I was curious to see how different teams pick leaders, our team vote, but i heard that some team have their former leaders pass the job on to someone. How does your team do it?
Vicious duels to the death.
Hehe…actually, we had a meeting in December to vote in captains. It was a break in tradition, since the position was usually just decided upon by the adults, but a few members were disappointed with the selections that were made. Namely, they weren’t picked. So, we had a vote, and elected our 3 “tri-captains.” I’m sure they are very impressed with the results of their voting, and the great accomplishments their groups made during the season. Am I bitter… no, of course not…
The only year we ever had a chosen team leader … well, let’s just say we didn’t have a good year. 
Every year, there is one student on the team who steps up and assumes the role of “team leader”. But this person is never, ever chosen or elected – they just do it. The same thing goes with our team’s sub-team leaders.
This year, we filled out sheets if we wanted to lead a sub-team. Then the student’s voted on who, of the people who wanted to lead, they thought would be the best. We technically had elected leaders that way … but people pretty much followed our traditional team way of just stepping up and assuming responsibility. Through trial and error, we’ve found that that just works best for our team.
- Katie
Well, we have elections.
Though the past two years they haven’t meant much b/c someone else usually takes charge.
However, that is going to change next year since the team is going to be a lot smaller and everyone already knows who the leaders are going to be.
we voted and had elections…but the position was basically passed down…cause you knew who was going to get it…
so it was a little of both
Our teacher is English, so we have a monarchy with a king, queen, and two princes. Eventually as we divided into subteams and worked, it was pretty obvious who the leaders were and they were pretty much consistent with who he dubbed “royalty.” A few more leaders emerged but it was the king (jeff) who was basically our captain and then me as queen (no jokes please) who handled the team managerily. We were also in charge of picking the team the year after us.
in the past we have done elections voting 2 seniors with experiance to be the presidents, and a senior (possibly a new member) as a vp and then a junior vp. this year we tried something new and set up as a team what experiance a leader should have, and then we nominated people. we ended up with 3 executives, a secretary, and a tresurer. the 3 executives and the secretary then became the senior council, because they were all seniors. the council got to make decissions like who would be driver, operator, human player, and mentor and then decissions would be ok’d by the adults and enacted. it worked out well
There’s no high school ‘captain’ of the team.
However, there are leaders of the subgroups such as Integration, Drive/Frame, Electronics, Programming, etc. It seems they’re selected by the adult/engineer board of members who based it this year, [it seems], on A) seniority (schoolwise) B) seniority (team wise) and C) time dedicated to team.
We basically divided it up into groups also. The leaders were the People who had the most experience. Our animation guys and web team were decided like that. For the Captain…Well actually I took initiative and proclaimed myself Captain, (If i hadn’t nothing would have gotten done.) and everybody was ok with it.
Our head mentor said that next year, since im graduating, the team will be lost with out me…
go Figure
We dont ussually have a “Team Capatain” parsay, in the past, its just the person who steps up and takes over the team,
we host democratic elections
In the past two years we just had candidates volunteer a certain roll. Our democratic elections turn into dictatorship ones because only one person would step up to each job so the outcome of the election was obvious with 1 percent of error.
Pistols at dawn! 10 paces. 
Actually Lauren and Yu-Ping just kinda took control. And they did pretty good leading. And specific group leaders just took control too. So sadly no pistols, no duels, no poisoned fencing.
Tatsak
Since it was our first year doing FIRST, we used our team captain from last year (technically we elected him - school policy - but noone else ran cause we knew he would win anyway)
but this year we’re electing at the end of the school year (so the new members don’t come in and contaminate the vote)
The teachers pick the team leader but for all the other leadership roles it is done by the the team leader interviewing people.
we have a Pres. and VP but they are just titles. Really they just act as the hub to spread news from mentors to students. The Club elects them at the end of the season along with a treasurer, secretary and historian.
Our team votes fairly early into the year and we select a Captain, Mechanical Lead, Electrical Lead and Software Lead. Although these people are the leaders on paper, other people step up and play leaders also. Its one of those symbolical things like in England where the King (or Queen) is the symbolical leader, but the Prime Minister gets the job done. Well our leaders are like the Kings (or Queens) and the other elder members of the team and the leaders play “Prime Minister” so to speak…
We vote on Head Student Team leader (or Captain) and Assistant team leader. Captain is usually a senior or anyone qualified, and watches over. Asstiant does more of the paper work then the Captain though. The candidates are nominated by other people, and no one can nominate them self. There are other leaders: Captain, Assistant Captain, Head of Mechanics, Head of Electrical, Head of Programing, Webmaster, Spirit leader, and Head of Graphics and or Animation. I’m head of Graphics and Animation (Of corse that doesn’t stop me from doing Mechanics and Electrical :D). No one else wanted the job, but no one else is as qualified. XP The Captain also holds the student only meetings and is usually a speaker at every other meeting.
In November or December we have a big night where new members can join and old members vote on new leaders. (New members are always welcome any time, this night is just to get a lot to gether/ vote.)
We vote on 2 student representatives that help with administrative stuff and to voice student concerns during administrative meetings. Other then that our captians have traditionaly been seniors and drivers…and have just stepped up into the role. Its not an official position, its just sort of an unspoken thing that everyone knows each year.
http://users.wpi.edu/~first/dyn.cgi?node=org 
We hold elections for the top positions (Directors) at the end of this years season (ie, right now). The next tier elections are held at the beginning of the new school year, and the third tier are held at the start of the season. There are a number of positions under each Mechanical and Electrical leaders which are hidden from non-team members.
All the voting is done online, with people nominating themselves for positions.
we have team leaders, but none of them are elected. Basically, whoever does the most work. I think that voting especially at our school is bad because we have so many members who float in and out of robotics and arent really firmly committed. Our school has a big lack of people who are firmly committed to Robotics though. We dont have a solid overall team leader either.