[Leeebowitz]

Our team has a different kind of system. Since our team has very low numbers of students, we have an "Engineering" class run by the teacher who is also the head of our team. Signing up for Engineering doesn't mean you have to be with the team. In theory, the course has nothing to do with FIRST. You can go through the course without even knowing what FIRST is. However, credit is given in the class for working on FIRST-related projects. And, knowing the teacher, I'm sure that at least several times the opportunity to be on the team is brought up.

The class is mainly a CADing and building class, so people don't get exposed to other aspects such as the programming or fundraising, but it's a good way to recruit new students and reward students already on the team.

The class described in the original post, while similar in many ways, most likely wouldn't work with our team simply because we don't have enough students and even calling the class "Robotics" and not requiring participation on the team would scare most of the people in Engineering away. I bring this up simply as a suggestion for teams who want a class but don't have enough students involved to have a class entirely devoted to FIRST.