Sub-Teams and the Org Chart

Designing the org chart

An org chart is a diagram of who is responsible for what and who reports to whom. Even a small team should draw one, because the exercise forces you to name every job that needs doing.

Common technical sub-teams

• Mechanical, or build, designs and fabricates the chassis, drivetrain, and game-piece mechanisms.
• Electrical handles wiring, the Power Distribution Hub (PDH) or the older Power Distribution Panel (PDP), motor controllers, pneumatics, and the control system (roboRIO).
• Software, sometimes called programming, writes the robot code (usually Java, C++, or Python with WPILib), the driver controls, and the autonomous routines.
• CAD, or design, models the robot in tools like Onshape or SolidWorks before anything is cut.

The business & operations sub-team

The business sub-team usually owns several separate functions. On a larger team each one becomes its own sub-group with a lead:

• Finance covers budgeting, purchase tracking, and reimbursements.
• Sponsorship and fundraising handles sponsor outreach, grant applications, and sponsor relations.
• Outreach and community runs demos, mentors younger teams, and puts on events.
• Marketing and media owns the website, social media, photography, branding, and the team logo and uniforms.
• Awards and documentation covers the Impact Award submission, the business plan, and the team portfolio.
• Logistics handles travel, hotels, food, registration deadlines, and pit organization at events.

That split lines up with how FIRST and veteran teams describe business: managing fundraising and sponsorships, applying for grants, handling order schedules and sub-system budgets, social media and public relations, travel itineraries, competition document submissions, and team uniforms.

Where business sits

A common misconception is that business sits “below” engineering. On healthy teams, the business and technical sub-teams are peers under one student leadership layer (captains) and one mentor layer. Business raises the money that pays for engineering, tells the team’s story, and wins the awards that earn championship advancement.

A sample structure

Lead Mentors (adults)
        |
  Team Captain(s)  (students)
   /            \
Technical Lead   Business Lead
  |  |  |  |       |   |   |   |
 Mech Elec SW CAD  Fin Spon Out Media

Sizing it to your team

On a 12-person rookie team, one person may wear the finance, sponsorship, and media hats at once. A 60-person team may have a dozen people in business alone. The principle holds at both sizes: name every function, give it an owner, and write it down so the role survives the person.

Key takeaways

• Technical sub-teams (mechanical, electrical, software, CAD) build the robot; business handles money, story, and logistics.
• Business commonly splits into finance, sponsorship, outreach, media/marketing, awards/documentation, and logistics.
• Business and technical should be organizational peers, not a hierarchy.
• Scale the number of roles to your team size, but always assign a named owner to each function.

This lesson was adapted from learnfrc.com.