Team sizes?

[Wacko324]

After reading many posts, it seems to me like most teams have a very large amount of studens. Team 1495 has like 3 students who show up all the time and a couple others that come whenver. I was wondering how many students other teams have and do you think having a big or small team size is better?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

team 195 has about 5-6 people who show up every day for the entirety of the meeting. Then we have about 20 other kids who show up when they want, dont get anything done, and get in the way.

now for your question, i think both situations have pros and cons.
Large Team Pros: More money will come into the team; more support; your team takes up more room at competions; more people to place blame on when things go wrong; more can get done when organized properly.
Large Team Cons: More time taken to organize things than actual work time; people get in the way; people complain when there is nothing to do, even though they wont do anything they are givent o do; more space needed to work in; some people only show up some times, and expected to be filled in when they choose to show up; can turn into a disaster when not properly organized; team members find themselves with nothing to do.

Small Team Pros: More can get done by individuals. More communication between team members; jobs can be distriuted easily; everyone is always busy with something; the same people always show up; no one to annoy you as you are trying to work on a project
Small Team Cons: Less money is fundraised; Nowhere to run when you mess something up; Team may looked upon as amatuer at comps compared to huge teams with 30+ people; a meeting missing a person may be a waste of a meeting

Thats my 2 cents

[steven114]

We have 15 or so students, but only 6 show up regularly...

[Crop-Circles]

We have about 14 students and about 10-12 are at any given meeting.

[Allison K]

I've been on both. This year I'm leader of a small team, and I really like it. There are six of us on a regular basis, plus a few floaters. From the adult point of view, small teams sure make paperwork easier. I also like how we operate. Last year i was a student on a large team (About 50 students), but because we were diveded into subgroups (Build, Management, Chairmans, Digital, Spirit, and one other I forgot), it didn't usually feel like such a large team. I was on build, and was pretty good freinds with the others on build, so it almost felt like a small team. This year on that team is a young year. About six seniors graduated last year, so there's a lot of freshman/sophmores. I think they'll be a better team in a few years when they all learn to work with one another.

This is back to that "does your team operate like a family or a business" question.

On 1313, we operate like a family, disfunctional at times.
On 226, the team as a whole operates like a business, but the build group more of a family, or possibly family business or a disfunctional family business (usually late at night)

On 1313, I'd really like to increase the team size. My goal is 15 for next year. But I think 226 is too big this year, or at least the build group is too big. There's not enough for everyone to do.

Allison

[greencactus3]

we have maybe atotal of 10? idunno, never seen more than 4 at a given time. i'm the only one who's ALWAYS there. some are kept on the team for the reason they got some money for us. otherwise they wouldn't be on the team anymore.

having less people is easy to work with, but you can never get things done in time. we don't need any more people. we just need 20 hands working continuosly instead of about 6 hands.

[white_ChocOlat8]

we have a total student population of about 25 or so and on average about 10-12 show up and about 5-8 actuly work.

[Elyse Holguin]

Don't worry, it's not only the newer teams that have a pretty small number of members, Team Hammond usually has only about 20-25 students (at least since I've beeen on the team and I'm a senior) and this year we have only 18 members (with about 15 or so are at any given meeting). Having a small team does not mean you can't go far, just make sure everyone knows the game, and what your robot can do for competition.

[Koko Ed]

We have 33 students and about 30+ adults. I know a few years ago we had something like 50+ kids and it's hard to find that many kids something to do all the time(I have no idea how SPAM can handle having 80 kids). 40 students are a good number to keep the kids engaged enough and efficently get things done.

[Joe J.]

We have somewhere between 60 and 70 students. About 20 that work on the robot and 5 that show up all the time.

[Ryan M.]

We have around 12, but most of them show up to every meeting.

Big teams are good except for the extra coordination of everyone.

[Hokie4Life]

We have about 25 people on our team and since we get school credit for taking the class, all people are active and attend very regularly.

[Smrtman5]

Our team has about 13 members. Most of us show up all the time and usually work hard. However, we dont have any outside help. Our two mentors are teachers at our school (one mostly gets in the way, anyway). For those teams above with small #s of students, do you get outside help or is the work mostly done by the students?
Just my oppinion, but i think its a lot more rewarding to know that a group of students came together to build a robot.

[Nathan Pell]

Originally Posted by white_ChocOlat8

we have a total student population of about 25 or so and on average about 10-12 show up and about 5-8 actuly work.

That is not totally correct. We have about 45 members on our team, with around 30 of them being students. We average about 20 students per day, and most of them have something to do for the most part.

It is very difficult to make sure everyone has something to do. I wish someone form SPAM would post.

Nathan Pell
Head Coach - 1083

[blindguyinanorg]

we have 5 that show up regularly, only 2 of which have done anything mechanical before(myself and one other). the 2 of us have only been in FIRST 1 other year. i am a professional carpeter so our robot is basicly being built like a construction prject. measure as we go because we cant machine parts or cut things that acurate.

we also have ONLY ONE adult mentor and he can only help once a week at the most. so, not by choice, the robot is my creation with others helping me. our robot really isnt any good because of it.


my biggest problem with a small team is there is no specialization. especially when most of the people dont know what to do. monday was the first day were we had enough started(by all of us so everyone knew basicly what was going on for each thing) that a few could work on each thing. i ran back and forth guiding them.