect these new student officials. The TechnoKats do become more strict when it comes to who gets to travel, aside from the grade requirements students must attend a certain amount of meetings and participate in a level that is approved by the adults. In the past this has come to hurt a few people when it came to traveling time, and it looks like this year they have a new "point system" to help with this. All of this is explained in great detail in the http://www.technokats.org/documents/handbook.doc . It's a great handbook that has been developed over the course of 4 or 5 years.