Starting a Mostly student run FRC team

[thefro526]

You can start a Mostly Student run FRC team. It's been done before with varying degrees of success.

Honestly, I wouldn't do it. Student run teams seem awesome, until you realize that most students can't even make a good decision on what to eat for breakfast. I come from a team that Has 3 primary mentors, two of which are semi-technical and the third is a Non-Technical Mentor who does 99% of the paperwork. Other than that our 50 Student team is primarily student run.

There's some teams that do excellent Student run programs, but I've noticed that they're very hot and cold. Yes, there have been student run teams that have done well a year hear and at an off-season there but very few of these teams have the consistency of a well-run adult team. Yeah, team XXXX might have had an awesome season in 200X but, what about 20XX, or 200X? Usually the answer ends up being "We had a great group of kids". Out of all of the Student run Teams I have met, I've only met one that consistently excels year after year, and that's team 11. It's a hard thing to do.

For example I'll use my own team. We, Team 816, were a complete unknown until 2008. Before then we were a Mid to Low range team who more often then not was packing their crate at Lunch time on Saturday. In the 2008 Season we had a number of people from the class of 2009 step up and make some changes. They re-did a lot of things, and took a completely new approach to the entire team. So in this Season and the Last we've become what some would consider a High Level Team but here's the secret, 50% of our team is Graduating this year. Who knows what will become of 816 after they leave, it's hard to run a team when you're getting a new group of leaders every few years.

If you want to start a student run team then do it. But remember, there's a team after you leave.