Role of Team Captain

[Conor Ryan]

In my time in FRC (this is my 8th year of involvement), the best team captains on any team should have one assigned job. Make sure everyone else on the team is busy at all times. Other than that they should delegate everything they do. But here are some other thoughts on qualifications great team captains should have:
-ability to delegate
-ability to come up with ideas and jobs for others to do (anybody ever look about how many people sit around and become disengaged?)
-ability to make quick decisions
-ability to motivate
-a work ethic to model after
-an idea of what FIRST is all about (heres a hint, its not all about the robot)
-no interest in actually building the robot (there are so many other things for a captain to do, they'll have no time for the actual robot, unless your team is smaller than 8 people (in which case you might want to try Vex).
-the idea of what a deadline is
-social skills to talk to judges/other teams/VIPs
-ability to say screw it, nothing is ever perfect and relax at the end of the day

Being on the drive team, being the person who gets to pick the final design, all of those *perks* are not in the best interest of the team. The best leaders let those who are the best at what they do, do what they do (and then give them credit for it).

Also on a note, being a senior/oldest member on the team/most experienced should have nothing to do with being team captain. Rookie teams have team captains any 9 times out of 10, nobody has any experience. Actually, some of the best team captains I've seen have been from rookie teams.

[Kims Robot]

On 1511 the roles have been entirely separate. The team captain is chosen from the Student Leadership team which is elected during the summer (offseason). The Drivers and Pit Crew are chosen during build season, and all students are eligible. We do make the restriction that a Main Driver CANNOT be on the pit crew (backup driveteam can be part of pitcrew). Our Driveteam is 4 members, plus a strategy & scouting lead. Our pit crew is 6 members (2 electrical, 2 mechanical, 2 programming).

Funny thing is that initially I thought "how silly, why would the team captain be guaranteed a spot on the drive team?" But then I looked back at 1511's history, and only 2/6 years were the team captains not on the drive team. In fact last year, the team picked co-captains, and both ended up as drivers. So I guess history shows it might not necessarily be so off.

That said, I think its important to make the distinction because they can be completely different roles. Your team captain should be a good leader, they should be inspirational, they should know how to get things done and how to get others to get things done. I think back to one of the two captains that wasn't on drive team. He was a GREAT leader... not so great driver... EXCELLENT chairman's presenter - in fact he won us our first CA... but he wasn't ready for the drive team.

Ultimately, I guess it all falls into how you define your roles and what the specific responsibilities of the Team Captain are. I think its possible for the roles to overlap, but its certainly not required.

In the end, do what works for your team, but its ok to consider the roles entirely separately. Generally our drivers are more experienced with the team, but we don't require it, its skill & dedication that matter the most.