Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Our school has let us know that they can't sponsor our team (4183) this year. All of our returning students and mentors are interested in continuing with the team, even if it isn't supported by our school. At a recent meeting, we discussed several possibilities for this year's team including becoming affiliated with another school or starting our own non-profit organization and operating as a community team. Has your team had a similar experience? Do you have any advice, or ideas for how we can live long and prosper, despite the loss of our school.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Do you need a place to work? Or do you just need an affiliated school to receive funds?

Considering how much time you have, I would suggest finding another school you can work at or with for 2013. After that, I suggest becoming your own non-profit.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Realize that it will be an uphill battle, but keep the faith among the team that you will succeed in the end.

3096 was created in 2009 and since then we have had 2 school buildings, 2 build facilities (one was not at the school), 3 principals, and 3 different teachers. This year Finney HS is combining with Crockett HS to form a new East English Village Preparatory Academy in a new school building and new administration. We will probably have a new build facility... somewhere. And we were informed today that our teacher has been assigned to a different building. It is very easy to hang it up under circumstances like this, but you must keep the faith that you will succeed if you are to survive. People involved in the program will occasionally lapse, but you must support and encourage each other to deal with the immediate issues and persevere. I credit Tito Huffman for being the driving force that keeps 3096 alive and able to inspire.

Opportunities to succeed will present themselves if you can keep the faith.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I'm not sure if this is a problem for you, but one of the things that we do to always ensure that we are sustainable is we take in students from any school. We have people who are willing to drive over an hour just to get to our meetings, even during off-season. We also are based at our local university (college), and many of our students have ended up going to that university to study an engineering related degree. This is quite desirable for the university, as it firstly gives them more students and it gives them outreach opportunities through new means.

If it helps, our workshop for the last 3 years has been smaller than 2 pits, so whatever you have, you guys can build a robot =)

Good luck, and I hope that helps.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

There is a third option - find another non-profit to be affiliated with. I know in our area there are a few 4H-linked teams, which helps with the insurance issues.

Good luck.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

We lost our teacher sponsor and build space back in 2008 we tried everything we could think of and were about to move in with Team 179 (which is an option if a team will take you.), when we contacted our rival high school and found a sponsor and space to take us in.

Then after the 2010 season we lost the space and but not the teacher so we went searching around and found a space with one of our main sponsors and discovered that the insurance from the school extended as long as the teacher was there.

We lost that space after our sponsor was bought out and are now in our fourth build space in 5 years.

My advice to you is to try everything you could think of, as teams have built out of church basements or trailers in the past. We actually were going to build in one of our mentor's garage if worse comes to worse

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

In a situation like this, I would pursue every angle I could.
That includes talking to other schools with no teams, talking to schools with teams about possibly merging, talking to machine shops about getting potential build space there, etc. If you limit yourself to pursuing just one of these things, you could end up wasting a good deal of time.
Start figuring out how much money you will need (including champs IMO, though most will say not to) to run the team if you get no help from the school and start applying for grants, sponsorships, and start fundraising.

It is going to probably suck but if you work your tail off, it is possible.

1002 started a team many years ago alongside Jeremy Roberts which consisted of kids from all over the area that went to schools that didnt have teams (or the kids were home schooled). They still exist.

If you get off the ground, one issue is to figure out how to be able to miss school for competition.
Thats my 2 cents. refer to this thread for low budget drive train ideas http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...light=poohbear

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I assume you mean that your school will no longer give you funds. If you still have a teacher mentor and a working space, you can become your own non-profit organization and get local companies to sponsor you. This is how our team works because we've never gotten any funding from our school, we are allowed to use our school's shop though, because the shop teacher is our head mentor. If you have lost your shop as well, see if you can get a local company to sponsor you by letting you use their shop. I know this is how a lot of teams have to work.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Some answers to previous posts:

We do not currently have a build space, although there are several possibilities we are considering. However, we didn't build at our school last year, so the biggest thing we lose from leaving the school is tax credit donations (about $5000 last year).

It is very likely that we will accept students from any school.

It has been suggested that we merge with a local science-education organization who donated build space last year.

Our school has never given us money directly, although it allowed us to make several thousand dollars in tax-credit donations. We do have a local company donating laser-cut aluminium, but I will look into businesses that may donate build space.

Thanks for all the ideas!!

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I'm really sorry to hear about this. It was great to have you guys as our fellow Arizona rookies this past season. I wish you the best of luck in your search for a new home/sponsoring organization. Have you tried reaching out to any of the other Tucson area teams? There is really some great energy down there.

The lack of tax credits will be a big hit, but make sure to take advantage of Arizona's other great recourse for FIRST teams: the vibrant tech industry.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Even if your school cannot directly fund you, as long as they recognize you as a valid club/after school activity/whatever, you should still be able to take advantage of their nonprofit status to allow sponsors to make tax deductible donations. That way you don't have to worry about starting a 501(c)(3) or linking up with 4H or something of that nature.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

4H is a great way to cover your non-profit status for fundraising and cover your team's insurance needs. A church is another great non-profit partner as is local service organizations (Kiwanis, Rotary, etc...). We are covered by our church's non-profit status.

Your next problem is build space. Sometimes a sponsor can help, a mentor's garage, a local service organization (see above). These type of build spaces are somewhat less permanent than school provided space, so be prepared to be able to move on a moments notice. Our home is a 16ft utility trailer and our build space is a Boy Scout clubhouse sponsored by the Kiwanis.

Another problem is recruiting students. You no longer have club rush week, assemblies, school lunch breaks, and a captive audience to recruit from. On the other hand, you can recruit from all the schools in your area and home schoolers. Its just tougher to get your word out. Good thing is outreach is a fundamental exercise of a FIRST team and a great way to recruit students. Another good resource is mentoring FLL teams. Have a couple teams you mentor and you have a steady supply of trained students that are ready to step up to FRC.

A similar problem will be recruiting mentors. You no longer have the teacher or two from your school that you can visit at lunch time, or hold a club meeting right after school. You more likely will be meeting evenings and weekends to avoid interference with school activities. You will need to recruit mentors from outside your school.

There are also things that happen in FIRST that are geared towards teams that are in schools. Since most teams are associated with schools, this makes sense. For example, read the promotion for the Brandeis study, it is designed for teams that are associated with schools. Doesn't really apply to community teams. Not a big deal most of the time, just don't get upset when it happens.
You will also be competing with the school for the student's time. Most competitions require some time away from school, when you are part of a school, you call it a field trip, get a bus, and go compete. When you are a community team, you are asking your students to take 1-2 days off from school as an unexcused absence (schools don't like that).

There are upsides to being a community team, some I have hit on, more outreach, wider recruiting base, the need for more community mentors, fewer rules (and more responsibility viz. your own insurance), better control of your funds (and more responsibility), etc...

Good luck on your transition to a community team, it is tough the first couple of years, but a FRC team can survive and grow both inside and outside of schools.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

A friend of my was helping an FRC girl scout team for the 2011 season, after the season was over the girl scouts had taken thier stuff and were told that thier parts and robot were going to be "inventoried" but in reality they were stopping the program for what reasons i dont know, the team moved over to the boy scouts and became a explorer post with brand new members and some students from the old team did return now they take in students from different high schools in thier district or surronding districts, they have alot more freedom but at same time a huge responsiblity finding sponsors and keeping fundings coming in

and they had a good season this year

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

As a community team, MOE has a standard form that our students use to get permission to miss school days to attend events. They have to return it to us signed by the school principal or guidance counselor. It has never been a problem.

We recruit in the spring for next year's team (as we formally start in September) but you certainly can recruit now. Most of our team members come from either word-of-mouth (friends of past team members) or from our school demos. Every May team members arrange assemblies at their various schools to show off the robot and describe the program. There have been the occasional team member who found out about us at a community event, but that audience is typically younger than high school age.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

2949 has always been a community team. In 2010, we needed a lot of money and we needed a place to work. All we had was a very small warehouse that was really just a storage space for VEX/FTC stuff and our supplies. We went out looking, and we found a company called Genesis Automation in St. Charles, IL. Not only did they give us a large space to work, including a very large machine shop, they became our main source for mentorship as well as sponsorship. They have been extremely gracious to us and we are very thankful. There one of the main reasons that we have been as successful as we have over the last 3 years. Now we got pretty lucky to find a company that provided work space, mentorship, and sponsorship. Having said that, you never know what you might find asking different companies for any of those 3 things. Just last year at one of the festivals we were at, we talked to a guy that ran a company called ACE Metal that did sheet metal fabrication. He looked at our 2011 robot, which had just a little amount of sheet metal on the drive frame, and said "oh, that's easy. We could do that no problem. The following season we built 2 robots for the first time because of him and the entire thing was sheet metal, which cut down on cost and design time for us. Just contact as many people business people, primarily engineering/manufacturing, as possible and hopefully you'll find some things that will pull you through.

As far as being a community team, I am a big fan of this setup. No limit as to where your students have to come from, much easier to spread FIRST in your community, and you don't have to deal with school administration, just your own team organization.

I guess that's my input.

-Nick

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Something I forgot on my comments, when transitioning from a school team to a community team, there will likely be contention over team assets like robot parts, tools, etc. I've seen this happen a couple times and it is usually a messy process.

Once you are a community team, asset ownership becomes better defined... Hopefully. As our team recently found out, you want to consider what would happen if your teams assets are stolen. They aren't covered by your schools insurance anymore. Fortunately/unfortunately we expect ours to be covered by home owners insurance, not the ifeal situation.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

We faced a similar situation last season. At the end of the school year, 2011, our only teacher's program was terminated. Fortunately he was able to stay on as a teacher but we lost our classroom and our build room. We moved everything into storage. We started to seek out our own 501c3, and created our own non-profit with the state. Before beginning the process for the 501c3 we partnered up with our local community foundation. They receive our donations and grants and either purchase or reimburse us. We are still connected to the school so our students still receive excused abscenses. But we do not work at the school. We were able to find some local retail space in a mall that we are leasing at very good discount. We love this because it allows us to be able to actively promote FIRST in the general public as well as provide more opportunities to host events and workshops for the region.

My suggestion would be to at least have a teacher sponsor for the program to maintain that connection, but look for external space for meetings, build, workshops, training, etc.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Unfortunately, our school is not interested in working with us in any way, beyond helping us with recruiting. Therefore, we are unlikely to have problems with recruiting. Our main challenges are finding build space and money (and an organization to manage the money).

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Have you considered, staying and fighting for your right to have a team?
Quite often the decision to drop a program is the misguided opinion of one or two school administrators. You might be able to find support elsewhere in your district and then approach those that are opposed in a positive way. Bringing more people into the conversation may convince the wider community that FIRST is a Win-Win proposition for your school.
You could gather local support and attend a school board meeting. You could enlist the support of other teams, your Regional Director, your parent groups, and make a pitch to those in charge. My advice is to gather allies and positive data then mount a strong and assertive, but respectful campaign, based on facts and results. FIRST and other local teams might be able to provide advice. You are not alone and you might be amazed at the support that you build, by speaking out in a positive way. It seems like you don't have much to lose at this point. Don't give up your school without a fight. It's YOUR school.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

You mean you are allowed to skip school to build robots?

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Jimmy Nichols is on another team, but I assume that it means they can skip school to go to competitions.

Even as a club? Weird.

Well, I can say as a mentor that this is tough. We started in Yuma as a community team partnered with our community college. We had a tiny storage room and a classroom. Luckily my work allowed us to bring the students in and work on the robot. Last year, the community college didn't support us with a space (they never gave us money) so we went looking for high schools. Only one would help us with a room. We had an old lab room and access to the weld shop. That was more than we could ask for. Now this year we are officially their team but still let any schools students join (very important to me). This is the first year we're taking advantage of the tax donations that we never had before.

Hopefully you find a place and well see you at the AZ regional again.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

The very exact incident happened with my last year's rookie team. Let's discuss this over pm and I can put you in touch with the lead mentor from that team.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Have you discussed with school admin why they won't allow funding to pass through the school? I really agree with what Al said. It is YOUR school. You should find out why this decision was made. Our team's school in Philadelphia had no problem running money for us, but were simply unable to give us space. They still supported us even though we worked elsewhere. Definitely find out what went wrong and how it can be fixed for the new season. Even if they can't give you a work space (not an entirely huge deal since you can work out of anyone's garage) they should be helping you pass funds to the team.

If the school administration won't hear you out, go higher up. Contact your school board and get assistance.

Good luck!

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I did a little digging around and reading about your school. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that your school is 'no slouch' and is aspiring to greatness. ( there are plenty of schools satisfied with the status quo ).

If I interpret their website correctly your fundamental problem isn't that they don't support the team. Your team's fundamental problem is the administration doesn't "get it" !!

They probably do not have an understanding of the FIRST mission, why it is important to our future and how the school and students are a part of the solution. They almost certainly view the team as bunch of nerdy hobbyists and do not connect it to national priorities.

They have not gotten the message : from their website

It is your team's responsibility to educate them. I would suggest enlisting a cool headed mentor that is good at communications and ask for their support in conveying the message.

The school measures their success by the academic scores of their student and the college placements they make.

The national stakeholders of FIRST, the over 3,500 companies and Universities that partner with FIRST have another opinion on the subject. And that opinion is that if you are going to make bold statements like on their web page ( listed above ) and it doesn't have FIRST and/or a similar high profile STEM activities listed, then they are just blowing a lot of smoke.

It they were a 'normal' school I could see them they acting the way they do. But if they are going to "talk the talk" then they are going to have to "walk the walk".

Re-think the issue and figure out how to explain it to them.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

To help strengthen the sustainability of your team, the primary focus right now should be in pursuing the non-profit status. Even if you use another program's (example, 4-H) for that, your team must build its own support system to help it handle changes and challenges that occur. Either I have overlooked or I haven't found in your posts, that you have a booster club or group to help your team with fundraising or obtaining sponsors and grants. You can have strong outside support from parents and friends of the team but that support could leave or dwindle when the students graduate. By creating a formal group, it brings added and (hopefully) consistent strength and support to the team, helping with the financial ends of things in setting, managing, and achieving short-term and long-term goals.

Jane

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Thanks for doing the digging on this one, Ed.

It might help you if you present other top schools from the nation who have FRC teams within the school.

Part of the reason why last year it was incredibly difficult for us to operate 3929 at Masterman High School was due to the administration not fully understanding what we could bring to the school. JR Masterman is the #1 ranked school in Pennsylvania by US News and the 14th Magnet school in the country. It took us a whole build season and several awards to show them what the team was capable of bringing into the culture of the school. It also required us having their top ranked students as our team captains. Some schools care so much about their rankings, test results, and reputation, that they are not willing to bring in new programs that may disrupt the current lives and routines of their students.

I know you can also use 469's school as an example, I forget what other highly ranked schools have FRC teams. There is a list somewhere on CD though, if I recall correctly. I'll try to find it and edit this post.

found it - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=79265

Keep in mind, those rankings are a bit arbitrary as posters in that thread said, but it shouldn't stop you from using it to your advantage and showing your school that high ranked schools have FRC teams as well.

Hope that helps!

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I'm a college mentor for 4183. I've been a bit busy the past week or so setting up some work for my senior capstone project, so I haven't been able to keep in touch with the team since we got the news. From hearsay, it appears that the school doesn't want to deal with financing a team whose budget is in the mid 5-digits, as the school is relatively small and most clubs require little resources. So, I do believe that with a little push, we could get our club reinstated with the school.

That said, I've also had time to think about the formation of a 501(c)3 organization. Now, I'm very split on the issue, so I'd like to open the discussion up a little more: would it be more beneficial for a team to continue their affiliation with a school, or create a city-wide non-profit organization open to students from any school (provided both are available options)?

I'm actually leaning towards the non-profit. BASIS, fantastic as it is, doesn't have an enormous need for a FIRST team (almost 100% of students, if not that, make it into college, and quite a few in STEM areas). By forming a local organization, we can recruit students from lower income areas, have more freedom with our finances and work space, and enable the club to exist uncontested. My old FRC team is in their 8th year and now on their 5th teacher sponsor. Although they're still successful, I've noticed the well known teams have a consistent mentor/teacher base that enables them to be stable for much longer periods.

The way I see it, we can either fight for our right to be a team, or we can turn this little push by the administration around and become a much stronger, community-based team. Opinions?

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Treat the administration support and the financial / 501(c)3 items as two different entities.

You want the administration and the whole school to be supportive of the team regardless of how the finances are handled.

There is a broad definition of support. It could be moral, financial, space, or other.

Regarding the financials - the school could make a decision to support your money handling even if they don't care much for the team. There are actually a lot of teams in this position.

If the school doesn't want to handle money, you could probably become a 4-H team and let the local 4-H chapter handle the money. Another agent that might could handle the money is the Community Foundation of Southern Arizon.

Having your own 501(c)3 has its benefits but there is a management overhead that has to be handled. It isn't a license for financial looseness and you will have to properly be prepared to handle money and make annual IRS filings.

Long term having your own 501(c)3 is the way to go but your team has a lot of ducks to get in a row, the 1st being earning support from the school, at least moral support. Having the team and administration being at odds is not a position of 1st resort.

Reading their fact sheet they proudly talk about their alumni going to schools like MIT and current students discussing thermodynamics in class. If there are going to support roller derby, robotics should be a cakewalk.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

FIRST just made a big deal out of an Alliance with Boys and Girls Club, you might try that route. I'm working to start a team at our local branch and they are being very accomodating so far.

Good luck,

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Our school has never provided us with 5 figure financial support. They do provide a minor stipend for 2 adults (less than a single season JV coach each) to help stabilize the teacher liaison and establish a chain of command for the school administration to work with. They have also been generous with bus transportation expenses and serve as a clearing house for some of the financial donations we receive. Most of the finances for the team come from corporate donations, grants, and student fundraising initiatives.

I'd stick with the school if you can bring in outside donations to finance the team. They are already a rallying point for the community and a recruiting platform for new members.

(Last year the school district did outlay a large amount of capital to provide a stable build facility the team could use year round. This only came after the team demonstrated stability, passion, and success for the program.)

We had 4 different head coaches in our first 4 years. All of them are still supportive of the program, but for one reason or another needed to change their role or association with the team. The key for us was finding ways to spread out the responsibilities so that no 1 person got burned out and give people who are passionate in an area the autonomy to make that part of the program great. We've had the same head coach for 3 years in a row now and it does make a positive difference.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Our school didn't give us tens of thousands of dollars. It only acted as a bank for them.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Ed B. makes a very good point about separating the concepts of school support and money. They are related but very different.
There are so many things you can obtain by gaining the support of your school that go beyond finances.
Requests for local bus transportation, time off from classes or a work space will be valid requests if you remain a part of your school culture. You may not get everything you ask for this season, but you will gain a little bit of ground each year. That is what we have done at our school.
Our strong support is the result of 14 years of very organized "nagging". :)

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Stay in your school. Looking at my own team as an example, recruiting is many times easier from in a school. We are based exclusively out of Brandon High School, but we also accept students from Holly High School. We still go do demos and push the administration as much as we can at Holly, but we only have about five Holly students out of thirty on the team, most likely because of a lack of presence. Brandon, while not quite a supportive student body, has much more chance to get exposed through our display cases and word of mouth from students and our two affiliated teachers, plus our official school demos.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Correct our students receive excused abscenses for attending competitions.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

Sorry for the thread revival, but an update on the fate of Team 4183:

Up until a little more than two weeks ago, we planned on being a community team. Our money would go through a nonprofit organization run by one of our mentors and we would build at this mentor's house. We have been fairly successful so far this season, as we have raised enough money to attend two regional events and recruited about 17 members, mostly from BASIS, but also from other Tucson schools. We are in the process of forming a dedicated robotics nonprofit that should be ready for next season.

However, we recently received a generous offer from Palo Verde High Magnet School, an engineering magnet school. This year, they are starting a new FRC team and they invited us to build and collaborate with them. The two teams will share two classrooms, a storage space, and probably the school's machine shop. This arrangement will also allow us to use tax credit donations to buy parts. I expect this arrangement will be very beneficial to both teams involved, as we will be able to work with Palo Verde to help both of us build more successful robots.

So basically, the story of 4183 so far ends with a :D.

Re: Advice for a team that has lost its school
 

I look forward to seeing you at the AZ Regional!