Team Size

[Not2B]

Just a question... I'm curious

How many students are on your team?

What is the largest FIRST team you know of?

Thanks!

[Smrtman5]

Lets see.... a bare minimum of 3 and a max of around 10 this year. Pathetic, isnt it.

[jax1488]

Originally Posted by Smrtman5

Lets see.... a bare minimum of 3 and a max of around 10 this year. Pathetic, isnt it.

DONT EVEN! lol one year we only had 4 people on the team...

and in 06' we went to atlanta with 6 kids...

The Robo Wizards Usually dont have much on the team

[miketwalker]

We limit at 36, and usually have 30 go to competitions (usually 6 can't go or something). The largest team I can think of would be SPAM, I think they have 80+ people when they form their team each year, but I'm not sure if they're the largest.

[Tonya Scott 476]

my smallest team--15
my largest team--35

every team is different, team dynamics are unique to each team

ts

[Jeremy Roberts]

The Wheeler High School team (Team 1002) has ~70 students active this year. Not all are on the build team though. Others are in charge of outreach, FLL, sponsor, PR etc.

[Kevin A]

I think my team has 30 or so people. Robotics is offered as a class during the school day or and after school class. We are a year round team. Only 20 or so people go to compititions.

[OneAngryDaisy]

We have about 40, plus a handful from our local tech center....


the largest team, by far, is MOE. They are literally the entire state of delaware- over 300 strong at regionals, its a green sea over there.. Their dedication is insane too, i've heard of people driving 2 hours everyday just to get to meetings- keep up your good work MOE

[Coco the Monkey]

Originally Posted by OneAngryDaisy

the largest team, by far, is MOE. They are literally the entire state of delaware- over 300 strong at regionals, its a green sea over there..

Its all an elaborate trick, done with LOTS and LOTS of mirrors.

[shyra1353]

my team this year has around 25 students, but that number will drop to probably around 15 or 20 because those who are not so dedicated will drop out ... and in all honesty i will not complain because even though i want to spread FIRST, i think that those not dedicated enough will not be beneficial to us ...

as far as the largest team i know of goes .. last year emery college (team 1219) had there whole school involved, and this year they created two teams (one all-girls team and one all-guys team) ... i may be wrong on this fact ... but i know for sure that there whole or most of there school attended the canadian regional... talk about FIRST fully integrated in a school!!

[BandChick]

last year 1089 was approximately 13. 12 guys and one girl (me).

this year, we have at least 20 that i know of, and 5 or so girls (yes, the fact that i am no longer the only girl disappoints me and excites me)

hopefully we'll get a little bit bigger, but not much. i liked the small family feel we had last season

[Clark Gilbert]

I noticed a common pattern during my 4 years as a TechnoKat student. In the fall the numbers on paper would reach the 50s. During the fall you would see most of these students a few times or all of the time. Then when it gets down to the nitty gritty around January (starting about the time of our city ball drop), the number had decreased by somewhere around 25. Happened every year.

[Andy Baker]

Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
I noticed a common pattern during my 4 years as a TechnoKat student. In the fall the numbers on paper would reach the 50s. During the fall you would see most of these students a few times or all of the time. Then when it gets down to the nitty gritty around January (starting about the time of our city ball drop), the number had decreased by somewhere around 25. Happened every year.

And that is not enough, in my opinion. We are shooting for 40 active students. With all of the different team aspects that FIRST challenges us to do, it is possible.

15 robot
6-8 animation
3-4 publicity, etc.
3-4 marketing, event organizing, etc.
10 stragglers who are not too involved but just enough to be on the team... 'cause they are busy or young... budding to be more active.

Andy

[Fire Shark]

We have 6 students and 4 mentors. It is a class too, and thats all we have. We had a few more before the kick-off but they all dropped. With a total student body of just over 300 in the school, we don't get too much support, but we try. Thing was, the college almost shut us down this year, but we really pushed to have the team again this year and barly got it back.

[patrickrd]

I think my current team (#639) has about 30 students... We've grown more or less linearly from about 10 people since our first year. Also, I would say only about half are active each year. Further, I would say most of returning members who were NOT active the previous year make a lot of effort to be involved and helpful the next year.

Now, as for the largest team I know of, I know my team way back when I was in high school (#190) has had a ton of people in certain years. They tend to involve pretty much all of the Juniors on the FIRST team at some level... I think it might have been integrated into the curriculum since I was there. so that's 50 students right there. They actually require all Juniors to go to the New England regional And then add to that the number of seniors that do FIRST for a second year. Also, there are college students at WPI that want to help out. I remember hearing that 120 college students had signed up for the team one year! Of course, only a small fraction of the college students can actually be useful, so I imagine the number must have shrunk to 10 or 20 at most. I am sure I've heard of larger teams... I just can't think of who they are.

I think the optimal number of students is a function of the resources available. If a large number of mentors are available AND a very good team structure exists, then a lot more students can participate and actually get something out of the program. If limited mentors or limited organization exists, a smaller number of students is the way to go. Typically, if there is room for involvement in the team, the students will come. If there is too many students and nobody can give them something to do, the students will go.... often with a time delay of about a year.

- Patrick