As a returning student, I’ve been looking all over for a specific list of base reuirements that FIRST has for students to be eligble to join a team. But I haven’t been able to find it, the closest I could find was a sentence saying “highschool-age students” and the “14-18” label. Is there anywhere I can find the specific base requirements to join an FRC team?
I don’t think First has specific requirments but the requierments you will ran into will be mostly created by teams itself.
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I’ve been a mentor for over 20 years, and if there’s a student requirement beyond “high school student (and maybe middle-school student because why not?)”, I’m unaware of it.
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Not to mention it would go against the spirit of FIRST for more requirements to be set
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There’s no requirements beyond having a parent or guardian able to complete the consent & release and getting approval from the team. I can say that I added my 5th grader to my FRC team’s roster before a regional this year because I knew she’d be spending her time helping me with little tasks in the pit and that way Consent & Release was handled. No issue and she is 11. On the parent portal, I don’t see any restriction for applicants for any program, just suggested ages. My team has its own requirements, but those aren’t dictated by FIRST.
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FIRST does not define the requirements other than being a HS student.
The team, if associated with a HS, could determine requirements, but it
would not be in the team’s long term best interest. Yes, freshman will not
usually know as much as a senior, on a whole, but think of it as a HS sport
like football. Few if any freshman would “start” varsity, but you are teaching
them the basics so that they would be more productive each year.
You can make requirements for your student leadership, drive team, pit crew,
etc. (attendance or perhaps a test). You can also provide training, both practical
and written, to use tools or equipment. (Think safety).
I hope this helps.
Mark Tayler
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I will say certain teams do have certain other requirements for joining their specific team. Sometimes it is because of their parent organization (student must live in a specific county, be part of a specific school district, or fill out a 4H application), sometimes it is an application process, sometimes there is a fee to join the team (I have seen this number as low $10 and as high as $1000), and sometimes there is an attendance/training requirement (must go through training/certification in the preseason).
Contact the program delivery partner or senior mentor of the area you are in (with your parent on copy if emailing) and they will pass your contact information on to said team with your (and your parents) permission or act as an intermediary to set up a meeting time.
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My team has two or three 8th graders from our middle school next door
We’ve had many students start as 7th or 8th graders.
I can think of a couple of teams in our area that have an application and interview process for students wishing to be on that team. That’s not us. To be on team 230 the requirements are:
- You must attend Shelton High School.
- You must have a detectable pulse.
That is all for now, but we’re working on requirement #1.
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I know that one team (from 2008 granted), had memebers ages 10-18.
Ours isn’t that restrictive:
- You must attend Naples Jr/Sr High School or a nearby public school, or you can be home schooled in the Naples Central School District.
- You must appear to have a detectable pulse, only without having to have anyone touch you to verify.
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Why is that? Being a school team, we are limited to students of the school. Because of the available band width of the mentors, we are limited to roughly 40 team members.
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We only have about 400 students in our High school and each team member must be a student enrolled in the high school. We usually get about 7 -10% of the High School population on the team.
We make them apply and interview, but this is only to get them used to the process for after high school. Even the returning students have to reinterview. In my nine years of running this team with an application and interview, I have never turned a student away. I don’t accept folded or crumpled applications and I have made students remake them. I explain that the application is the employer’s first impression and you don’t want it to be a sloppy one.
The interview is mostly about building interview skills. After each interview I give the students notes on how to improve. The interviews last about 20 minutes each.
Our High school has only existed for 12 years, and in the first two of my time here, many of our students didn’t know where to find their address or GPA. So I make them fill them out on their application, even though I can just look it up.
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I was more so saying that it wouldn’t be in the spirit for FIRST HQ to set more requirements, I understand that teams like yours have specific requirements that may make sense for your own team, but it’s not really HQ’s place to be restricting team membership, as the basis of FIRST is to provide equitable access to STEM.
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Our team does not have a specific requirement as long as you are respectfull to everyone. We have a couple of 8th graders
This is not true as a blanket statement. The most common reason for extra requirements would be if interest in the team exceeds the capacity of the mentors. Keeping enrollment within the bounds of what a team’s mentors are able to handle is absolutely in the team’s long term best interest.
shop/resource capacity could also be a reason.
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You are right about the blanket statement. If you have a large number of students wanting to join, then additional requirements may be necessary. Clearly you cannot exceed space or coach/mentor to student ratios. It does bring up some interesting questions.
- What would be the set of requirements?
- If a student did not meet them their first year, let’s say a freshman, how would they gain that knowledge/experience for the next year?
- You could require students to be in, or complete a specific class, i.e. CAD, robotics, etc.
However this could turnoff a very enterprising student that is not interested in the classes, but
can bring their own knowledge or inspiration. - For some teams there is a monetary or offseason attendance component.
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