When Does Age of a Team Not Matter?

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Leeebowitz

Coming from a team that is in its 6th year and has yet to be wildly successful, my personal feeling is that age barely matters. Of course, as a rookie team, most don't have a bot that rivals the amazing teams in FIRST; but as was mentioned, there are some teams that haven't lost a regional ever, from the onset of their rookie season.

In my own experience, a lot of what matters is not team age, but more of the things that make or break a FIRST team, in my humble opinion: Resources, policy, and student involvement.

By resources I mean money, machining tools/companies to make parts, mentors, engineers, etc. Some teams have a CNC laser cutter and a team of professionally trained machinists ready to make every part on the robot as soon as a student draws it up. Some have a drill press and some nuts and bolts. Obviously, the team with the laser cutter is going to be able to do a whole lot more than the drill press team. The laser cutter team has less to worry about in terms of "how are we actually going to make this" and more to worry about "is this the best solution for this year's game."

By policy, I mean what the students do and what their engineers and other helpers do. I have seen teams where the students take absolutely no part in the building of their robot, and I have seen teams where the team is student work from start to finish. A team of professional engineers and mentors doing all of the work is obviously going to trump the best of what a team of high school students can do.

By student involvement, I mean how motivated the students are about FIRST and spreading the message of FIRST, showing team spirit, and wanting to participate in the program. A team with 50 students who never show up and hope that somebody else is doing the hard work is never going to come close to the team with 15 students who work hard and do all they can to make their team a successful team.

I am not mentioning team names because I am not accusing anybody of things like having adults do all of the work or having unmotivated students or whatever else. It's just that these are the things that I see teams doing differently that make an impact on how their team and their robot turns out. Regardless of age, some teams have it all and some teams just never quite make it.

I agree with almost everything, except for student involvement, slightly. But that belongs in a "Student-built Vs Mentor-built" thread. Let's just say that this is about teaching the students.

Our team has been around for exactly 8 years now. FIRST's website states that we went to ATL in 2002 and 2004, though nobody on the current team went. Whether we paid our way or won a regional, no one knows. What I do know is our team has suffered organizational and monetary problems since I've been on the team, until this year. 8 years is definitely past the 4-5 year estimate in this thread.

But beyond our lack of quality robot performance, we have bright young minds who are willing to learn about the process of running a successful team, including building a cool robot. Parents, teachers, and open-house guests are amazed at our "crappy" robots, not because of their on-field performance. It's because students had a leading role in designing and building that machine. And as of this year, we have the growing support of our Board of Education, school staff, and community. Along with that, we now have more funding. Not much, but enough to attend off-season events, buy some new toys (like a dedicated programming laptop and omni-wheels), and much more.

Getting somewhat back on-topic, though, I think we're missing another important aspect which can cause our age estimation to vary greatly: How long do you do what you do? Our team, at least for the 5 years that I've been involved, have never met past the last week of our regional, and our meetings start roughly two months before kick-off. That's including recruitment, setting up our shop, finalizing sponsors, but more importantly, freshmen training. This year, we had about 6 freshmen students, and they appeared to be more useless than a left-handed screwdriver for the first few weeks. We had to teach safety, tool/machine training, get them somewhat acquainted with the rules/limitations of FIRST. The point I'm trying to make, is that a year-round team that is going into their third year will probably perform much better than a 5+ year team that barely meets before and after each season.

tldr: Age never matters, at least when it pertains to FRC teams.

[Jon Stratis]

Even the best, most seasoned teams have off years. Key students graduate and no one steps up to "fill their shoes". Key mentors stop participating for whatever reason (get a job out of state, for example), and the team struggles without them.

[Jon Stratis]

Even the best, most seasoned teams have off years. Key students graduate and no one steps up to "fill their shoes". Key mentors stop participating for whatever reason (get a job out of state, for example), and the team struggles without them. Or maybe the team just reaches a little too far one year and can't get everything working. I've seen it happen to veteran teams. And i worry every year that it might happen to us...

The problem with setting expectations based simply on team number comes when people don't meet your expectations. if you expect someone to be one of the best robots there and they aren't, you're going to think they're a lot worse than they really are. Likewise, if someone is bad year after year and they suddenly do decently, you'll rank them a lot higher because of the surprise.

[WJF2011]

Mentoring and strategy are way more important than experience.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by TheFish

So people here in general seem to think that it takes 4-5 years for teams to become relatively stable and have their age not matter.

Let me point out the last Einstein Finals alliances:
67 111 971 217 68 247 (2009)
1114 217 148 67 16 348 (2008)
190 177 987 179 71 233 (2007)
296 217 522 25 968 195 (2006)
56 254 64 330 67 503 (2005)

This isn't any of those team's first year being in their stride. Many of them hit the ground running.

Also, not every team can be on Einstein. There are so many amazing robots that don't make it every year that you can't use "Einstein" as a synonym for "the team is successful".

A decent, but no means universal metric for a team's strength is having a robot consistently "in the hunt". I honestly would not say there is a specific number of years for this to happen. Pick any strong team and the year they entered the hunt consistently could vary widely. I'll grab some teams and analyze data to prove my point later.

[Jstack14]

What matters the most is the resources and the goals of the team. The team I am on is student lead and student run. We pride ourselves on having us students work on all aspects of our team. We strive to live up to all of FIRST ideals and go for all the awards from website to spirit to animation and chairmen’s. Our mentors help guide us in the right direction but ultimately it is the student’s choice as to what we do each year for the robot and other elements of our team. Since we don’t only focus on the robot, and don’t have the resources other teams have, our robot is good but not outstanding every year. Some years we do really well and some we struggle. In our fifth year we were seeded 9th going into the eliminations and unfortunately lost our first two matches. This is not because of lack of experience, because as many people stated 5 years is plenty, rather it is because of the way we run our team. I personally like the way we run our team because we learn the most by making mistakes and getting guidance from mentors but making educated decisions ourselves. With this approach we won’t have a powerhouse team every year but once in a while we may come up with an incredible robot. So long story short, age is a small factor, but how your team operates and the resources available matter much more.

[wireties]

Experience matters but new teams can make up for that quickly. It takes an extended 12-month commitment from sponsors/mentors/leaders and access to a talented pool of students. The mentorship of a nearby established team helps. This may sound funny but I think year-round access to a dedicated work space and good tools are a key ingredient. Every great team I ever visited had an awesome shop.

Some of these rookie FIRST teams are current BEST beasts - they start kicking butt from year one!

[JaneYoung]

Young teams can step up and hold their own. They do it.
Young teams can also flounder. They do that, too.

There are a few keys to success with every FRC team but with a new team, a major key is the mentors and their grasp of the FRC competition. It also helps a young team tremendously to be open to help from other teams. One of the worst mistakes that will slow growth and progress in a team is the refusal to acknowledge that the team may need some help and support. You can see that at the competitions when help is turned away and teams aren't passing inspection in a timely fashion because their pride or stubbornness is getting in the way.

As far as the age of a team - I think it always matters. Always. Every year is a building block of potential and opportunity for the team.

Jane

[Lil' Lavery]

If we look at some of these teams who start winning right out of the gate, I think you'll find one factor is present among many of them. They had knowledge of FIRST programs before their rookie year.

2753 grew out of a very highly successful FTC team (who won the FTC championship in 2008).
2775's lead mentor has mentored multiple other teams and is an alumnus of 768.
2377 has mentors who were FIRST veterans.
2826 has mentors who worked with 93 in the past.
2056 was mentored by 1114 and their 2010 WFFA is an 1114 alumnus.
A number of 1114 mentors were involved with 188 before joining 1114.

Etc. etc. etc.