Challenges of small teams with fewer than 10 students

[ZipTie3182]

The biggest challenge for us is losing a ton of members every year (we've lost about 50% of our team every year for one reason or another). We have 3 original members (2 juniors and a senior from our first year in 2010). I find that commitment is the most important factor, especially in small teams because if you don't have at least a few committed students you can't possibly get anything done.

Also CAD EVERYTHING. It helps so much. I know everyone says this but it's so true.

Commitment ultimately leads down to our real problem. (We have 3 people there 100%, 3 or 4 there 75%, and then about 6 there 15% of the time.) This is also bad for team sustainability since most of new recruits have not really learned enough to maintain the team since they just simply don't attend enough meetings.

However, on a more positive note, having a small team allows everyone to get a little bit of everything. Being one of few dedicated members, I worked on almost every subsystem this year. It's amazing to see the integration. You probably sacrifice some quality and the ability to build a practice bot, but you learn a hell of a lot.

I just REALLY hope my team doesn't fall apart when I graduate

[PayneTrain]

^It's critical to work very strenuously to maintain your team over this year. Teams that aren't your grant-based one-and-dones usually slide at the 3 and 7 year marks. The skills and passion won't transfer over well as the original class graduates and a new one that replaces it have never been in contact with the founding members. try to find something consistent on your team to hang on to, be it through a mentor, journals, documentation of any kind. Having the new leadership be familiar with the outgoing one is the biggest help, obviously.

[tsaksa]

Our team has more than 10 students, but not that many more, and the number that do the majority of the build work is probably less than 10. I do not know if my experience is exactly what you are looking for, but perhaps it is close. In my short time in FIRST, this is what I have learned.

1. A basic drive train is very easy to build, and a more sophisticated one takes much more effort for very little additional gain. If you do not have a large team, stick with a relatively simple drive train. No tracks, no swerve, no mechanum. You don't need to go completely KOP here, but something fairly vanilla will not limit you much and will save you a lot of effort.

2. The extras are nice, but not required. Some teams have elaborate pit designs, fancy battery carriers, custom robot carts, costumes, props, etc. All of these things add to the experience, but they take time and resources. If you are very short on resources and people power, let some of that slide and focus on the robot. That is where a lot of the learning takes place and the learning is what is really important.

3. Start early and learn the basics. Soldering, controlling a motor with a Jaguar from a PWM cable connected to a digital sidecar, and what do the lights do in different conditions? Learn to wire some sensors and switches, practice welding poly-cord, and how to break, splice, and tension chain etc. A lot of competitions are won and lost over some of these basics, and a small team has no time to learn these things during build season. Try to learn and practice as many of these things as possible during the pre-season and have at least some students trained enough that that can perform these tasks completely independently. Just having a few students well trained in advance on some important skills will make your team seem twice as large.

4. Look for the important scoring methods for the game and focus on those. This year the game looks like a basketball game. But, a robot that has a simple bridge manipulator and enough control to balance on the bridge has a chance to make it fairly far even without any shooting capability. And doing that part of the challenge should not be that hard for even a small team. A small team that focused on those requirements first should do much better than a very large team that failed to prioritize correctly.

5. Stick to things you know. If you have never used CAN, don't try to implement it during the build season. A small team will be more pressed for time and resources during debug. Don't make things more difficult that they need to be. If you really want to try CAN and never have gotten it working before, that would be a great thing to consider trying during the post season. Just not something to try on the competition robot this year.

6. Be flexible, both mentors and students. If you are short on students to fabricate parts, then try to pitch in where needed. Never compromise safety, but being willing to help in an area that is not your first choice, or even second, or third choice, is often needed to make a small team effective.

7. Don 't forget to have fun. The most valuable thing to a small team is the expertise that carries over with students year to year. Make sure that the students that are in the program this year want to return for next season. That will not only help your numbers, but will also multiply the effectiveness of each member.

That's about all I can think of, and Good luck.

[darkMatt3r]

Hi, My name is Matt Pearring, i am currently the president of Hilo Viking Robotics. Our FIRST team is team 1378 as said on my profile, and our club has around 15 members, but really 10 dedicated ones.

Leading a small club is definitely a great task. It's how you RUN the club, not just lead that really matters how your club will do in terms of success.

In response to the original post that started this thread, you really have to take into consideration all the factors of any club when running a robotics club. The problem with certain robotics clubs is that they only participate in either FIRST or VEX, and thus have a lot of offseason time, offseason, something most other student run clubs don't have. So ask yourself, what competitions do you do, how long do most seasons run, all year, half a year, a third of the year, or just the six weeks of build season + tournaments and possible worlds?

Once you know that, you need to define what "running" the club actually is. Robotics is not just designing, building, and programming a robot to do the best it can at a competition. Albeit that makes up a LOT of certain competitions, but robotics is about learning. That's what it should be about, although not all teams embrace that. In order to properly run a club, you need to have structure, without it, you can not be consistently successful.

This is where initiative really comes into play. Are you a elected president of the club, or are you a known leader, or are you just the guy who shows up the most and therefore has the best relationship with the mentors and from the students standpoint is now somewhat in charge. You need to know your specific role in the club, because understanding your role will help you to eventually lead and direct everyone else in the club.

After you know that, you have to address what you can do in order to become a successful club. Since there is so much detail involved in all the aspects of a robotics club, i'm just going to list the things that i would address if i were you.

1. Determine the relationship between your club members, and your mentors. Keep in mind that mentors are there, to MENTOR. Not to build the robot for you, which ends up happening a lot, not to choose your design, not to tell you "this is stupid don't do that." No, mentors are there to provide guidance, but also to let you make certain mistakes so you REALLY learn what you did wrong, not just nod and smile. What happens when a team doesn't clearly understand the relationship between them and the mentor is that the team relies on the mentor for help with literally everything, from building, to programming, to designing and even fundraising in some aspects. This is not what a mentor is for. A mentor is there to give council when you need help, to warn you that there is a cliff in front of you, not to simply do things for you. FIRST says that its up to the team to determine the relationship between the mentors and the team, and in my opinion, for the betterment of everyone, its best to have the mentors hands-off as much as possible. Yes, if the mentors build the robot, it will be quite good, successful, and you can brag to your friends that you are a great team. But what do you get out of that? Something to hang on to? No, you just have the subconscious realization that adults made a great product from your ideas, and you really didn't learn much from the entire experience of FIRST. And that is not what Dean Kamen created FIRST for.

2. You need to embrace that winning is not everything. Plain and simple.

3. You need to commit. To making your club better. For many people, robotics is misconcepted. Not a lot of teenagers realize the benefits of robotics and thus refuse to join because... its... robotics. Oh the horror! But in fact its the greatest opportunity high school has to offer. And thats something everyone should realize. It really is the future of education.

4. YOU, not just one person in particular, but the students, YOU need to understand that it is your club, you are in charge. So it is your responsibility to recruit new members, give presentations to every local business you can get your foot in the door, and plan as much as you can for every competition you enter.

5. Be resourceful, thats the last of the advice i have to give, but being resourceful in my opinion is the best quality a robotics team can have. Rather than complain, and i'm not implying you do, you need to maximize the potential of what you have, and thus learn what you need for the future. Sure, you have 3 or 4 members. But three or four members can build three or four VEX bots, so whats stopping you from a full-fledged FIRST bot. Don't have a big enough robotics room, maybe its even temporary, like ours, well... for now, organize it, make it as spacious as possible, and then talk to your principle, explain how important robotics is and that in order to be successful you NEED space. Make the most of what you have, and then when you have time to plan, get the most that you can possible gain. You have nothing to lose.


There are many obstacles and many challenges in running a robotics club, especially one with litter members. But by defining yourself as well as your members, mentors, and surroundings. Then planning, leading, organizing, and maximizing everything you have, success will eventually come. And the greatest hook for new members is success, not gonna lie, everyone loves being part of something successful. So once you develop a way of being successful with little resources, imagine what you will be capable of with many resources.

Have a good night/day/competition/life.

-Matt

[dbeckwith]

Originally Posted by sand500

Our team is very small with around 6-10 members, personally I like it this way because everyone gets to be involved with everything, so you dont have the CAD guy, the electrical guy, the programming guy, for us, everyone does everything.

Our team is kind of like this because everyone gets to do everything, but we still have specialists who are obviously the best at their field and lead that. I think have some division is important so that every part gets in-depth attention.

[372 lives on]

our team is small we find it difficult to consume as much food as other teams but we try out best to keep up.