pic: Team 3129, The Green MacHHHHine, at CalGames 2009

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

An even further interesting question: If 1717 (which I believe graduates their entire team yearly) had four mentors, would they be rookies every single year?

I wonder how much of this rule is hard and fast and how much of it is common sense interpretation by FIRST officials.

Somewhere on the rookie team criteria page on the FIRST site it says each case is subject to review.

[Nuttyman54]

Just like there is a wide range of experience in veteran teams, each rookie team is unique in it's makeup of mentors, students and combined experience. Every year there are veteran teams which struggle due to large member or mentor turnovers and low funding, and there are rookie teams which blast onto the scene with amazing success (1902, 2056, 2753, the list goes on). A lot of these teams have quite a bit of previous experience, be it mentors who participated in FIRST, or FTC.

Whether or not a team qualifies for rookie status is very situation dependent. I fully believe FIRST has made the correct decision in allowing 3129 to be considered FRC rookies. They have worked very hard to put together a brand new team in the Bay Area, and I wish them the best of luck in 2010.