Training team

[timytamy]

Hi all,

Our team has been investigating semi-splitting, ie having one competition team and one training team. However we were wondering how other teams accomplish this without disappointing new members by throwing them into this "B team".

So how many other teams do this? And how do they do it?

[EricH]

I would say that the vast majority of teams do it something like this:

The "training team" is better known as the "FTC team" or the "VEX team" or maybe the "FLL team". They still compete, just as a different team, or set of teams, at a different level. It's actually not uncommon for an FTC team to "come up" to FRC and do fairly well; going the other way for a season or five is also common.

Or maybe the team operates an offseason training course, often with a competition element (either FRC offseasons, or OCCRA or some other robotics competition).

Or, what a few teams do, is have two competition teams, one being primarily underclassmen and the other being primarily seniors. (11 and 193 use this approach; I believe a few other teams have done this in the past.)

Of course, being a little farther from most other active FRC teams than usual makes some aspects of each of those rather difficult.

[QuentinW]

Hi All,

Our team was struggling with the issue of having more students than we had jobs/responsibilities and we implemented a JV and Varsity team structure this year to help handle this issue. Overall, the results have been very positive. I'll give you a bunch of details for anyone who is interested.

Structure:
Our Varsity group has a typical structure of a FIRST team, with 4 Robot Engineering Sub-teams, and 2 Marketing/Web Sub-teams. This was 25 students who were selected by Sub-team mentors to be on their Sub-teams. Varsity team members are asked to contribute 14 hours/week (on average).

The remaining ~25 students were separated into 4-6 member project-based JV teams. These were all non-essential projects such as Robot Aesthetics, Robot Cart, Pit, etc... Each of these groups had a adult mentor or mentors who oversaw the project and helped guide, teach and enable the JV members. JV team members are asked to contribute 10 hours/week on average.

Results:
It is a little premature to say we have had conclusive results as we have only had this structure for 10 months, but so far we have had mostly pros and fewer cons. So please keep that in mind when you read this.

Generally, the JV teams gave students more responsibility, leadership opportunities, learning opportunities and interest in FIRST. In addition, it provided a nice platform for new mentors to get involved in a real way without having to commit endless hours, or be on the line for critical systems.

We have also seen over this first summer that some students have been more committed to learning and outreach with a vested interest in making the Varsity team next year.

The biggest impact this has made is that we have had fewer students "participating" on the team without doing much. We haven't figured out how to get 50 students or various skill levels to build a robot together, so adding more projects with discrete goals and deadlines has helped ensure that all of our students can contribute in meaningful ways.

The major con of this structure is that the JV/Varsity split needs more resources to run. More mentors, more cost, more build space. I can't see JV project teams operating well without a mentor to help oversee the project. We have talked about Varsity students running JV teams, but we haven't done so far. Our JV team projects cost between $50 and $200. This isn't inhibitive, but is worth noting that you need to budget for each team.

My only regret is that we didn't switch to this team structure once our team was larger than 25 members. The transition has been alright, but I'm sure there are some second year students who weren't happy to be on the newly minted JV team. We are planning on adding a fall robotics competition for the JV team.

I really do recommend this, or something like it if you feel it can work for your team.

[sanddrag]

We've decided to start two Vex teams for the students who want to do robotics but we could not accommodate on the FRC team. The FRC team is maxed out at 36 and I have about 30 more who want robotics involvement. I think it will be a great thing.

[Mr. B.]

Tim,

In 2013 our program of 140 students added a second FRC Team, FRC 193. This team is our JV Team which is our Freshman Experience. In 2014 we had 54 first year students on 193 and 92 students on our Varsity Team - FRC 11. With two years of operating 193 now under our belts, it's been a beneficial move for our program. Yes there's more cost, space and mentor needs but in the end our students are learning and are better prepared for their time on 11. Our team is opposed to cutting students since we feel that if they want the FIRST experience they should have the opportunity to be a part of our program. With our continued growth we had to develop a plan to better manage the growth issue for our program.

Along with our second FRC team, in 2014-2015 we are adding 13 FTC teams as well since we've continue to have additional growth in our robotics engineering course offerings. The FTC program will allow us to offer the FIRST experience to an additional 100+ students who can't commit to our FRC afterschool program but still want to explore and experience FIRST & robotics. We're excited about this new addition this year to our program and look forward to extending our reach to more students at our school.

If there's anyway we can support your efforts/share our experiences please let me know. I submitted a request to present on the topic of Managing Team Growth at FIRST Champs this past year but the workshop was denied. It's a topic I feel very strongly about...there's minimal support for programs in our position, so the next best option is to help support each other.

Stay well,

Dave Bodmer