Largest team?

[MarcD79]

Our team runs around 30-35 students. Of course not every student knows how to use the cad program to design a robot, nor do they want to. We have design team, drive team, graphics team, PR, Spirit & Book-keeping. Each team has a person in charge. We have weekly meetings & discuss what we want to accomplish for the upcoming season. We have fund-raisers where everybody can participate, plus patron drives to offset the teams/individuals costs to each event we travel to. I have seen a lot of teams bring a significant amount of students to participate in "Spirit" . I guess it's all up to how many students are interested in joining the team.

[Koko Ed]

This year we're going to field our largest team in years with 40 kids and 21 adults. During the season the team will be pared down by attrition no doubt. FIRST isn't for everyone.

[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!

[Dancin103]

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.

Thanks but, the most kids 103 has ever seen is 45. We try to keep the number now around 30 to 35 because that is what works for the team. We have a small school, around 700 to 800 kids. In all honesty, I don't have a clue as to what we would do with over 50 kids. Some teams make it work, but small is what works for us. Also, 2001 to 2002 was when we had the largest amount of kids, you got the year right! I will have to find that ambassador and let him know it's not the whole school. (We do have a few robotics courses that the team started that kids can take that aren't in the school, maybe that's where the confusion began.)

From what I can remember and the events I've been too in my last 15 years, 365, 75, and 180 have had a lot of members on their team. Those are the three that seem to stand out the most.

Cass

[musicgurl1329]

Just an update... Team 75 now has 81 students.....

Way to many in my opinion.

[KyleLT1987]

Team 1647, founded back in 2005, started with 14 students (myself beign one of the original 14). Since then, the team has expanded to include all 4 schools within our district, thus creating a new team in the process 2729. Team 1647 currently has over 90 active students and 2729 is hovering in the same range as well I believe.

Going from 14 to 170+ in 6 seasons aint too shabby

[Jon Stratis]

"Also what do you guys thing the highest number of students a team should have and why?"

A team's size should be dependent on two things: student interest and student engagement.

First, student interest: Only students who are interested and want to gain something from the program should be there. There's no sense in "forcing" people to join just to have a bigger team, if those people aren't interested enough to be active participants.

Second, student engagement: You want to make sure all members of the team are engaged and have something to do. If you can only fit 20 people in your workspace, it doesn't make sense to have 50 people show up and 30 of them sit in the hall. I'm a firm believer, however, that there is enough to do with FIRST and on a team that the team would have to be ridiculously huge before you run out of things to do. Community engagement, fund raising, PR, etc are aspects that are often neglected by smaller teams, so their time can be spent building a robot to work.

There is one very important thing to remember in all of this: The larger the team, the more planning needs to be done to ensure everyone is engaged and active. Very large teams may not all meet at the same time or location every time - they may have groups that meet on different nights to complete specific tasks, or those involved with building the robot may be in a different physical location than those working on PR and fund raising.

[Bjenks548]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

A team's size should be dependent on two things: student interest and student engagement.

I completely agree, I'm only asking because we have around 80 kids interested in being on the team (this includes returning and new members). As far as space goes, we have enough room to hold that many kids, I'm just wondering if there's enough for 80 kids on an FRC team to do. We fully intend to do things such as fund raising and community outreach, but still that's a lot of students.

[rmyoung]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

"Also what do you guys thing the highest number of students a team should have and why?"

A team's size should be dependent on two things: student interest and student engagement.
......

There is one very important thing to remember in all of this: The larger the team, the more planning needs to be done to ensure everyone is engaged and active. Very large teams may not all meet at the same time or location every time - they may have groups that meet on different nights to complete specific tasks, or those involved with building the robot may be in a different physical location than those working on PR and fund raising.

I also agree. I started with about 15 and the core was the five original students. Now (fifth year) I get 50 or so who show an interest, and 30-40 who make it through the season. But the core is still smaller - about 15. To manage everyone else takes more planning, better organize team leadership and mentors, and breaking out smaller groups at times. But they still have to feel like a team. That means doing some things together, and making sure everyone gets engaged.

Splitting out an FTC or VEX team seems like a good idea, but requires mentoring as well, and again more organization.

Rose Y
Team 2199, Liberty Robo-Lions
Eldersburg, MD

[Kims Robot]

I think the highest number of students has to have some sort of relation to the number of mentors. No matter how many tasks you have, it still takes a certain number of mentors to help students in order to get things done.

To a certain extent a 4 or 5 to one ratio of students to consistent mentors is probably reasonably ideal. The reason I throw the word consistent in there is because every team has those mentors that are only able to make it a day a week or here & there. It is very difficult to manage and help more than 4 or 5 students at a time, especially if they are doing different tasks.

As an example 1511 has ~25 mentors (I know - lucky!), but I would say come build season really only 10 to 15 of those are "consistent" And with the team working 5-6 days a week, that means the team probably should have a high of 50-75 students. Their highest has been somewhere around 45, so they can still support more, especially in the areas outside the robot.

However, it can be a tough balance. This year they have 18 students that joined the programming subteam!! If all 18 decide they want to do programming in build season, its going to be more than difficult to manage, especially since the only have 2-3 mentors.

I personally would love to see 1511 hit a sustainable 60ish students, but so far, while they usually start with a list that long, between grades and lower interest, its usually down to 40ish by the time build season comes.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

111 in a typical year will begin with 65, have a few drop out in the fall so that just over 60 are in attendance at kickoff. Everyone attends the Midwest Regional, a small group travels for our second regional and about 35 make it Champs. We have many mentors so there is usually about 2 or 3 students to one mentor. This year we are starting with 85 students and we are worried as to the logistics of handling the large group. All students have the opportunity to work on one or more of the sub teams...
Mechanical
Electrical
Software
Playing field
Strategy
Scouting
Animation
Video
Fund-raising
Chairman's and Hall of Fame
Inventor Documentation
Public Relations
Yearbook and DVD
Some of the subteams go unfilled from year to year as student interest changes.