Going into next year, it looks like our club will have 3 FTC teams. In prior years, our club has had 4 teams and split them by grade (freshmen get 7959, sophomores get 4102… etc.) Someone suggested that next year we should have a sophomore, junior, and senior team with freshmen spread throughout. This will give them an opportunity to learn from people with experience but it might also mean the freshmen will be separated from their friends. I am curious what you think the best way to split up the club is? How do your teams do it? I am looking to make next year as fun and educational as possible.
We allow our students to pick their team organization. The students have done both same grade level teams and mixed grade level teams over the years. I personally think that mixed grade level works better.
One of the aspects of FIRST that we try to leverage is peer mentoring where the more experienced students teach the younger students the various skills (design development, build practices, CAD, programming, driving, etc.). Having teams with mixed grades allows this to happen within a team in an on-the-job-training sort of way. Segregating the students into same-grade teams makes this a bit more difficult (not impossible) and requires more “club level” organized training/classes, etc.
We have also found that with same grade level teams, the knowledge learned disappears when they graduate whereas with mixed grade level teams we have seen a greater retention of knowledge which allows those teams to build upon that knowledge and expertise. For example, we had one same grade level team that, by the time they were seniors had developed very strong CAD skills and were leveraging 3D printing extensively in their design. Despite inter-club training, that skill level dropped drastically after they graduated. Some of the sister teams that are mixed grade level have been able to retain that CAD and 3D Printing expertise and pass it along and have been able to add CNC to that skill set. On the programming side, the mixed grade level teams have been able to retain more of the vision system knowledge from year to year and be able to build on that to enhance the automation of functions within the robot operation.
The flip side is that the newer students on a mixed grade level team tend to be pushed to the side by the older students. This is a culture issue that is easy to correct if it is caught and addressed early. In fact, we tend to make this a point of emphasis with the team captains each year to remind them to include all the students in all the activities.
The other thing that I have observed is that when the students are grouped with their friends, they tend to spend a lot more time “goofing off” at club meetings (playing video games on their phones or sitting in the corner talking with each other about non-robotics things) rather than working on their project. Again, this is something that can be managed, but it does seem to be less of a problem with mixed age group teams. It seems like there is plenty of time during the year and during individual meetings for the students to be engaged with their friends that it really does not take anything away from the fun factor to split each grade up amongst the different teams. In fact, the friendly competition between the teams within the club not only seems to enhance their performance, but also enhances their friendships.
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We’ve had a few FTC teams for a while (this year went up to 3).
We start as 1 big team for initial game breakdown and prototyping.
After about 2 weeks, our kids fill out a survey detailing their meeting availability and preferred robot stategy/archetype as well as their primary focus (tech, programming, documentation/presentation).
We split people into teams based primarily over meeting availability, then robot play style, then balance builders/coders/and documentors. Usually, this works out pretty well as team members get to meet people other than their initial friend group.
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