Team sizes?

[Wacko324]

After reading many posts, it seems to me like most teams have a very large amount of studens. Team 1495 has like 3 students who show up all the time and a couple others that come whenver. I was wondering how many students other teams have and do you think having a big or small team size is better?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

team 195 has about 5-6 people who show up every day for the entirety of the meeting. Then we have about 20 other kids who show up when they want, dont get anything done, and get in the way.

now for your question, i think both situations have pros and cons.
Large Team Pros: More money will come into the team; more support; your team takes up more room at competions; more people to place blame on when things go wrong; more can get done when organized properly.
Large Team Cons: More time taken to organize things than actual work time; people get in the way; people complain when there is nothing to do, even though they wont do anything they are givent o do; more space needed to work in; some people only show up some times, and expected to be filled in when they choose to show up; can turn into a disaster when not properly organized; team members find themselves with nothing to do.

Small Team Pros: More can get done by individuals. More communication between team members; jobs can be distriuted easily; everyone is always busy with something; the same people always show up; no one to annoy you as you are trying to work on a project
Small Team Cons: Less money is fundraised; Nowhere to run when you mess something up; Team may looked upon as amatuer at comps compared to huge teams with 30+ people; a meeting missing a person may be a waste of a meeting

Thats my 2 cents

[steven114]

We have 15 or so students, but only 6 show up regularly...

[Crop-Circles]

We have about 14 students and about 10-12 are at any given meeting.

[Allison K]

I've been on both. This year I'm leader of a small team, and I really like it. There are six of us on a regular basis, plus a few floaters. From the adult point of view, small teams sure make paperwork easier. I also like how we operate. Last year i was a student on a large team (About 50 students), but because we were diveded into subgroups (Build, Management, Chairmans, Digital, Spirit, and one other I forgot), it didn't usually feel like such a large team. I was on build, and was pretty good freinds with the others on build, so it almost felt like a small team. This year on that team is a young year. About six seniors graduated last year, so there's a lot of freshman/sophmores. I think they'll be a better team in a few years when they all learn to work with one another.

This is back to that "does your team operate like a family or a business" question.

On 1313, we operate like a family, disfunctional at times.
On 226, the team as a whole operates like a business, but the build group more of a family, or possibly family business or a disfunctional family business (usually late at night)

On 1313, I'd really like to increase the team size. My goal is 15 for next year. But I think 226 is too big this year, or at least the build group is too big. There's not enough for everyone to do.

Allison

[greencactus3]

we have maybe atotal of 10? idunno, never seen more than 4 at a given time. i'm the only one who's ALWAYS there. some are kept on the team for the reason they got some money for us. otherwise they wouldn't be on the team anymore.

having less people is easy to work with, but you can never get things done in time. we don't need any more people. we just need 20 hands working continuosly instead of about 6 hands.

[white_ChocOlat8]

we have a total student population of about 25 or so and on average about 10-12 show up and about 5-8 actuly work.

[Nathan Pell]

Originally Posted by white_ChocOlat8

we have a total student population of about 25 or so and on average about 10-12 show up and about 5-8 actuly work.

That is not totally correct. We have about 45 members on our team, with around 30 of them being students. We average about 20 students per day, and most of them have something to do for the most part.

It is very difficult to make sure everyone has something to do. I wish someone form SPAM would post.

Nathan Pell
Head Coach - 1083

[blindguyinanorg]

we have 5 that show up regularly, only 2 of which have done anything mechanical before(myself and one other). the 2 of us have only been in FIRST 1 other year. i am a professional carpeter so our robot is basicly being built like a construction prject. measure as we go because we cant machine parts or cut things that acurate.

we also have ONLY ONE adult mentor and he can only help once a week at the most. so, not by choice, the robot is my creation with others helping me. our robot really isnt any good because of it.


my biggest problem with a small team is there is no specialization. especially when most of the people dont know what to do. monday was the first day were we had enough started(by all of us so everyone knew basicly what was going on for each thing) that a few could work on each thing. i ran back and forth guiding them.

[Alex Salomonsky]

We have had at most 40 students show up, and I hate it. I'm a veteran member of this team, and one of only like 7-8 who have been on the team since our rookie year, while the team is increasing every year. These people get in the way, half of them I want to hang or smother w/ a pillow. Then constant arguing has set us back, plus the teachers kicking us at at 4:30 everyday has us still w/o a robot that can power itself. we are unable to organize the team, and we still need to build an arm for our bot, with only a week left, on top of that, our "head" teacher hasn't even made contact with ITT, who mentored a helped us last year. I loved it much better when the first year had like 10 people, when I loved this competition and being with a bunch of guys and girls having fun, now this year just flat out sucks.

[shyra1353]

we have 9 students on our team ... 2 teachers who have recently (in the past two weeks) become a little bit involved .. and 4 mentors/engineers ... we work really well together ... most of us students show up to meetings (anywhere from 6-9 at a meeting). we joke around a lot and know a lot about each other personally ... some of us are connected outside of the team as well which helps.

as to which i like better .. i like a team of 10 because you become really good friends and as a result more gets done .. i was on a team of about 20 last year .. and i think that thats the maximum there should be because after that1 (and even then) some people are just sitting around

edit/ it also depends on how your team is organized .. our engineers used to have a rule (when there were 13 people) on the team, that only 6 could show up at a time because any more would be less productive and they were not able to watch over 13 of us at a time ... this might be a good rule for some of the larger teams (40- 50) people to enforce but maybe with 12 people instead ... but then again it all depends on your team

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Our students participation determines grade since this is a for credit class, for all quarters. The entire team meets on Monday nights to get weekly assignments, work on projects and the mini competition (fall through December) and give and get sub team weekly reports during robot season. We have 75 registered students, but we don't have perfect attendance. During build, test and practice, sub teams meet several times a week. Electrical and mechanical give support during practice. Playing field does most of their work early on then start on the shipping container. We take a skeleton group to our first regional. The second is the Midwest regional held close by so all the team can come. Then we take 30-35 students to the nationals. Each of the sub teams is given a certain number that can go and it is up to the adults on the team to make recomendations. The teachers have the final say based on a variety of factors like attendance, fund raising, participation and grades. We try to get each of the subteams working closely with mentors and the students get a chance to see what it is like to work in a corporate environment. Large teams do get uncontrolled at times, but the students do get a chance to experience things they would not have a chance to otherwise.

[Arefin Bari]

there are about 60 students on the roster for the team... in average about 30 shows up... build time 15 shows up... but still the students are involved with lot of other work on the team...

[Pierson]

There are 40+ in our roster... Roughly 30 show up to work. The nice thing about having a larger team is that we have 5 people dedicated to graphics. 4 dedicated to marketing. 2 dedicated to electrical. 7 are leadership (though they also fall into those other categories.) The remainder of the people are builders, machinists, or odd-job doers.

[tribotec_ca88]

Team 1382 has 26 students and about 10 mentors (engineers, teachers, & school staff). All students show up on a regular basis (daily) although some of them stay longer than others and most show up on saturdays and sundays...But there are days when there´s not much work and about 15-20 people are actually doing something useful...(the other members are there, however, they will usually be playing tetris or pinball )

I think around 30 people overall on a team is a good number to have because the work is well-distributed & it´s not as difficult to communicate w/each other.. Team 1382 is split up into 5 groups:
6 students - marketing/public relations
3 st. - autodesk inventor
4 st. - 3d animation
6 st. - mechanics
7 st. - electronics & programming