I know there is no correct answer. I have thirteen students in my club, and currently they are working in three teams: two teams of four and one team of five students. I plan to add a team next week so that I will have three teams of three and one team of four. How do you decide on team numbers? Is is based on budget, supplies, time? Thank you
All those things can be factors. The age of the students and number of available mentors need to be considered too. In my opinion 4 is the optimal size for an IQ team. With 3 or less you risk not having enough team members for an event when a couple people are sick. With five or more it is difficult to keep everyone in the group on task. It is hard to get that many hands on one robot at the same time. You end up with a couple kids that are not engaged and fooling around. Larger teams can be functional if you have multiple mentors, or someone leading that is a real taskmaster. A four person team is usually manageable, everyone gets enough hands-on time and driving time too.
In my experience, it depends a lot on the kids personalities, ages and motivation. At one school, we have formed 5 teams with 7 kids each and it works reasonably well so far. On other school, several teams have parents struggling to keep the kids focused…
It does depend on the roboteers, how engaged they is the biggest factor. With 3-4 roboteers on a team, they all have something they can be working on. Once you get to 5 then there is the ability for one to drift off, and in lots of cases they will drift with another roboteer.
For what it’s worth, 4 roboteers is the optimum size for a VEX metal (EDR) team, so if you are planning to do that as your roboteers get older they will be good with that team size.
A small group of students ensures the best hands-on learning experience in the VEX IQ Challenge, but the exact number does depend upon the factors that have been shared here. This and other suggestions and resources for starting and organizing a VEX IQ Challenge team are included on the VEX IQ Teams page: VEX IQ Competition | REC Foundation.
you must have at least two as I well know. You must have one show up to competition. If you only have one, the event staff have to supply you with a second driver for competition. Though it is not advised
Wait… what? How would the event staff control what second drivers are available and want to drive? I think the rules say that someone from the other team can fill in as the second driver, but that is their choice.
Regarding this:
“I think the rules say that someone from the other team can fill in as the second driver, but that is their choice.”
I found this on page 8 of the rules:
<G4>Each team shall include two Drivers. Teams with only one Student in attendance at an event are granted an allowance to use a qualified Driver from the event. No Driver may fulfill this role for more than one team at any given event.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that allownace would apply to me. My team consists of 5 kids: 3 confident/competent drivers, 2 that aren’t good and don’t like doing it. But 2/3 of my “drivers” can’t make the tournament we’re signed up for this Sunday. So I’ll have 3 kids but only one driver. I could probably borrow a “driver for the day” from one of our school’s other teams, but it doesn’t sound like that’s permissable huh, per the “only one student in attendance at an event.” : (
Jeebar,
The way you divide your teams and move team members before the event is up to you. The rules say one driver can not drive for both the “A” and the “B” team at the same event.
If teams start to take advantage of that and qualify their “A” team at one event, before swapping the same drivers to their “B” team at the next event… well, the rules may change.
However, if your A team has three drivers, and your B team has one, it would be a better experience for both teams to move one driver.
People will only complain if your teams are doing well.
Steve