Members per team vs members who actually work

[Otaku]

Crunch time rolls around, about 10 people working on robot-related things, maybe 3-5 on non-'bot related things (posters, buttons, etc).

That's on a team of easily 60+ people right now, I anticipate that the team will half in the next coupleomonths.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There's an old saying that applies pretty well to most reasonably sized FIRST teams that goes "20% of the people do 80% of the work".

That applies to life in general.
Like Dean said "Life isn't fair."

[Protronie]

Have you considered that perhaps the new members hang back and don't do much cause the older members know what to do and how its done and the new members are scared of being in the way or messing something up.

For someone new to it all... it might be hard to jump into the mix especially when the time gets short. Build season not the best of time to take a new member by the hand and teach them what and how to do it.

[Armando Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by Protronie

Have you considered that perhaps the new members hang back and don't do much cause the older members know what to do and how its done and the new members are scared of being in the way or messing something up.

For someone new to it all... it might be hard to jump into the mix especially when the time gets short. Build season not the best of time to take a new member by the hand and teach them what and how to do it.

My point is that, if people really want to work, they'll do everything in their grasp to help the cause and get involved. At one point all of the members were new to the team, and that did not stop us from getting involved and getting our hands dirty.

[rees2001]

Originally Posted by Protronie

Have you considered that perhaps the new members hang back and don't do much cause the older members know what to do and how its done and the new members are scared of being in the way or messing something up.

For someone new to it all... it might be hard to jump into the mix especially when the time gets short. Build season not the best of time to take a new member by the hand and teach them what and how to do it.

This is why we started our second team. We typically had about 45 students, 15-20 new members. Many were afraid to step in and work. We now have a team for veterans and a team for our rookies. Building 2 different robots keeps everyone busy all season.

[thefro526]

Lol my team has anywhere from 35-50 official members (pay dues and show up for madatory meetings) But only about 10 of us actually show up to work more than 5 days in the build season. I think this year it may be even worse because we lost some of our deticated seniors.

Our team is broken down something like this

2 programmers
1 electrical guy
5 build people
2 PR like people
1 or 2 people that just come and do whatever they can

[AndyB]

We had, by regional time, around 15-20 members. They all pretty much worked during the build season. We tend to make cuts if members aren't showing up or aren't contributing. For the most part though, if kids come to the meetings, they are put to work.

[Dan Petrovic]

Pretty much the entire team works during build season. Of course, there are some that do more than others, but everyone does work.

The offseason is a whole new story, though.

[Mr. Freeman]

Our off-season results in almost 0 work because we meet only once a week, but that's another story.

During build season we usually have about 30-35 people show up at the beginning, by mid-season we have, I'd say, about 15 people actually doing work.

I think this year will be different, though I can't guess exactly how it will be different. We now have more new people than we do returning people, we haven't run into this situation since the team started. In the past we've had, at most, 6 new people in a year.

[TriggerHappySK]

crazy as it is,
every member of our team contributes some how

we have it kind of ordered

some people do the electrical
some the programming
or pneumatics

some have to do the crappy stuff
(like scrapping edges, but thats if ur lazy)

Sumdays a lot of people just chillex
and leave the work for another day
instead we just hang

but other days we are
working 10 hour days

but as i wud say it , 90 % of our team works
ALL the time

* SURAJ *

[DonRotolo]

I said 75%, but by the end of build season it is really 100% - the rest have been asked to leave the team...

Not everyone works on the robot - there are so many things to do.

Don

[Doug G]

We're at about 40 members this year with about 15 of those new members. Over the years we have done a much better job spreading out the labor. Sure there are those few that are there everyday and do a lot, but we also rely heavily on the others that come in wanting to help and just need some direction. I doubt it's 100% on any team, but I think if you get more students to actually turn out a product (whether it be a robot part or Banner Graphix or program algorithm), you'll get better effort and buy in by more students.

For those of you who say only a handful of students build the robot.... Don't let that continue!! If the robot is built by the same few members each year, your team will never grow substaintially and won't have a large impact on your school/community which is what FIRST is about. Find ways for more students to be involved and celebrate what they get done.

[MrForbes]

Management is the difficult part of the job.....

[Nin_estarSaerah]

out of a team of 15-20 people, i would say only one or two do little or no work, and two or three aren't extremely committed. most everyone else works their butts off six days a week during build season, but with such a small team, that is how we have to be. our mentors rarely actually work on our robot, and when they do, it is usually something like welding or harder programming. last year we actually asked our mentors to leave our pit because it was too crowded.

[Andy Baker]

Obviously, a goal is to get everyone on the team to be productive. Each team has some members who do much more than others, and that is ok. At the same time, there are members who do a few things... and that is ok also.

2 problems arise with this:

1. Some students appear to not care to be productive at all. This could be the result of different things. It could be because they just don't want to work... but it could also be because they have very low confidence in doing the job and they would rather see a more experienced person do this duty. They may actually WANT to do something, but they are scared to screw it up... so they don't say anything.

2. The people who are always doing things tend to just "get er done" when the pressure is on. They don't take the time to teach the inexperienced (and shy) team member to do the job. This teaching is easiest to do before the FIRST season starts, when the pressure is on. But, it can still happen during the build season. If these productive people can find patience and still teach the less experienced members to do things, then the less experienced members become more confident and productive. The end result is a more productive team.

If a team has non-productive members, the responsibility lies on the mentors and the student leaders to get these people to be more productive. You can just blame them for not working. In their eyes, they don't want to screw something up because they see the more experienced (or more ambitious) members do a good job.

I can honestly say that the TechnoKats team has had all of our members be productive for many years. Of course, some are more productive than others.

Andy