[ngreen]

I could see this happening at schools near a regional with lots of resources and team members. I could see how this could be a problem having 60+ team members.

My two best ideas were select members for the build team based on research and development they do. If someone researches and development a new drive system they are in charge of that, and so on. Give them incentive to research and improve the quality of the robot. Let the old members know in the spring so they can work on their ideas over the summer and the newbies in the fall so they have a chance to put together ideas of how things works. Have them present all the ideas in front of everyone a couple weeks before kickoff and it will give the mentors a good idea who can be in charge of what. Working prototypes would be reccomended.

The second idea is regardless of team size give each team member at least one robot related task. It the mentor has to help that person through with that task it is ok. But at least give them the opportunity so they don't completely feel left out. Also to be fair give everyone one non-robot related task. Everyone has the ability to write thank-you notes.

I kind of want to try out the first one. I hope to get some of the high-schoolers more interested in designing a multi-speed, multi-motor gearboxes, and I would love to get more in depth into programming this year.