What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?

[Cascade]

I agree with all the choices, but would say a balance between collaboration and participation by all team members, students and mentors is something that will sustain a team year-in and year-out.

[MattC9]

In what I have seen this year a successful team has a balanced between dedicated students and mentors. No students= not bot or team. No mentors= lost students.

This was our 5th year as a team we had ~15 good strong members on the team 5 seniors, 3 juniors, 2 sophomores, and 3freshmen and 2 great mentors. But after 2010 we had lost all of our seniors, who had been there since the first year. Our main mentor found a great job and had to take a break for a bit and A couple of team members had to take a break for school. This left us with 3 seniors, 1 junior, and 3 sophomores and one mentor. After regionals we had met a GREAT mentor who has been in first since 2001? So now we had 2 great mentors. At the start of the 2010-2011 season, we had 30 newbies come in. We jumped to a small team, to a team around 35 (2158 has never had a team this big). After BEST and VEX, at FRC kick off we had only lost 10 members. so we were around 25 strong, still a HUGE team for us. During the FRC season because of our dedicated mentors, we probably have built, and cadded one of our best robots. Because of some very dedicated students and even more dedicated Mentors we did it. Designed and build a great bot. But that's not all we did, came up with a KILLER chairmen essay, started on a real web site, and much more stuff. All with 2 mentors 1 teacher and 10-15 very dedicated students. Here's the catch, we didn't have a ME mentor, but we had, One mentors who is an EE, the other is getting her PhD in physiology. This shows how very dedicated mentors and students will make a successful team.

[EricH]

I voted for "Parents". If parents are involved with the team, their students are probably going to be dedicated, and the parents can do some things that mentors may not be able to do due to regulations. A dedicated group of parental boosters, while it doesn't show up as much as the mentors and students with their heads stuck in the robot, can be as vital or more vital than the rest of the categories.

[Jstack14]

If we stricly are talking robot i said facilities. Not because its the most important thing for first, but i think its the most important thing for a succesfull consistant robot. NOt just facilities though, someone who knows how to and can train others to use it (whether that be mentor or student). Our school finally got a metal shop and our robot should be better then ever because we could acuratley machine parts and create the robot we deisgned. Though mentors and students are far more important to first, there will always be more mentors or students when current ones leave (well i hope so atleast, they aren't expendable but somehow there always seems to be somebody). So in my opinon, and based on looking at many incredible robotos who year after year create outstanding robots, facilities are pivitoal to a ROBOT's succes, FIRST as a whole is a different story.

p.s. as for a robot, i define sucess as continualy increasing preformance each year ultimatley leading up to consistanytly being a top robot. For my team we still are on the journey up so making an allinace and whening a qulaification match to me would be success for our robot.

[Robby Unruh]

Experienced Mentors, hands down... whether they admit or not, all FRC teams would be nowhere without 'em.

Money and the ability to know what to do with it. (Other)

[IKE]

A clear definition of "success" for their team, and a solid plan for what it takes to be successful. A solid plan includes an assessment of goals, stretch goals, actions required to make those goals, and the assets required to take those actions.
That and Caffienated beverage of choice.

[thefro526]

Personally, I believe one mentor that truly "gets it" is the most important part to a "successful" team.

Then again, I consider a "successful" team any team that manages to compete year after year.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by SuburBot

I bet that the majority of people who didn't answer students are involved with a team that already has good students.

Yes, I can see that now. I guess we do take our good students for granted.

Originally Posted by SuburBot

Being the majority, the lazy people and trolls stay. A very frustrated and fed up dedicated minority abandons all hope and stops showing up.

I understand your limitations regarding team size and sponsorship, but frankly, we do not tolerate "lazy people and trolls" on our team. I have no problem challenging those kind of students to get active - or asking them to leave. We're not a babysitting service, or free food.

Students need to earn their way to Regionals, and non-contributors are informed of this very early in the season. Yes, we did lose 20% of the team since Kickoff, but guess which end of the performance curve decided to stop showing up?

Any student can be given a task, even if it's just sweeping the floors or taking out the trash. Games of any type - except 5th Gear - are not permitted at all. Sit around enough, even the student leaders will get on your case. (Exception: If you're doing homework. Health, Grades, Robot - in that order).

[Garret]

I bet that the majority of people who didn't answer students are involved with a team that already has good students.

I will still say, that a student can only be as good as what they have been taught. (Most) Students cannot design, build, program, and test a robot just using what they are taught in school.

My team has been lucky enough this year to have a 4 mentors who show up to most meetings. At these meetings we average about 20-30 students, in the past we averaged 10-15. Those students are all dedicated and hardworking, but they do not always know what the next step is, or how to make a certain part, or how to wire this or that. Our Mentors provide our students with the tools (knowledge) necessary for them to implement their ideas into the robot, without them this would just be about "building" rather than actual engineering.

I understand how a team cannot exist without students, but just existing does not always mean true success for a team. For a team to have the greatest impact possible on its students it needs to have those dedicated/experienced mentors to to give those dedicated students the ability to turn their own dedication into a finished product.

This is just my opinion though.

[WarpSpeed10]

Why is there no 'All of the Above' answer? I think that all of those different factors are necessary to a team's success.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by WarpSpeed10

Why is there no 'All of the Above' answer? I think that all of those different factors are necessary to a team's success.

That's the easy way out.

[boomergeek]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

That's the easy way out.

Actually, I think "all of the above" is more the gracious professionalism way out.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

Actually, I think "all of the above" is more the gracious professionalism way out.

What so graceless about answering a question?

[Katie_UPS]

I vote dedicated students is 70%, good mentors is 15%, and the other 15% percent is somewhat equally distributed to the rest.

Originally Posted by SuburBot

I bet that the majority of people who didn't answer students are involved with a team that already has good students. If you were on a team without them, you might vote differently.

As part of team where there was a dedication shift in students, I can vouch that the results are tangible.

Originally Posted by Garret

Without mentors a team will end up like mine. having literally no continuity between seasons, essentially being a rookie every season.

Yes. This is a big reason that good mentors are still important but...

Mentors are also what guide the students. Even if the students build the robots completely, they need a mentor to show them how to make a robot or do anything. You simply cannot learn what is never taught.

Originally Posted by Robby Unruh

Experienced Mentors, hands down... whether they admit or not, all FRC teams would be nowhere without 'em.

Originally Posted by Garret

I will still say, that a student can only be as good as what they have been taught. (Most) Students cannot design, build, program, and test a robot just using what they are taught in school.

This is why I disagree with the "experienced mentors" being the biggest contributor (as well as facilities): 1625

Now, I hope they don't mind me using them as an example: but they don't have a fancy shop, and their head mentors aren't engineers. One is an architect and the other works with special ed students. I think they have maybe one or two engineers associated with their team but I know that they don't come to meetings frequently.

And they win. They win regional champ titles and chairmans. How, might you ask?

Dedicated students. I know that those kids are in their shop throughout the year. When experienced students leave the team, younger students are trained to become robot-experts (okay, so this is Aren Hill's doing and he's technically a mentor, but still...). These kids are working hard all the time to be the best they can be. They don't have any mentors who have been in the program longer than the team itself and even in their baby years, they were still winning regionals.

And when kids on my team got dedicated, things happened. Good things happened. The year with the most mentor-input (to my knowledge) was possibly one our worst (no offense, mentors... I love you!). This year, most of our students did a 180 and all of a sudden we had a robot built and working BEFORE ship. Who'da'thunk!

Dedicated Students is the biggest piece. You need (a) coherent mentor(s) from year to year that holds things together, but if you have your students going then you have good things happening.