Just a question… I’m curious
How many students are on your team?
What is the largest FIRST team you know of?
Thanks!
Lets see… a bare minimum of 3 and a max of around 10 this year. Pathetic, isnt it.
We limit at 36, and usually have 30 go to competitions (usually 6 can’t go or something). The largest team I can think of would be SPAM, I think they have 80+ people when they form their team each year, but I’m not sure if they’re the largest.
my smallest team–15
my largest team–35
every team is different, team dynamics are unique to each team
ts
The Wheeler High School team (Team 1002) has ~70 students active this year. Not all are on the build team though. Others are in charge of outreach, FLL, sponsor, PR etc.
I think my team has 30 or so people. Robotics is offered as a class during the school day or and after school class. We are a year round team. Only 20 or so people go to compititions.
We have about 40, plus a handful from our local tech center…
the largest team, by far, is MOE. They are literally the entire state of delaware- over 300 strong at regionals, its a green sea over there… Their dedication is insane too, i’ve heard of people driving 2 hours everyday just to get to meetings- keep up your good work MOE
my team this year has around 25 students, but that number will drop to probably around 15 or 20 because those who are not so dedicated will drop out … and in all honesty i will not complain because even though i want to spread FIRST, i think that those not dedicated enough will not be beneficial to us …
as far as the largest team i know of goes … last year emery college (team 1219) had there whole school involved, and this year they created two teams (one all-girls team and one all-guys team) … i may be wrong on this fact … but i know for sure that there whole or most of there school attended the canadian regional… talk about FIRST fully integrated in a school!!
last year 1089 was approximately 13. 12 guys and one girl (me).
this year, we have at least 20 that i know of, and 5 or so girls (yes, the fact that i am no longer the only girl disappoints me and excites me)
hopefully we’ll get a little bit bigger, but not much. i liked the small family feel we had last season 
I noticed a common pattern during my 4 years as a TechnoKat student. In the fall the numbers on paper would reach the 50s. During the fall you would see most of these students a few times or all of the time. Then when it gets down to the nitty gritty around January (starting about the time of our city ball drop), the number had decreased by somewhere around 25. Happened every year.
*Originally posted by Clark Gilbert *
**I noticed a common pattern during my 4 years as a TechnoKat student. In the fall the numbers on paper would reach the 50s. During the fall you would see most of these students a few times or all of the time. Then when it gets down to the nitty gritty around January (starting about the time of our city ball drop), the number had decreased by somewhere around 25. Happened every year. **
And that is not enough, in my opinion. We are shooting for 40 active students. With all of the different team aspects that FIRST challenges us to do, it is possible.
15 robot
6-8 animation
3-4 publicity, etc.
3-4 marketing, event organizing, etc.
10 stragglers who are not too involved but just enough to be on the team… 'cause they are busy or young… budding to be more active.
Andy
I think my current team (#639) has about 30 students… We’ve grown more or less linearly from about 10 people since our first year. Also, I would say only about half are active each year. Further, I would say most of returning members who were NOT active the previous year make a lot of effort to be involved and helpful the next year.
Now, as for the largest team I know of, I know my team way back when I was in high school (#190) has had a ton of people in certain years. They tend to involve pretty much all of the Juniors on the FIRST team at some level… I think it might have been integrated into the curriculum since I was there. so that’s 50 students right there. They actually require all Juniors to go to the New England regional And then add to that the number of seniors that do FIRST for a second year. Also, there are college students at WPI that want to help out. I remember hearing that 120 college students had signed up for the team one year! Of course, only a small fraction of the college students can actually be useful, so I imagine the number must have shrunk to 10 or 20 at most. I am sure I’ve heard of larger teams… I just can’t think of who they are.
I think the optimal number of students is a function of the resources available. If a large number of mentors are available AND a very good team structure exists, then a lot more students can participate and actually get something out of the program. If limited mentors or limited organization exists, a smaller number of students is the way to go. Typically, if there is room for involvement in the team, the students will come. If there is too many students and nobody can give them something to do, the students will go… often with a time delay of about a year.
- Patrick
As of now, we have eight students- all boys.
But we seem to be getting more each meeting. I’ve been trying to get them to bring girls, especially now that we are getting our edubot and will have engineering stuff to do instead of just fundraising stuff. Makes it more fun.
Hear that guys- BRING GIRLS
Allison
25 students.
I think Robodox has 70 or 80. They have robotics class, and the team’s a requirement.
We find the team functions best with a maxiumum of 40 students. Otherwise the kids will end up with nothing to do.
Our team begins each year with about 50 kids right after the school ‘Clubfest’. This withers down rather quickly to about 35, and this number usually drops to about 20-30 active members.
We have 29. Surprisingly we have 12 girls. Which is pretty high I think
Generally, we start the season with around 20, and have somewhere around 15 by the time regionals come around. Looks like it’ll be about the same this year.
I’d like to correct OneAngryDaisy (great job at Ramp Riot this past weekend!).
The MOE team (Team #365) consists of about 35-40 students, a bunch of team mentors, and parents, and our groupies. We have many groupies, and encourage them to buy a MOE green and black jersey if they attend an official event. I’m sure this gives the impression that we are everywhere (sometimes we use the phrase that “we spread like a virus”).
Another misconception is that we include the whole state of Delaware. While they may seem true, Delaware residents actually number more than 300 people (amazed looks!). Now, granted, Delaware is not a large state and you can cross it width-wise in about 20 minutes (faster is not encouraged) when there is little or no traffic on I-95, but some in the state have not met one of our MOEbots and few (very few) have not heard the sound of our MOEStix.
This year, we would like to welcome another Delaware team!!! Middletown HS (not sure of the team #, up around 1370).
Bottom line - 35-40 student team members, not all of Delaware.
Nuff said.
Team 814 this year consists of about 15 students, 5 of them veterans. We have one teacher advisor, and an engineer that pops in an out during build season. I enjoy being on a smaller team.
As for large teams, though, I haven’t really counted. I just see big teams. Monta Vista (115) is a rather large team, if I remember correctly.
PS: Just some random thing I find interesting…females used to take up about 1/10th of the team (oh! oh! that was me!!). Now females take up 1/3 of the team. That makes me happy. =)