Teams losing lots of seniors

[BuddyB309]

team 1625 is loseing all of there animation team and the only guy who does promo videos.

[ctshirk7]

last year we lost 8 last year this year we only have like 2 but they have been here for a very long time... and it will be sad

[vaheedr]

this year my team (599 robodox) we are lossing more then half the team b/c most of us are all seniors. out of 35 kids 20 of us are graduating. but we are trying to c if our team can survive next year with out us. we hope this will not be the last year for our team.

[aallen88]

Team 11 lost the biggest chunk of their seniors last year, but this year will be another blow. After my year, there isn't many kids who've stepped up yet so it'll be an interesting change for MORT next year.

[ctshirk7]

yeah this seems to happen a lot but most of our grads come back on weekends to help keep us in check.. its great.

[VTHokie617]

Team 617 will be losing ALL of its seniors. They each play a key role from kickoff to regionals. The seniors we will be losing include our "el presidente", the R&D VP(me), the marketing and awards beauties, our programming GOD, the fabrication guru, the website creator, the head of Inventor and CAD, and other various members. So, in total about 15+ members.

[mechanicalbrain]

Losing seniors can be devastating but it's even more devastating to loose their skills. Even though about half of our FRC team it's Kay since we have a good training program. Our FRC team is made entirely out of juniors and seniors (and one or two sophomores). This year we implemented a program requiring students who haven't done robotics before to join one of our school's VEX teams for their first year. One benefit Ive found is, we are going to have a higher percentage of programmers next year.

[ctshirk7]

how many members seniors and etc. are on you guys team we have 24 and this year the rookies outnumber the vets by 2 i think if i remember rightly

[dude__hi]

Our team is losing most of the team this year. A lot of the most important positions are in the hands our the seniors this year but the team seems to do better every year even though a lot of the members graduate...

[Conor Ryan]

Heres a bit of 1403 history,

2004: Team started, 20 students on the team. Team does well pulls off an amazing rookie season winning all the rookie awards (over various events) and pulling off an engineering award too (xerox creativity) only problem, 15 of the students are seniors. and the few students that were left were freshman, and sophmores (a few juniors)

2005: 5 students come back thats it. New advisor, new students, new mentors (EM's and NEM's) new logo, the works, we still have only a minimal number of students from the rookie year team. We got to work early, and tried to get everyone up to speed as much as we could, build season comes down and we had a build season very similar to a rookie team, the result was a slightly more developed design and it was actually a more successful robot that our first one. We pulled off another Xerox Creativity, and become runners up at the buckeye regional (229 and 135, woot!) Looking back this season was quite successful despite having nearly a complete team turn over.

2006: Our first season in where we didn't have to deal too much with a loss of students, we lost a few members but a lot of the students that rose to the challenge back in 2005 came back and are sharper than ever. We currently are enjoying a very good build season, and we are starting to act like a veteran team. God willing, we'll see results that live up to our expectations this year.

So whats the conclusion, anyone can do it. Just put your head down and keep working and learning, if you don't see the playing field level this year, look to the future where your underclassmen will have to opportunity to really lead the team. Keep working......

[Mahalis]

1139 is losing the heads of almost every group - four seniors - and two or three other members, cutting our size down by about a third. We tried to do a sort of seniors-training-newbies thing this year, which may or may not have worked..

[devicenull]

Let's see.. we are losing 4 people on the animation team (out of 5), me (only programmer), main student that does electrical, webmaster, and probably a bunch more.

Next year is going to be interesting for them.

[nkauj_ntxoo16]

I've been on my team for a couple of years now, and I've experienced those moments where a third of our awesome seniors leave. Each year, students would always talk about how the team will be like after all the seniors are gone. Who would do this, or how the group will function without them. But over it all, some way, some how, and magically, the younger students have always stepped up to the plate when a filling was needed.

From my perspective, seniors are role models there to show the rookies or younger veterans how FIRST is like. Moreover, they teach the younger members how to make FIRST all worth it and exciting. They're like older brothers and sisters showing us what to do. As they leave, their legacy stays behind and the rookies along with the younger veterans carry on the team.

[Chief Samwize]

Only two freshmens made the team this year so im always reminding them that i am their future

[Shu Song]

We lost half of our team to graduating seniors at the end of last season. Only 4 of us went to college close enough to be able to mentor the team on a regular basis. We thought that we had a lot more new members to replace the old ones, but as it turned out, when build season rolled around, most of them stopped coming because of the time commitment. But the ones who did stay, are learning very quickly. Some of them have already started to take on the leadership roles left by the graduating seniors. If I sounded overly worried at the end of last season, I'm not any more. This team is still in good hands no matter how many seniors the team loses each year.