[FTC]: Teams with >10 members

[lylecheath]

Well this is interesting, I am from team 4029, and we just got back from worlds.

This season I was the build captain on a team of 53 registered members (about 40 active). The team has a very interesting dynamic, everyone has a specialty, and the two captains of the team mainly do organizing (My co-captain barely ever touches the robot) and although I am the build captain that mostly means facilitating meetings and choosing the direction of the robot and less brainstorming. Another thing to preface all of this, we are almost 100% student run, all the way down to booking hotels and planning our schedule. I put together a pros and cons list for you guys:

PROS:

• The prototyping phases are amazing. Hard to manage, but awesome. Every single person has an idea and they put it on a sticky note and we post them all on the board in categories. We get hundreds and spend the next hour or two going through each one and talking about it. Some people remain anonymous and some get vocal but we see so many ideas. With so many people, every idea can see a prototype built as well.
• Outreach can be done in massive amounts. We host classes in local elementary schools, and it isn't too much of a hit on losing members during meetings because only 10 of them need to go. It also helps that everyone this year is very enthusiastic about outreach, and I feel we actually are making a large difference on how hundreds of kids in elementary schools look at robotics and engineering.
• Scouting at competition is amazing. This year all the way up to worlds every robot in every match had someone watching and noting it's every move. This was all compiled and then was given to the captains so we could strategize for our next match. I can safely say that this scouting has won us many matches before.
• Timing conflicts don't matter as much. Even if 10 people can't make it to a meeting, we still have 30 people there.
• Driver selection is extensive. We had tryouts, 15 people went through tryouts, and we ended with 4, an A team and a backup team. Our drivers had nerves of steel because we were able to get the best possible combination.
• For me at least, it gives me real world experience in a management position. My co-captain and I spent our season managing this team, and it paid off.
• Fundraising, although hard to manage can be very large scale. Our fundraisers are hardcore once we get the whole team involved, you haven't seen a bake sale until you have seen 4029 do a bake sale.
• The robot is very well developed and tested. If you look at pictures you will see it is a very "Dense" robot. Every part has been given the attention that it needed (minus the flag raiser, but that was a space constraint, and we never really needed it anyways).
• Although some may think it impossible, we are a very tight knit group now, and I love my team (most of the time)

CONS

• The team needs at least 2 people working extremely hard just to keep the team running. Things can get very stressful, and it has strained friendships inside and outside the team (I also had to put aside schoolwork once we got to later competition)
• Some people don't get much time with the robot. This is an obvious one, it doesn't apply to me much being build captain, but I know many want more hands on experience. This is one reason the robot this year was so modular, we could take a piece off and hand it to a group for modification, but with 20 people on build team some feel left out. This wasn't as large of a problem this year because we started a rookie team this year. They build a robot to scrimmage with our main bot, although they don't actually compete. It was a great opportunity for many, and I am very confident in some of the members moving up from the rookie team.
• Organizing our programming is hard, coming from many people it needs to be managed clearly.
• Some members are just in it for college resumes. It gets irritating, but because of our open doors policy (That is how we got so large in the first place) we learn to deal with it.
• Travelling can be a pain to manage. When you ask for a reservation for 40, they hear 14 every single time. Of course that isn't even close to the hardest part, but a fun little anecdote.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed that coming from the biggest team in FTC (correct me if I'm wrong). Feel free to ask questions, it does get interesting being 5x the recommended size.

[CENTURION]

Holy what?! 53?

Obviously I'm not a part of your team, and don't know with certainty what's best for you, but I'd consider splitting. You can still pool together for outreach and fundraising and the like, but there have got to be a lot of your students who are left out of the build process.

I've seen ten-person teams who have trouble with people not getting to work on the robot. 53 sounds like a nightmare to me.

Again, if it works for you, that's great, but it sounds insane to me.

[lylecheath]

People join the team knowing what they are getting into, some join some of the local (relatively) smaller teams as well. We started the year with 64, but by our first competition it was down to 53.

We have considered splitting, but part of it is a funding thing, that initial jump to another team costs plenty of money. Also most of the "valuable" members would want to stick together if we split, leaving an A team and B team, which is not something we want.

You are right though, not everyone gets robot time. This is something that we have accepted, but there are so many other things to do on the team that it isn't always a problem. There are so many side projects going on that keep us competitive year to year. One example is our autonomous, it was one of the most versatile at worlds and we are now remaking it from the ground up, but in a format that would be adaptable to future competitions.

On the management side we have been getting closer to perfecting the large team every year, and this year it was a powerhouse, we were competitive all the way up to Edison semi-finals where we lost because of a broken GB. (We now know the tricks behind not breaking the V2s)