No teams in the UK?

[mrnoble]

Am I right? I went through the blue alliance and can't find any. I have a bunch of connections over there through family and the school system and might be interested in seein what can be done to bring FIRST to the UK. Anyone know anything that I don't?

[Mark McLeod]

1884 (http://www.frclinks.com/t/1884) London
5781 (http://www.frclinks.com/t/5781) London


Some defunct teams:

Location -------------------------Team #----Last Competed-------------Name
Cambridge, UK, Great Britain 759 2013 Sputnik LLC/Caterpillar/CITRIX Systems/ARM/metapurple Ltd. & Hills Road Sixth Form College
London, UK, Great Britain 1542 2005 exscitec/Imperial College & Issac Newton Centre
Doncaster, UK, Great Britain 1933 2009 Campsmount Technology College & Ridgewood high school
London, UK, Great Britain 1934 2007 Heart of London
Winchester, UK, Great Britain 1963 2006 Peter Symonds College
Doncaster, UK, Great Britain 2120 2008 Doncaster Aimhigher high school
London, UK, Great Britain 2448 2008 Stephen Lawrence Trust high school

[RonnyV]

Am I right? I went through the blue alliance and can't find any. I have a bunch of connections over there through family and the school system and might be interested in seein what can be done to bring FIRST to the UK. Anyone know anything that I don't?

I've been to the UK this year. We've visited London where a rookie FTC team was and they were having problems.

The rookie FTCs were an international school that were completely new to first. The Griffens #1884 are from the American School London. (ASL)

I heard some rumors prior to the season they would've been starting a new rookie FRC team somewhere else in London which is team 5781 I guess..

We've tried to get in touch multiple times with the teams in London and also asked them why they wouldn't help the rookie FTC team in London.
Because that was our first advice for the rookie FTCs: get in touch with the other FRC team in London, they know how to built a robot etc. and physical interaction and workshops is just easier than online documents and skype calls

Eventually they/we got in touch and their reaction was pretty harsh, a short summary: FTC is to expensive for European teams, go do VEX because it's a lot cheaper or start a FRC team.

The rookie FTC team didn't had the resources at their school to participate in FRC and already bought parts for FTC. So they asked 1884 if they could help out them with brainstorming etc and just the basic robotics things. But sadly we've never heard anything else anymore after that...

So we decided to visit the UK and help out the FTC team. Me and a teacher went for a short weekend during thanksgiving. We got in touch again with the FRC team and tried to arrange a meeting while we were in London.

After a positive reaction within a 30min timeframe saying: Awesome to hear form you, let me check with the team because of thanksgiving etc..
And then a couple of emails later on they never replied anymore.. Wasn't really able to get them on the phone either...

So eventually the FTC team made an appointment for around 5 o'clock or so. After waiting outside for 20minutes where we should meet, walking inside multiple times nobody knew who we had an appointment with.. And their reply on the name we talked to was: He already left, he's not in the building anymore.

So yeah..... that was our FRC experience with them. And all this since we've been in touch with them last year in St Louis, where they were super enthusiastic and willing to spread FIRST in Europe.

Never really heard from them anymore.. and about the FTC team.. they visited us at one of our FLL regionals where we organized a EU FTC Meet + Seminars. They've learned a lot there and we helped them out with the basics some more.
A teacher who wasn't inspired or motivated became super passionate and was already talking about starting FLL in their first grade etc. (He was an IT teacher and gave some basic programming.)

The teacher started helping out the team. He knew how the lasercutter worked etc and eventually they participated at our FTC Dutch Open in Eindhoven. (The friday before they still had problems and two guys of our team helped them out during the night at the hotel. Which resolved in a driving robot with a lift going up and down for the lowest rolling goal)

So overal the team is very interested in starting more FIRST teams in the UK after all and are passionated to participate next year again. Besides these contacts I've got another contact at Reeds Robotics.

They have multiple FLL teams & one FTC team. They know a lot more about the FIRST program within England.

So you, if you want to get in touch with some people feel free to send me a PM with your email and/or skype. And I'll definitely get in touch!!

Kind regards,

Ron

[George Nishimura]

Hi!

I'm an alumni from one of the existing London teams (1884 the Griffins). I haven't been consistently involved with the team this year, so I can't speak to the situation Ronny describes, but I can definitely put anyone in contact with the right people from the Griffins.

What I do know, and to clear something up from above, is that while team 5781 Petchey Robotics are rookies from London as well, the rookie team we were working with was 5649, the Pithons. Unfortunately due to unforeseen non-robot problems they couldn't actually compete this year.

The Griffins will be at St. Louis though (and I'm tagging along) and we're always interested in conversations about spreading FIRST! Come chat with us, or PM if you would like an email address to current team mentors/leadership.

[mrnoble]

I'd like to look at the possibility of an FRC tour in the UK with some of my students sometime in the 2016-2017 school year. I will be over there anyway, hopefully, and would like to see if I could arrange to bring an FRC robot and a dozen students with me to go into Scotland, Wales, and Northumberland, Yorkshire, Bath, and Sussex (where my family are located). I will start getting in touch with all of you as we get closer to the dates. Thanks!

[Muktar Ali]

As one of the lead mentors for 1884, I can give you some background into FIRST in the UK.

As you can see from Mark's post, there are a few teams that are now defunct. The reason why these teams had to fold was unfortunately their funding was cut and they could no longer participate in FRC. I'm sure all in the community know that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is fundraising annually to compete. The philanthropy culture in the UK is completely different to the US and it's one of the points I spoke about when I had to opportunity to speak to Don Bossi when he was at NYC Regional this year.

Over the past few years, the FLL program in the UK has grown significantly. When we started our FLL program back in 2008, there were around 150 teams competing in 10 regionals around the country. There are now over 450 teams and 30 odd regionals around the country. We have the privilege of hosting the London Regional, which is the largest in the country and attracts teams from the local area as well as from mainland Europe. When the IET (UK FLL Program Partner) took over the running of the program, we worked with them for the first year as there wasn't much of a handover from the previous organization. We wanted all the regionals to have the same quality and atmosphere as an FRC event and new guidelines were developed so all the regionals in the UK could be enhanced and provide an authentic FIRST experience.

I would like to address some of the points RonnyV mentioned:

Eventually they/we got in touch and their reaction was pretty harsh, a short summary: FTC is to expensive for European teams, go do VEX because it's a lot cheaper or start a FRC team.

The rookie FTC team didn't had the resources at their school to participate in FRC and already bought parts for FTC. So they asked 1884 if they could help out them with brainstorming etc and just the basic robotics things. But sadly we've never heard anything else anymore after that...

We were contacted by a teacher from the rookie FTC team after we returned from Championship last year. She was interested in starting a robotics club and was looking for advice into the best way to get things set up. We replied to her with the three options along with the pros and cons of VEX, FTC and FRC and were happy to provide any advice and assistance if needed. We actually recommended that they contact Team Rembrandt as they host an FTC event in the Netherlands.

We have explored all three avenues when looking at expanding our own program. From the research that we have done, VEX was the most suitable program as the suppliers have a UK distributor, there are multiple competitions spread out across the UK and there are a large number of VEX teams already established here. FTC on the other hand has very few teams in the UK, the closest competition is in the Netherlands and suppliers are harder to source. From our experience, this makes FTC an expensive program and more in line with the problems we face as an FRC team. FTC and VEX are similar programs but VEX is more accessible in the UK which is why we recommended it before she started the FTC team.

As it was close to summer break, we didn't hear back from the teacher until the week of Thanksgiving when she informed us that RonnyV and a colleague would be visiting to help over Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the visit, our team members along with a majority of our student body flew back to the US to spend time with their families over the Thanksgiving break.

So eventually the FTC team made an appointment for around 5 o'clock or so. After waiting outside for 20 minutes where we should meet, walking inside multiple times nobody knew who we had an appointment with.. And their reply on the name we talked to was: He already left, he's not in the building anymore.

With regards to this meeting, I had mentioned to the FTC mentor that I had a meeting with our team sponsor and mentors from what is now Team 5781. I was assisting them in forming their team and discussing all the different aspects of running an international FRC team. This meeting overran and ended an hour later than scheduled. I emailed during the meeting to inform the mentor that my meeting was going to overrun and I wouldn't be able to see you as I would be back too late. I apologize if this caused you any inconvenience and greatly appreciate the effort you put in to meet with me.

As George mentioned, we'll be in St Louis and are always happy to discuss ways of spreading FIRST in Europe.

[RonnyV]

^

Great to hear from you Muktar! I got to know after a while that the FTC teacher isn't key on all the little things. (emails, texts etc) And after re-reading my earlier reply it kind off has a negative under tune... which wasn't meant like that!

So I just want to clear out I'm not blaming anyone or blacken someone!

__

I personally didn't knew FLL grew so much over the year in the UK! That's an awesome job.

After my students talked to you/1884 last year, and I think you'll know/remind of them: Stijn Spanjaard, I just got very enthusiastic to get in touch with the team furthermore. (Which why I was a bit disappointed it didn't worked out when I visited London)

I'd love to meet up at a certain time somewhere during the world finals in st Louis and just get to know each other and maybe talk a little about FIRST in Europe.

When are you all flying in? We're leaving from Amsterdam on early Sunday morning. We're trying to organize a EU FIRST Meeting on Tuesday near the arch. With some team building and sport games to get to know each other all. Let me know if you're interested!