Our teams have already registered and took part in competitions. Can we change the previous team members for the coming competitions?
If can ,how to change? Thanks!
I’m pretty sure the only rule on this is about the drive team. If you were a member of the three-person drive team for a one registered team for the season, you can’t be a member of a drive team for a different registered team the same season. If you want to do that, you’ll have to petition for it. Otherwise you’re fine.
Give it a read!
https://link.vex.com/docs/vrc-turning-point/TurningPoint-GameManual
<G6> Drive your own Robot. Each Team shall include up to three Drive Team Members. No Drive Team Member may fulfill this role for more than one Team in a given competition season.
Let it be noted that you can get a change approved by your RECF Regional Support Manager. The main intent of this rule is to prevent the consolidation of talent for Worlds. Vex knows that things happen so you shouldn’t have a problem switching teams.
May we also note this ruling from IQ. It’s a little bit of a different scenario as a single driver at an IQ tournament is at an extreme disadvantage. However, we can get a sense of their logic.
The way the rule applies to VRC is clarified in this Q&A (emphasis mine).
Edit: And like @callen said, unless you’re a drive team member (i.e. standing at the field during matches), there’s no limit on what teams you can be on.
Just to clarify, the main intent of the rule is to prevent teams from having drivers from their sister teams drive for them to get them into States/Worlds, not to prevent teams from consolidating their team members at Worlds (although eliminating talent consolidation does seem to be one result the rule will have).
When the Game Design Committee designs a new game someone on the committee has to ask “how can these rules be exploited to break the game?”
When the RECF comes out with a new policy, like early bird registration, the same question needs to be asked. “How can this policy be skirted or exploited?” A team registering for 2 events as 555A, and the same members of that team registering for 2 more events as 555B would break the intent of the early bird registration system. I would guess that scenario had some effect on coming up with the policy regarding members changing teams.
That is my understanding too. However, I always wondered why they pick on the drivers and not the primary builders or programmers. Wouldn’t the same logic apply?
You have more control over what you can see vs what you can’t.
Drive teams are fairly familiar to the local community, they see them over the season. It is the most visible part of a team, second to the robot.
True. But as many have pointed out, still hard to enforce. Honestly, I’d be in favor of a code of conduct that states that as well. Most teams will follow expectations if they are obvious. Some won’t sure, but those same teams will always dodge the rules.
Hard does not mean impossible or never enforced. If it needs to be enforced, you can be sure the team(s) in question are not following the RECF Code of Conduct which all affiliated members are expected abide by:
RECF Code of Conduct
Time to move on to real topics that are game related 
This seems to be the most likely reason to me.
Another reason (less likely) might be that you need the robot to be built and programmed in order to compete, but you aren’t required to move the robot unless you’re violating a rule.
In extreme situations, a team may not be able to compete at a tournament the next day unless someone else helps them with building/programming (especially programming). If you need a driver at the last minute, however, it would be pretty easy to teach someone the controls, and if you’re not comfortable doing that, the robot could just stay still until someone learns the controls (although this would only be helpful in extreme cases).
If a team competes (even if they didn’t contribute much to the robot), they will get a chance to learn what the conditions are like in a match and how to play the game, and see what improvements they can make to their robot. (Of course, for the best learning experience, they should build their own robot for the next tournament.)
I can also understand having someone else help you with your robot to get you into States, and then letting you take over once you know you can take your time making the best robot possible, instead of focusing on qualifying for States (or so that your school can know in advance how many teams they are sending to States). On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that you will make a States-quality robot in the end, so this may push out teams who qualified with a robot they built and programmed by themselves.
On the other hand, I imagine a lot of teams have someone else help them with their robot just so they can perform better (or qualify for States), and have no plans for their own students to learn how to do it themselves, until their helpers have graduated.
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Helping outside of competitions is great. Inter-team collaboration is a great part of Vex. I helped out my sister teams a lot since last season.
I never did it all for them, though. There’s a very vague moral line between teams over-helping one another. It should never be that the team’s robot is built without the team’s input. But, I myself have had major assistance from my sister teams. I was in the middle of a complete rebuild when I needed help. They were great to help me. At that point, it was completely my thoughts and design, but I needed more hands on the robot to help me out. Kudos to them.
Edit:
+1
Essentially my point in a nutshell.
Don’t get me wrong - helping is good. Doing it for them isn’t.
I agree.
A lot of it depends on why you’re receiving the help, how much help you’re receiving, and whether it helps you (or someone else) learn - and not just learning STEM skills, but also other life skills (like the importance of helping others, and getting along with others).
Now, I would add that if you have fewer than 5 people and often find yourself needing more hands on the robot, it might be good to consider adding more people to your team. But not every team would necessarily be able to do this (especially in the middle of the season). My team had 2 students, and I don’t think we would have been able to have more than 3-4, partly because we met at my house and there usually wasn’t a way for more than 2-3 people to work on the robot at a time (plus one working on the programming, although our programmer was involved in the building, too).
IMO (and every program/organization is different), teams of 3-4 is a great number.
A lot of it depends on attendance, @action000. From what I’ve seen, you want at least four people at a tournament: three person drive team and a scout. More members can help, and expand to things like battery management, advertising for eliminations selections, additional scouting, etc. Overall membership should be such that at least 3 people are showing up to every build/test/practice meeting, and four to every tournament. Depending on the commitment level, you can meet these goals with 4-6 people, with the sweet spot tending to ~5 in my observations.