Average Age of people on your team

[Aaron@Kaist]

Hello everyone!
Just wanted to figure out what the average age of members on your teams were. Trying to figure out if some of the problems we've been having with management had any correlation with age. In our case, we have 12 members that are 19 years old, 3 that are 21.

Thanks for your input!

KAIST
Aaron Park

[Aaron@Kaist]

Hello everyone!
Just wanted to figure out what the average age of members on your teams were. Trying to figure out if some of the problems we've been having with management had any correlation with age. In our case, we have 12 members that are 19 years old, 3 that are 21.

Thanks for your input!

KAIST
Aaron Park

[RiNaZ]

In asia, a lot of students start college early, straight out of high school. So it's not out of the ordinary to start college at 16 or 17.

In US, some ppl like to do other stuff before deciding if they wanna go to college after high school. And some did, drop out and decided later to finish the degree again. So you'll see all range of age in US colleges.

So i personally think age plays a very small percentage. It is more ego than age, and young ppl tend to have more of those than older/wiser guys.

[J. Vinella]

Two 17 (as RiNaZ eluded to very rare in the states)
One 18
About five 19
About ten 20
About fifteen 21
About fifteen 22
About ten 23-30
Two 30+

According to the Michigan PA system I am celebrating my 45th birthday. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Our faculty adviser is ancient. Older than the ME building. Lets just say he STARTED teaching at UW in 1960. He has a 1962 MG MGB which he is the 1st and only owner.

We have found with the young people that maturity is sometimes a problem. Not being accountable. Not ready to step up to a challenge. However the person that WAS our most senior member acted like a 13 year old and is now no longer with us. So it can go both ways. People are people and come in many different ages and levels of maturity.

[STRETCH]

There are 60 people in your team! I don't know how teams operate with that many people, although it would probably explain why the core of our team struggle with the workload. We have about 25 people, all 2nd and 3rd year students about 21yrs old.

[Paul Hugon]

Only fifteen guys in our team: all are 21 years old.

regards

[J.R.]

3 - 18 ish
3 - 19 ish
4 - 20 ish
2 - 21
2 - 24 ish

I think that realizing how long projects will actually take is the biggest problem on our team, although that definately spans the entire age grouping, from our youngest to oldest members. For us it's more of a project experience level that determines how well they will be able to complete projects.

[WindingRoad]

5 Guys on our team...3-21, 2-22.

[Pennyman]

Our team age follows a Gaussian distribution with the mean being around 23 or so.

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Aaron@Kaist]

I guess the variance is quite large between teams. I was just wondering because the drive and passion of the older members on our team is not matched by the younger fellows. Wanted to see if that was a universal thing.

[frenzy]

right now 30 students in our team, ranging from 22-28 and most of them around 23-24

[Chris Davin]

Hm, this is interesting so far. In my days of FSAE, our team was significantly younger than these, with undergraduate sophomores and juniors making up the bulk of the team (~19-20), and with a handful each of freshmen (18), seniors (21) and graduate students (22-24) filling in the rest. Our team historically has been run by seniors, with the grad students having specific technical projects rather than overall leadership.

In talking with current team members, I've discovered that the average team age has gotten younger over the last few years. The team has had to recruit more and more freshmen, to get them involved before they get snatched up by the other project teams on campus.

[Wesley]

We have:

19-20 - 4
21 - 2
22 - 2
22-25 - 4

The older guys are married, so they contribute less than the younger, but really it's pretty evenly spread among the ages for who works.

[moose]

Our team has always for the most part been comprised of Freshmen-seniors, almost all of typical 17-22 year age range.

It goes both ways having older/younger people - you're probably going to find some more maturity and pre-existing knowledge in someone who is a little older, as they have just had more life experiences and skills. However, that doesn't necesarrily make a good team member as that person might have their own agenda etc. It is very hard starting with a whole crop of people who have almost zero knowledge and simultaneously teaching them while building a car. But a bunch of 20 year olds will certainly have more available time to spend on the car than masters/Phd/married students.

[sbrenaman]

17-21 - 2
22-26 - 9
27-31 - 1
31+ - 5

PSU's average ME student's age is about 25 if I recall correctly.

[Gaanja]

In our team we have
3 members who are 21 (in final year),
12 members who are 20 (in 3rd year),
15 members who are 19 (in 2nd year)

We are planning to recruit in september again

[carlosm]

19 - 1
20 - 1
21 - 1
22 - 1
23 - 3
24 - 1

and thats our team, some of those ages might be off a little but they are all close.

[Bone R]

Solid group of 10 guys all 18-21. All the seniors are graduating. Then theres me at 26. They like to call me Grandpa.

[Ian_N]

Bone R

I know how you feel, being average age on the UH team is about 21-23, and me being 26, due to turn 27 upon my return for my final year this september! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

[Bone R]

Ian_N

Yea, we just got back from watching the FSAE West competition and my team mates reminded me of my age the entire trip. Heres some of my favorite quotes starting with "Grandpa

...can we go get ice cream?"
...where's Grandma?"
...look at her, she's about your age." (she wasn't)
...can I drive?" (no, because I was the only one old enough to rent a car.)

[Adambomb]

Very interesting to look at the management side of it. I've seen a lot of changes on our team in the last 7 years. Back in '07, half our team leaders were 25+, and had real-world experience with cars before SAE. Our technical director was something like 20, and I swear he acted much younger than that a lot of the time. Good guy, and one hell of a fabricator, but he was prone to throwing temper tantrums, and just plain didn't have the life experience or innate leadership skills to be a good manager. The car got done, and probably had the best build quality of all of ours, but everyone hated each other, and we only had like 3 people come back in '08. We did pretty good (18th), but I think we got lucky more than anything. Or maybe we just sucked a little less http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

I took the reigns in '08, and had the task of trying to basically put a new team together. We ended up with about half of our team leaders in the 18-19 range. Sort of a flip-flop of '07, as I was 28 at the time. And although I won't claim to have any exceptional innate management ability, I have had quite a bit of leadership training in the Army.

It was really scary business, being forced to use new members for team leaders, but we really didn't have any other option. But hell, that's what every first year team has to do...quite a daunting task. We had some who turned out great, and others that didn't. We never got the car finished either, as none of the newbies could fully appreciate how much work is still required after all the parts are "done." Or even what it took to get all the parts "done."

This year we finally had a finished car...barely. Everyone finally learned how much work it took to get the car done, and although there are still some "quality control" issues, I think we finally have a solid team re-built.

So basically what I learned from all that is:

1. If you have an established "team culture" that knows what needs to get done, and the difference from good and bad, and team leaders that are experienced, without any further management, you can get a car done and do OK.

2. If you have good management, but no experienced members and no team culture, you will be hard pressed to get a car done well, if at all.

3. To finish at the top in FSAE, you need a good team culture, experienced members, AND good management.

As far as the effect of age, I would speculate that one year in the "real world" is worth like 1/2 year of experience in FSAE (including co-ops and internships), and every year in college alone is worth 1/4 year in FSAE.

Older members bring a lot to the table, but FSAE experience is still worth more than age alone or even real-world experience. However, I would say the biggest differences lie with each person; it is soooo important to get good people on your team.