Largest team?

[whcirobotics]

Wow reading this gives me the chills. Our robotics team (Whci Robotics 1514) only has 8 people.. with 3 of them being teachers LOL 1 contruction 1 organizer and the other mentor. I'll have to say that the bigger the more responsibility and more organizing to do, but if you have to less (8 people) that is just ridiculous. I think the teams with 20 people are very organized and their school is very involved. I sure hope a lot more people come out in the robotics this year. or we will be not done in enough time as usual.

team 1514

[DonRotolo]

Last year 1676 had 52 students who stayed through build season. This year we have about 42 returning and 50 (!) freshmen. We expect that 30 of those 50 will drop out before kickoff (our "Pi-Tech" requires some commitment) and a few more during the season, so we'll probably end up with about 55 active students.

Not everyone builds the robot. We have active non-tech teams as well - awards & business, for example.

We are organized in teams and subteams, mechanical usually being the largest with three subteams, drivetrain, chassis and manipulator. Late year we had 5 mechanical subteams (3 manipulators: Kick, Ball Handler and hook/winch), electrical, pneumatic, programming, and probably 3 or 4 non-tech subteams. The subteam leaders keep people productive (mostly).

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Just because things are called 'laws' doesn't mean they are true. Large corporations show that having a ton of people can lead to a ton of productivity.

That may be true, but you have to consider the scale of their job, its international, it requires that many people. You got to think, they also have to balance their number of employees... Now if they hire too many, they would eventually start losing money through salary and other expenses for the employees. They also lose productivity along the line. Too little amount of people makes it harder for teh employees to do the work.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

That may be true, but you have to consider the scale of their job, its international, it requires that many people. You got to think, they also have to balance their number of employees... Now if they hire too many, they would eventually start losing money through salary and other expenses for the employees. They also lose productivity along the line. Too little amount of people makes it harder for teh employees to do the work.

No, that quote comes from a book called The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks. It deals specifically with teams of programmers working on one project. It comes from when you are behind on a project and management decides to bring in "fresh blood" to help speed up the project. This actually slows down the project due to training and organizational overhead involved in managing new programmers.*

For a FRC team, training should be taken care of during the off season and a plan for managing the number of students should already be in place and taken into account when making your schedule for the year. In short, Brooks' law should not apply to a FRC team with good leadership and organization.



*Not my opinion, this was a discussion from my course on Software Engineering.

[kenavt]

Team 2337 has about 20-25 student members, then 10-12 mentors. The majority of the students tend to work on the robot - non-robot manpower is mostly a couple of people.

The team is split up into three main areas: Mechanical, Electrical/Programming, and Off-Robot (not the official name). Mechanical has four sections: Chassis, Above Chassis (our hanging mechanism this year), CAD, and End Effector (our kicker and ball magnet). Electrical also has four sections - Electrical Wiring, Autonomous, Programming/Sensors, and Operator Interface. The Off-Robot has a bunch of different subsections mostly serviced by two or three people - Photography, Safety, Community Connections, Scouting, Chairman's, and Sponsorships.

Each main area has a student and mentor leader, and then each section also has a student and mentor leader.

[Jeremy Germita]

399 is at it's largest in quite a few years(around 65), according to our advisors.
This past year, the majority of our team was new.
This year, we have a nearly equal amount of rookies and veterans

Leadership:
We have one team manager, five subteam leaders for five subteams.

Communication:
The team sends out emails weekly. These contain the minutes for the week's meeting, upcoming dates and events, and other important tidbits of information. We also communicate with eachother through texting, so if something is important, it WILL get to you soon.

My advice to your team:
If someone(or a group) becomes obstructive and/or destructive, advise them to do homework, or send them home for some rest.
Should you have the joy of having that many genuinely interested members, effective communication and education is key.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

"adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law

"If anything can go wrong, it will." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_Law

Remember those: too much people = bad.

It can be even thought of as a
People vs Work done chart.
It would be a parabola, you need to find the balance

Murphy doesn't have a manpower bias, though; he doesn't really play into absolute team size. So it's true, "too" much of anything is bad. That doesn't mean a conventionally (or even arbitrarily) "large" number of students is bad. The key is to have something productive and engaging for them to do, and the infrastructure (mentorship, equipment, communication) for them to do it.

As to the OP, I'd say if you've got the mentors--both in number and in dedication--give it a shot. Consider what everyone wants to and can do and decide your concentrations (animation, Chairman's, etc). Run mock sessions. Try to develop and practice with the system before kickoff. (Actually, try to do everything before kickoff. That's not illegal, of course.) It is a manpower-work balance, but the number of people isn't the only independent variable.
Also, this may be obvious, but 80 students means you'll want parents involved. And don't underestimate the need or value of NEMS.

[ebarker]

In the beginning 1311, Kell Robotics, had 7 students.

When school started this year we had 76 names - veterans and rookie prospects. That has shaken down to 60 students and 15 mentors.

Running the program 12 months keeps this crowd pretty busy as we have a lot of work to do, plus we have students moving through an informal management progression.

Robot building, robot maintenance, public exhibition, corporate and community presentations, communications and marketing, and other STEM initiatives creates a lot of opportunity for students to get involved and contribute something.

This weekend we will take 1/4 of the team to GRITS - the off-season FRC competition at the Museum of Aviation, Robins AFB. All but two of the students will be rookies in training, led by two student management level veterans. Spreading students across initiatives and using a 'cascade of mentorship' approach to student training and succession helps keep things fresh and can accommodate more students.

It is rare that the entire team is together at the same time and place. The closest we will get to that happening is at a regional.

[Snalios]

I'm 99% sure that last year Team 79 had over 70 kids registered.

[blayde5]

Last year, Team 115 had 120 kids registered to be apart of our FRC team... SO close to having 115 members haha

[Bjenks548]

Originally Posted by blayde5

Last year, Team 115 had 120 kids registered to be apart of our FRC team... SO close to having 115 members haha

So far we got 76 kids interested, thank god its not 548.

[synth3tk]

I think that homeschooled team in Columbus at OSU have upwards of 100 students. Not 100% sure, though. Maybe it was 50 students.

[dodar]

I think at the peak year of student interest in our school's robotics team, 1592 had something like 30-40 students in 2006-2007 but since then we are averaging probably 10-15 students.

[Emiller8]

In 11 we started out with 97 (the biggest our team has ever been) students signed up in the initial sign up where we got a large number of freshman wanting to join. Our pre-season sessions got rid of all the new guys who did not take the program seriously. I believe we ended the season with about 75 people. Considering the team started with 6 kids and a teacher spending all their time in the basement of our school, we have grown quite a bit in size.

[Cyberphil]

Originally Posted by DUCKIE

I don't know about the largest team, maybe 103 The Cybersonics. I seem to recall a time ('01 or '02) where one of their pit ambassadors told me their whole school was on the team. Don't know if they all did much with the robot, but that's just what I vaguely remember.

Haha. This is quite funny. Im thinking that those kids that told you that were playing a cruel joke on you or something. We only have 750 kids in our whole school. To get 30 of them on the team is a big deal! To get this straight:

The largest team we have ever had was somewhere around 35 kids. We are currently in a high point, running with about 30 kids, but I would say the average is somewhere around 25. We have anywhere from 5-8 mentors depending on the year and circumstances.

For those of you who are interested:
We have about 7 kids on Animation, 8 on Public Relations/Marketing, 5 on Inventor, 1 or 2 on Programming, and I say about 12 on Manufacturing. A lot of kids participate in multiple departments, as im sure many students on your teams do also.

We currently have 4 Manufacturing mentors, 2 Programming Mentors, and one PR/Marketing mentor. Both our Animation and Inventor departments are completely student driven. Only a part of our Animation department is not student driven. Our PR/Marketing mentor is also an art teacher at our school, so she helps out with the aesthetics of the animation and some of the brainstorming.

I hope someone finds this interesting or useful in some way!