Team sizes?

[c-squared_2006]

We probably have really only like four dedicated students others just come for the ride. Techinally we have like a dozen or so, HELP, recuiting tips?!? (demos during lunch only attracted more people who are like drug atticts and not very nice people to hang around with, so that didn't work out well, any other ideas?) I'm happy to say that our coach and mentors really do work hard and we really appreciate them. But next year our coach isn't going to be here as much, so we really need to get orginized now, would anyone by any chance know how to get students modivated to do something, out of the goodness of their heart?

[dhoffman]

We have about 10 students, 1 teacher, and one dedicated parent. Of those 10 students, most are constantly working. Despite our small team size, it is a good number of kids because our high school only has 50 kids. So we've got about 20% of the entire studnet body!

[Mindstorm]

My team has 8 team members, one that always shows up, me, another that tries to always show up, but is usually can't for different reasons, one that just shows up to work on the robot, one that just shows up but doesn't seem to enjoy it and he has no idea what he is doing (he joined to work on the animation team, but we have no animation team), the rest just come every now and then.

We have more mentors than students with a total of 9 so we get a lot of work done

[BlueOrion]

By the end of the season, it's down to about 30 people, from 45 at the very beginning. Of those 30, about 20 travel to reg's and nat'ls that involve hotels and travel expenses. There are always the people who always come and put in the most time...there is no perfect number of people for a team or build crew...it's useful to have many people to get work done, but having a lot of people also increases down-time, unproductivity, frustration, and boredom.

[Bcahn836]

Team 836 has about 40 students on the team and 13 mentors. There are 20-25 students at the meetings every time and 90% of the mentors. It is good to have alot of people but you sometimes run out of jobs for them. Our team is divided into sub teams. Electronics, drive train, Arm and end,manufacturing, programing, public relations,stratedgy, animation, and lego league. with these 9 subteams 3-4 students that show up 95% of the time and 1-2 mentors in each group. However some of these sub teams break into smaller sub teams and some teams have to work together. for example electronics wireing up the drive motors. And for smaller teams we broke up the Arm team into two parts. Ladder and plow division.

As you can see our team is very complex, and communication is one of our strong points, and is a must. I could go further but now i am probably boring you. LOL
http://www.smcps.k12.md.us/tech/EngTech/index.html
is our website from last year it is missing alot but will explain somewhat.

[Atman]

We have 18 students. Of those almost all come to the meetings. You can always tell the people who are totally dedicated. During the season We gained a few and dropped a few. Just like everything else though 10% of the people do 90% of the work. Its just how it is. We are very content with our number. Its perfect for our golf tournament. This is our main fundraiser and this year we set a record, we made $23,000. This number is good when we split into groups to get the work done. I dont think I could handle being on a team with 50 or a team with 8.

[~JeSsIcA~]

We have about 25. about 15-20 show up to the mettings. Size of the team really dosent matter it really all depends how you work together.

[Grommit]

We have roughly 65 members, split roughly evenly between the Engineering side and Operations (animation, public relations, finance, graphics) sides of things.

We find that only about 15 people come to the build, always, but that this is a good number and quite sufficient to lead a successful build.

On the other hand, it is difficult to get the whole team together, with so many people... we have had numerous communication problems in the past.

[michelleL]

This year our team has 27 students...not much with a number, but when you really look at the bigger picture, thats a lot already.

[nick180intucson]

out team 1011 crush has 20 members but really only like 20 thats amazing that you guys only have 3 members how did you guys get it done

and congrads to mike rush we love you

nick brown

[Astronouth7303]

There was a team next to us at buckeye that had literally 3 people: a kid, his dad, and his physics professor. And he got a judges award (I think). He was the only one to accept it!

[Levin571]

our team, which is a combonation of us at Loomis and students at Windsor High, has 12-16 active members

[omutton]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

There was a team next to us at buckeye that had literally 3 people: a kid, his dad, and his physics professor. And he got a judges award (I think). He was the only one to accept it!

Yah our pits were near there too. I can't believe it is possible to build a functioning robot in 6 weeks with 3 people.

[DaBruteForceGuy]

I have looked at this in the past. My team is probably about 20 students that actually come and help out with all the aspects of the team. When i look at it, even though about 12 people really designed and built the robot, when we go to a competition we have everybody wearing shirts and cheering for us. These enourmous team sizes really don't bother me at all, because though i know that not all of them had a hand in the team persay, they all walked away form the competition inspired by the technology and workings of a FIRST team.
We all know that even though they are at the competition with a certain teams shirt on, it doesn't mean they're a member of the team, but supporting their *home team*.... This is why i say there are 20 of us on my team instead of the 35 that show up to our regional competitions.....

[Rich Kressly]

This year we have 30 students, 3 teachers, and approxmately 10 technical/parent mentors.