Number of members allowed in a team

[Bomberofdoom]

I have a question about the amount of members allowed in a FIRST team (to be specific, an FRC team).

I remember our mentor told us that the FRC project is limited to 30 students.

I've currently seen lots of teams which have over 50 students in their team.

If school rules are not a concern, will we be allowed to hold a greater amount of members in our team, or is this rule based on FIRST's rules?

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Bomberofdoom

I have a question about the amount of members allowed in a FIRST team (to be specific, an FRC team).

I remember our mentor told us that the FRC project is limited to 30 students.

I've currently seen lots of teams which have over 50 students in their team.

If school rules are not a concern, will we be allowed to hold a greater amount of members in our team, or is this rule based on FIRST's rules?

I have never seen a rule from FIRST that limits the number of students on a FRC team.

More than likely that is a school or team rule to help with the logistics of the team.

[SgtMillhouse648]

FIRST doesn't have a rule in effect limiting the number of students on a team, however, somewhere in the rulebook, it says teams may want to impose certain limitations on students such as limiting the number of students, grade requirements etc., so yes you can hold a greater number of members on your team. Hope this answers your question.
Thanks
Malhon

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Nir,
I have not heard of FIRST addressing a specific team size. For the most part, sub teams should be limited to 6-10 members. This allows the work to get done even when team members don't show up but it doesn't make the group so large that there is nothing to do. We have had more than 60 students in a single year. Many of them have no interest in building or wiring the robot. They instead concentrate their efforts on Chairman's Award planning, strategy, video, public relations, animation, community involvement, etc. All team members meet once each week to hear team news, upcoming events and during build, sub team reports. It is during these meetings that forms are passed out, fund raising business is taken care of and grading reports and homework are received or passed to students. We meet all year long and the students receive grades and credit for their participation on this team.

Small teams generally concentrate on robot specific issues but will concentrate on other related problems after the ship date. I have seen teams with as little as three or four students and one teacher. It seems that many teams average about twenty students and consider themselves blessed to have two or three mentors. It seems that each year I hear about more teams trying to limit team size. They do this for a variety of reasons with logistics (budget and travel), and meeting room size being the more predominant factors. Many teams have adopted some form of entrance requirements to limit team numbers. I know of several teams that require an entrance essay that is used for selection. Some use an interview process, some limit participation to two years (or just juniors and seniors) some use a combination of all of these methods and some limit based on GPA. I firmly believe this last method is counterproductive. Some of our brightest students have come from the lower half of the class, only realizing their full potential once on the team. However, maintaining grades while on the team is very important.

[Bomberofdoom]

Thank you everybody!

You're answers were more than I needed and are very useful in my opinion.
Any more tips about number of members in the team will be very appreciated!

[Tottanka]

Our teams is not going to limit the number of members.
We have a problem on that very issue, we do not seem to be able to recruit more then 5 members.
We have been in FRC for 2 years now, Our first year, we had 7 members + 2 mentors.
thi year we had 3 members, 2 mentors, and 3 x-students, who graduated last year.

Hopefully, now that we will have an off season event in our school we will have more members...

[KathieK]

Teams may identify a specific number of members that they feel they can support so that the experience is meaningful to all. Influencing factors may include things like what is our budget and what does it pay for (ie if your students' travel expenses are paid for, how many students can you afford to have on the team), how many mentors/adult volunteers/chaperones do we have, how big is our meeting space, is our team focusing primarily on the robot or have we expanded to include animation, Chairman's Award, team spirit, etc.

[Carol]

We have tried to limit our team to no more than 35 members, for two reasons. One is the size of our meeting space. The other is that with a larger team we run out of tasks for the students. There is only so many buttons you can make!

Al's comment on subteams is true as well. Depending on the subteam, with more than 6 you do see idle hands and bored students. We have a large number of subteams though - mechanical, programming, electrical, web, Chairman's, etc. The mechanical is actually more than 6 students as it is broken down in sub-sub teams, depending on the robot - chassis, arm, lifter, whatever is needed that year.

We are blessed that we enough mentors so that there is at least one for each subteam

Last year we had too many students apply for the team so we had the freshman start a Vex team, that we funded, with the agreement that any who wanted would automatically be on the FRC team the next year.

I know some teams limit the number of students because of travel costs, but on our team students pay their own travel so any who want to go is allowed.

[Tetraman]

The amount of members and mentors on a team is equal to the amount of resources the team can obtain.

[DCA Fan]

There is no limit, only to however many students the team can support. Often, you'll find many teams follow the traditional 90-10 ratio.....of 100% of members that are listed, 10% show up. I know that for some larger schools, robotics teams have had tryouts to accomodate only those who are committed, but for the teams I've worked with, membership has been open to all.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by DCA Fan

I know that for some larger schools, robotics teams have had tryouts to accomodate only those who are committed, but for the teams I've worked with, membership has been open to all.

That made me think of something else that has come up in the past. If you are affiliated with a school, you may wish to find out if you are considered to be a "team" or a "club". The definition may indicate if you are eligible for school funding, if you need to belong to any organizations which govern interscholastic teams, or if you can hold tryouts (a "team") or must accept any student who wishes to join the group (a "club") which means you might end up with a large number of students. It might also determine rules about overnight, out-of-state travel where students are absent from school. And if they can earn Varsity letters.
It's been my experience that teams are afforded more priviledges than clubs, so it's worthwhile checking out.

[ebarker]

I'll jump in with a few cents worth. There are a lot of good comments here.

Everyone's circumstances are a little different. There is no one "best" way to run a team. But I'm sure we could reduce it to maybe 5 or 6 major trends or models.

Our model is similar to how a Habitat for Humanity house works. There are few 'experts' but nearly everyone gets to pitch an idea, turn a bolt, cut a bracket, crimp a wire.

The other end of the spectrum has a small group of intense 'gearheads' with a higher level of technical competency. This group tends to foster high levels of technical accomplishment by the students.

There are valid arguments for both ends of the spectrum but I will not elaborate since it is outside the scope of this thread.

When the build seasons starts, we would like to cycle everyone through the build around a core build team so that everyone had a chance to 'turn a screw' ala H4H. It gets students excited when they can point to a part of the robot they they assembled, even though it may have been designed by a core build group.

Try to have as many as possible participate in the build, either as a designer or an assembler. Most will be assemblers.

Then try to have each person participate in one or two more areas as a specialty, like safety or marketing, etc. Real life is like that. Few employed people get pure music degrees. It is always music <something> like music education, music business, music marketing, etc. So get your students to do 'robotics' <something>. Work on the robot and do the <something>.

I think it important to develop a plan early. The REAL reason FIRST asks teams (and give awards) for business plans isn't to bore you to tears, but to help teams get their head around what they are trying to do and how they are going to accomplish that.

Our team leaders and mentors have spent the summer writing a 2 year business plan. From there it starts to get a lot easier to set goals and expectations, of the team and each of the members. Then you can see your personnel needs for the plan and start getting them to work.

Like many students, I didn't use to be very interested in 'business plans' either. Many years ago in my engineering career I served on the staff of an important Vice president in a Fortune 500 company. I noticed that there were times that he asked for a presentation of some organization about some large upcoming project. The presentation had to be done on date X.

The VP wasn't a micromanager nor even that interested in the subject of the presentation. He had people on his staff that would "throw the darts". The VP's agenda was simply to build a fire under the organization and get them to focus on the plan and get it together.

So start at the top. What do you want the team to accomplish this year ? Make a plan, identify resources (people, money) and execute. A good plan has the effect of telling you how to keep an army of people busy.

"Let the Plan be with you"

[Akash Rastogi]

Haha, I don't think that our team would ever take well to a rule that would limit the number of team members. If i recall correctly, once our team composed of 75-80 people.

[Chris Fultz]

We don't have a specific rule, but usually try to stay around 35.

With this number, we can keep the student / mentor relationship such that we can keep all students busy and invlved. We also have limited shop and computer lab space, so if we got much bigger there would be no where to put people.

This number has given us a good mix of students from each grade and for each sub-team.

We are a 'team', have interviews, and can limit our numbers if needed.

[Jaime65]

Our team (team 65) does limit the number of people that’s on the team. You have to go through a interview process. Then there is about 20 people selected for the team.