Shelf Life Of A Team

[swando]

the most important factor is interest from the students.

[Rich Kressly]

It's 103's 8th year.
The team is as close to self-sustaining as possible. The stability comes from two teachers and three technical mentors who have been involved from the beginning. Today we are well ingrained in the school with our own homeroom, three teachers, about ten technical mentors, and an active parent group. We have consistent district, sponsor, alumni and community support and always work hard to maintain these relationships. We've seen tremendous educational benefits for the students and thus continue to endure all obstacles to keep it going.

[Beth Sweet]

This is our 8th year in the competition (I think, maybe 7th) and we're going stronger than ever. This year, we have almost 50 students signed up to participate on our team. Our numbers keep going up, and we feel confident in our work. With our yearly increasing numbers and the passion that we see in the new students coming in, I personally think that the HOT robotics team will be going on for quite a while.

[RoboCoder]

Reading all of these posts makes me realize how lucky our team has been. We are only a second year team, but we have over 70 members in the robotics "club". Being at a school with a Math, Science, and Technology magnet program, student interest has always been good, and faculty/administration support has gone along with it. Our principal has always been more than generous in offering support. Also, only half an hour away is Georgia Tech, our primary mentors, where there are quite a few very helpful and dedicated engineering students that help us out a LOT (not to mention the financial backing they help bring in ). In fact, this year we have converted one of the rooms in the school into a machine shop and are working out the details and purchase of the last pieces of large machinery we need to complete it. We are doing so much this year, both in and outside of the several competitions we are a part of, it makes my head spin .

My point? I think you guys have hit the nail on the head on what it takes to make a team strong. I think the moral of the story is if you have strong support in all of these elements, a team can really "explode" into the scene, allowing for even reletively new teams to become quite large quite fast. Thank you to everyone who has supported us, and stay tuned because it is going to be a very interesting, very fun year!

[kevin.li.rit]

We were finding it hard to get enough teachers helping with our team, we did get another teacher to help us out which I am forever greatful for. We've also had more and more students join so our team appears to be doing very well right now.

[Pierson]

Our team, 360, is in our 5th year of competition. We started small. But before out 4th year, bylaws and a leadership corps were brought onboard. This has made life much easier since we have quadrupled in size since year 2.

We are still going strong, I agree that strong school administration support is very useful as is a strong mentor and a few very involved students. Someone (either a student, parent, or mentor) with strong ties to the business community makes funding much easier.