Middle schoolers

[Ashley Weed]

I don't believe my HS team ever had middle schoolers participate as actuall team members. However, in 2002 at the NASA/MD Fair Competition there was an all Middle School team - their drivers had a bit of trouble seeing over the driver station, but they did quite well. I believe they were team 400 from the Virginia area.

[LBK Rules]

Our team has some middle-schooler-grade members.

The MS that's at VCU is 400 St. Michael's School.

[HolyMasamune]

i think the only restrictions FIRST places on participating is that the students have to be pre-college level, which means middle schoolers can be part of the team

[ngreen]

Like Koci said,

LSR has a least a couple middle school teams this year. We share the rookie all-star there with an amazing group of middle-schoolers (1214) last year. These guys had a lot of trouble but were very successful for not having an engineering mentor and with the robot being completely made by the students.

FIRST is a great experience for all age group, so I see no reason to exclude inspired middle school students.

[Yan Wang]

The partners we picked for our alliance in Canada were 783 and Big Moe (however you spell it)... Big Moe was a middle school student team with one 9th grader that I remember. Their robot was solidly built and I respected that greatly. Their strategy wasn't as good though due to experience that you just naturally get from age. Not their fault, but it still hurt them and us. In any case, teams should be made out of students of any precollege level. Skill is skill and it isn't going to be defined by age.

[Rich Kressly]

We have two MS students working with our team.