Hi guys, our team is going into its third year, but this time, we are doing things a little bit differently.
This will be our first attempt at being “student run”. We have already elected officers, but I would like to know how some of the other student run teams work. maybe to get an idea of what it should look like. Thanks in advance for all of your input 
Stephanie
Cocaptain T668
Talk to Gui Cavalcanti about this one. He is the student leader for his team and has some really good ideas/input/advice. Our team is student lead but… it’s really hard to eplain how the system works. I’ll get you one of our handbooks once it’s finalized!!
We are going into our second year and our main teacher is quitting because of “political” reasons. So we are, even though mostly were) going to be run by ourselves. seeing that none of us are going to be seniors next year it should be interesting, but i think we can pull it off as a student run team… Or tech section is enough to be done without a teacher. We still have one or two mentors for next year but i think that a team is mainly run by anybody with the expiriance, even if it is a student the student with the expiriance winds up running the team regardless of the teacher.
Our team is completely student run. here’s how it works…
We split up into subdivisions: design/construction, Management, special team “extendor”, pneumatics, animation, and grabber. Each had its own leader. The leaders were in charge of making sure everyone in his group had work to do and at the beginning of each day the leader says what the team is up to. We have a big chart on the wall where I write updates of what teams are doing, their due dates, meeting times, etc. This really helps with communication. The team leaders are also in charge of giving grades to their team members.
For student run teams, I would say the three biggest things you need are 1) communication and 2) respect and 3) organization!. When you have students bossing other students around (My main job!) its kinda weird at first. But as long as roles are distinct and you know that everyone’s doing work for the good of the team, it works out. And don’t be afraid to track down those slackers, it may be hard to lay down the law to a friend but as long as you do it nicely, you’re helping the entire team out.
Its a lot of work but its so rewarding in the end knowing that we did everything ourselves from getting sponsors, to ordering all the parts, to building the entire robot, to booking our own plane flights, hotel rooms, and rental cars, to fundraising all ourselves. You learn so many business and team work skills that definately help in the future. Good luck and if you any tips at all, my IM is smarty6784 or write back. I love giving advice on this kind of stuff, its definately my forte!
we’re going into our third year too. and i was wonding how teams are able to get sponsors. that’s my teams main concern this summer. we thought that since we’re not in school, we could start earning some money for ourselves, but we need some push in the right direction.
yeah, hacksaw, that was my next question. we also seem to be a little…less than motivated in the area of finding corperate sponsors. a few of us are planning out a power point presentation, but beyond that, we need contacts to set stuff up. did anyone here make presentations to their corperate sponsors? any advice on what does and doesn’t work?
thanks for all the advice so far! i really appreciate it. keep it coming