What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

While all of these answers combined make a strong team my question is which aspect most contributes to a team's success.
I'll go with experienced mentors. The students are a variable. At the most they can stay four years (six if you take them in middle school and in rare cases they have been around even longer) but veteran mentors who stay with the team year after year after year are the ones who keep the fire going. And even after they have graduated many of the students become those mentors who take the lead (which is partially what Dean wanted. Take what you have learned and pass it on to the nest generation). The other things are nice and all but team can and have lived without them. Without good mentors teams don't last long.

Ed,

I think the answer to this question really has to do with how you define success. Is success defined as a blue banner or a moving robot or just the teams teamwork?

My definition of success is the teammembers leaving the team with a better understanding of what they want to do (and don't want to do) with their lives ... and with that I'd say Experianced mentors teaching not only about robotics, but about life in general.