Reading all of these posts makes me realize how lucky our team has been. We are only a second year team, but we have over 70 members in the robotics "club". Being at a school with a Math, Science, and Technology magnet program, student interest has always been good, and faculty/administration support has gone along with it. Our principal has always been more than generous in offering support. Also, only half an hour away is Georgia Tech, our primary mentors, where there are quite a few very helpful and dedicated engineering students that help us out a LOT (not to mention the financial backing they help bring in
). In fact, this year we have converted one of the rooms in the school into a machine shop and are working out the details and purchase of the last pieces of large machinery we need to complete it. We are doing so much this year, both in and outside of the several competitions we are a part of, it makes my head spin
.
My point? I think you guys have hit the nail on the head on what it takes to make a team strong. I think the moral of the story is if you have strong support in all of these elements, a team can really "explode" into the scene, allowing for even reletively new teams to become quite large quite fast. Thank you to everyone who has supported us, and stay tuned because it is going to be a very interesting, very fun year!