I would love to hear about any roles that you made up so that a team member would have something to do.
Backup [whatever you want]
Junior Notebooker
Apprentice Driver
Parts Gatherer
parts geter and moral suport
Security, Diplomat, Handyman.
We had
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Autonomous Path Planner
What positions do you already have? Teams in my organization typically have:
Captain: Makes final decisions, communicates with mentors and other teams, and places part requests
Project manager(s): Runs weekly meetings, makes sure all team members have a task and are working on it, makes sure the notebook is up to date, and looks cohesive
Lead designer: decides how the mechanisms the team has decided upon will fit together to create a robot. Creates technical drawings/CAD for the design choices
Builders: Build the actual robot and document the building process
Programmer(s): Write the code for the robot and document the coding process. In my org it is common to have a less experienced programmer focus on match autos, and a more experienced one focus on skills, but they work together with the build team to decide what sensors, etc should be included on the robot.
Data Analyst: Helps with testing at practices, collects data, and generates statistics from testing “at home” as well as in competition matches
Scout(s): Talk to alliances and opponents at competitions to help decide upon strategies and alliance options. Watch videos of previous competitions to know what teams and strategies to watch for at comps
Driver: Drives the robot at practice and in competition. Does research to plan strategies. Documents research and practice logs
It is very common for team members to have more than one role on our teams. Our teams (V5RC) are typically 5-7 students, and we never have a problem with there not being enough for everyone to do. Not having enough time to do everything is a much bigger issue.
Some other teams also have these jobs:
Business team: Works to secure partnerships and sponsorships
Marketing: Uses social media and presence at events to make sure that the community is aware of the team
This is actually a pretty important role in my opinion. It can be one of the builders, and this person can also be responsible for knowing where all of the parts/materials are for the team to stay more organized.
Housekeeping, moral support, the dead guy in the corner
I Scrolling on YouTube to find designs, build random stuff to keep team morale up, and take all the chip crumbs out of our bin (none are full time jobs, but I have made people do all of these). Also, I can’t forget the “don’t touch our stuff” person and the person who waits for pizza at concessions at tournaments. Very important parts of our team ![]()
We have driver, backup driver, parts gatherer, programmer, build team, and cad team. The marketing and business side is handled by our coach.
keeping tidiness on table moral support and emotional support.
Pitcrew (basically builders who make small changes and fixes)
Strategist (members who only do research and come up with a strategy)
Waterboy (they help clean, organize, and line up at the skills line during comps)
How many teammates? I had about 5 on pushback but 2 didn’t really do anything but maybe a driver, coder, notebooker, builder, maybe another notebooker or a builder
lol that might be useful thou
F.L.C.M. featuring:
Backup [blah blah make it sound important]
corpse
moral support
security (don’t touch our stuff guy)
2nd in command²
idea guy
Hey man, were twinning! You got the corpse and I have the dead guy in the corner!
Person who sits in the corner and watches the school talent show highlights with the other fourth graders while the fifth graders don’t let them touch the robot.
emotional support/ hype man
Publix-runner and emotional support new member
on my IQ team for 25-26 we had a part grabber and this year for V5 one of our team members is basically the moral person lol