[Bcahn836]

Team 836 has pretty much kept the same team structure since its inception 4 years ago. Our team usually in the preseason starts out with between 40 and 60 members. When school starts in August we invite as many people as we can have them fill out some paper work and based on their interest place them in a sub team. And they are Public Relations, Marketing, Electronics, Drive Train, Arm and End, Manufacturing, Programming, Design and this year safety. And at any point anyone can change sub teams based on their interest. The parents when they come in go into sub teams where they have some experience, for example my father is an electronics technician so he helps out with the electronics group, and now he is a logistics person so he now helps with the design keeping records of various things like parts distribution and weight. Most of our mentors are from local company sponsors, we have like 4 mentors that work for BAE Systems. And they help out based on their experience and interest. During the preseason we have training meetings to help show all of the new people the ropes and to find their real interest, at the same time we have leadership training courses. In these training courses the mentors and last years leadership hand pick 12-13 good candidates to be leaders of a sub team and also to fill the positions of President and Manager, which this year I was the President and our Programmer Miles was team manager. Once the season starts we usually end up with 30-40 members due to various reasons like grades and also people can't make it due to jobs. This system we have used for 4 years and has worked perfectly, everyone feels like a part of the team and it allows for some student leadership to help run the team. And it also allows dedicated rookies to get involved in the leadership of the team as well.