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Retaining students
Though an application process is fine and all, I don't personally believe in one. We have probably about 15 really dedicated members this year, with only about 3 of us being real technical. What I've found is a democracy, though the best way to go to NOT step on anyone's toes, is NOT the best way to go. Fortunately for time's sake, unfortunately for my sake, I seem to be the only student that makes executive decisions on the team. This makes things go a lot smoother overall, but it does limit the flow of good ideas a little bit. I personally think having a "chain of command" where the most dedicated students generally make final decisions, and the other team members input to them, and the junk eventually gets sorted out and things go more smoothly. Of course, one bad decision from the dedicated students may turn into a huge problem, but that is the risk we take. Last year, when I was just a space monkey, our team spent 4 weeks designing, another week and a half building and breaking our own robot, an hour to completely mess it up, and the last three days before shipping completely rebuilding the 'bot. We ended up finishing 23rd in Regionals, and had we been a little more efficient, we could have placed a LOT higher. My point is, just generally make it known around your area and in your school. That way, the interested people who have the time will get themselves involved. There is no real way to control the amount of people on the team, because it is kind of like fate. There are a certain amount of students in your school that will get involved and be a good member of the team, and that is an uncontrollable amount. The only thing you can do is make your team known in your area so you can get as many of those people involved as possible.
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"All your bins are belong to us" "You can't teach God anything"
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