When Does Age of a Team Not Matter?

[Kims Robot]

Its always different, but I think its around 5 years that most teams start to reach their paces, find their niches and really start to reach stability.

There are a few factors that age often has impact on: Robot/Design ability, Team as a Role Model (aka chairmans credibility), and Sustainability.

Robot/Design is simultaneously one of the hardest and easiest things to master. We have seen some very young teams, even rookies, come out with some amazing robots. We have seen some teams 10 years old that just cant seem to pull together more than scrap metal. Its all about the experience of the team members and the adaptability to the FIRST design process. Some young teams have mentors from old teams or just "get it", other old teams will never change their ways. But generally after 5 years or so, a team that really tries and wants to grow will have reached a design process that is comfortable for them.

Team as a Role Model... its hard to burst out of the gate and be a role model for other teams, and in general you look at the FIRST rules, and Chairmans teams really have to have 3 years experience. After 4 years they have turned over a full class of their first graduates, and after 5 they have successfully learned how to rebuild. Are there some teams that are raring to go right away? Of course. Many are your Rookie All Stars. I like to think 1511 hit this mark, hosting the pre-ship Rally, driving 10 robots to drayage, and kicking off & running the Ruckus all in their first year. But they werent really a role model yet. It takes a good 5 years to build a program that is really solid and to get that kind of noteriety.

Sustainability... a big one and a really tough one for a lot of teams. After the first couple years of scrambling to figure out budgets and funds, I would think most teams settle in again around 5 years. They have some major sponsors, they know how to spend their funds, they know what travel costs, they have a reasonably stable team size, they know how to recruit and they know how to get the job done. Its a tough thing to manage especially when a lot of teams in the first few years really dont have stable funding. And we have seen plenty of teams that had funding for 8+ years lose major sponsors. But I like to think after 5 years they have enough of a program (in general) to not give up/die out. They have the will to push on and sustain themselves.

We are seeing more and more all of this coming out of the gate. Some of the Rookie teams have a huge leg up, building on the experience of mentors who have come from FIRST in the past. The more experienced the mentor across the ranges of the program, the shorter the "age not mattering" happens. But I think the general average is somewhere around 5 years before a team really hits their stride.