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[kstl99]

This thread concerns me greatly. I am amazed at what FIRST can do for students. I have seen lives changed and heard so many more stories. FIRST can be a place where all the skills needed for later life are learned and developed. Using some of the standards I have seen in this thread would have eliminated many I saw in my first year as a mentor that later became core members of the team. I have felt that every school should have a team and every student should have the opportunity to be on a team. I realize this may be impossible if you would really have 150 students but limiting by size should be a last resort. Splitting into subgroups, JVs and Varsity, FTC, anything to get them involved. I just hate to see a student who wants to join not be able to.

[E Dawg]

I would suggest having some of the veteran team members act in a quasi-mentor role some of the time. Of course, they will probably want to work on the robot from time to time (or have to), but on our team this pretty much clears up any problems that may stem from a lack of mentors.

As for the question of students, it really depends on when your team meets. If you meet as a class (during school hours) you will have to restrict the number of people on your team via requirements such as grades, previous technology classes, behavioral records (if that kind of thing concerns you, and other various background information that matters to you. You could also draw out of a hat, but that may seem unfair to some students. If you meet outside of school, there are always ways to accommodate more people. You could do this by breaking people up into ever smaller groups, but I find that this can restrict communications within the team. I would recommend splitting the team up into groups with each meeting on a different day. For example, group A would meet on Monday and Wednesday. Group B would meet Tuesday and Thursday. Everyone would get Friday off. In the end, though, you should stick with what YOU are comfortable with as not everyone's system works for others. The important thing is that you are still furthering the goals of FIRST while still meeting the needs of yourself and others.