Becoming Competitive

[TheBaconWiz]

I understand what situation you're in. My team is home school based, and we were also founded in 2008. Because we aren't connected to any school or organization we rely heavily on our sponsors. We also do demos and SOS which is a day when we teach kids from kindergarten to 5th grade about science. It's one of the best ways to gain publicity too. We scout out potential sponsors and hold banquets and give presentations on why it would be good to sponsor a team like ours and how we help the community. I don't see any reason why you would need to keep a team small on purpose, however I don't know all of the details. I would recommend convincing as many people to join as possible, even if they don't find robots interesting. We have some people on our team who just want the experience of things like chairman's or helping in the community. I would really just look for people and convince them to join. A diverse team is usually a better way to get new ideas and connect with people. One of the only ways my team can gain sponsors is by meeting with them through connections people on the team have. FIRST is about learning before anything else. Just keep that in mind and try to do the best you can!

[GreyingJay]

One other thing I'll mention is that we allowed eighth-graders to join our team. It was an exception more than the rule when we allowed the first one, then his friend joined, then another three wanted to come. I was concerned that they might feel overshadowed by all the challenging work being done by older students, and/or be less consistent during build season, and/or be too immature.

I was wrong.

Most of our eighth-graders have been just as active, just as excited, and just as capable of taking on leadership roles in software, in fabrication (closely supervised for safety), and in outreach. We ran a Raspberry Pi programming workshop for the general public - largely put together by one of our 13-year-old students. And they're the ones that are more willing to let loose when you want them to - to cheer and shout at matches, to put on purple hats and purple face paint, to dance in the stands. They give our team a fun dose of energy and spirit.

So definitely recruit more students (of any age). New students see the FRC world with new, excited eyes.

[MikeBrock]

The best way to become better is to emulate engineering practices of the top teams. BUT, you also need to understand the how and why of what they do. Too many teams forget to explore the "why" and they end up with a sub-par machine.