[gblake]

Originally Posted by EricH

Billfred and Kathie are right. There is no FRC rule limiting team membership whatsoever. In fact, I know of a case where a student whose school had a FIRST team was on a different FIRST team.

There may, however, be rules on the individual team that prohibit people from outside the school. There may be rules allowing it. It's up to the team.

There is an important mistaken assumption buried in the original poster's question.

Eagleslg - You appear to be assuming that FIRST FRC teams are only formed at schools, by schools; and that FIRST delegates to schools the authority to say which students are/aren't part of a team.

Schools have that sort of control over school-sponsored organizations; and if an FRC team is sponsored by a school, that school probably exerts some control over which students participate in the school-sponsored activity.

However FIRST is agnostic on the subject.

To the best of my knowledge, FRC teams may be formed by any (K-12) students and adults, any where. Pay the fee, have at least one student and one adult, and you have an FRC team. As far as FIRST is concerned, FRC teams may draw their student members from anywhere; and school-sponsorship or affiliation is not required (affiliating with a school is often very useful..., but it isn't required).

I personally look forward to the day when robotics competitions are popular enough for communities'/regions' non-school teams to become as plentiful as their school-based teams!

Blake