Two school, One team
 

Hello Chief Delphi community

I was wondering, how many team out thier have students from other schools, and if so are the school within the same district, or other district nearby.
I was wondering how those teams did it with mulitple school within one team

Re: Two school, One team
 

Teams 1647 and 2729 both are teams that have students that come from other schools. The schools are all in the same district of 4 high schools. (2 going to 1647 and 2 going to 2729) It was basically an expansion call on our administration and with the main sponsor that opened up the program to the 3 other schools in the district. This all occurred in 2009 and if you're looking for someone to share explicit details nlknauss (Nate Knauss) on Chief would be the man to go to for more information regarding the formation of the two teams.

Re: Two school, One team
 

We are 3 schools one team but I think I am still within the topic at hand

Our "main" and original school we have 20 current students which entails the entire student leadership

Our second school is where we get 7 students, our teacher sponsor, our tax code, and our bank account

Our third school which just joined us this past season is a private school which we have 4 students from, and is the only one to be a monetary sponsor

(We also have 2 students from a charter school in the area, 3 home schooled, 2 from a religious school, though we do not directly recruit from these groups so I don't include them in the count)

The reason I listed as I did above is because each of our 3 schools provides us with different things and are within 4 miles of each other so it is not a problem of commuting. I hope the information I provided was of some use to you. If not maybe a question more specific than "How do we do it?" could be provided

Re: Two school, One team
 

The school district I teach in does not restrict students going to another school's team if they school does not have one as all students are covered by the district's liability insurance regardless of which school they attend.

You will find that many teams are community or school district based and have selected a base school as a function of convenience.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Our team has members from the 5 schools in the Fremont Unified School District.

As for how we do "it", there are a few different obstacles that we overcame.

One was that of insurance; our schools (although in the same district) apparently have different insurance policies, thus barring a school-specific club from having members from different schools. Fortunately for us, our head mentor is also the founder of a non-profit, whose insurance covers us.
Also, if you're district allows it, you could make a district-wide club to cover this issue.

Another was that of a meeting space. At first, we held the meetings in our team captain's garage, but then we secured a space at a local University. Unfortunately, it is not a central location, but other wise it is great as it causes the team to be more of a "district team" rather a "school team".


If you need any other specific info, please say so.

Re: Two school, One team
 

We currently have students from around 10 schools from up to an hour away. They're split between one full school district (3 schools) and various other public and charter schools in that and other districts throughout our county.

Were there any specific questions you had in mind?

Re: Two school, One team
 

68 is currently located at Brandon High School in Brandon Township; however we also have 3 students from Holly High School nearby.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Spectrum is comprised from students from two different schools. St. Agnes Academy (all girls) and Strake Jesuit College Prep (all boys). Luckily the two schools are next to each other but they are completely different private school organizations so we have two different administrations and schools boards to keep happy. So far it has worked out extremely well and the program wouldn't work if each school had their own team.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Both teams I have worked with have been had multiple schools feed into them.

2410 was a school district team, but also involved private schools for which the students lived within the district boundaries.

159 involves a few (not sure on the #) different schools in the city of Fort Collins.

The process for having a team like this is very much the same as for a team out of only one school.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Our team is located in a school district that has three public high schools. There are also two private high schools, and a few charter schools located within the boundaries of the district.

We have always maintained a policy of inclusiveness, and welcome students from any of the schools. This year we have students from all three public schools and one of the private schools. Previous years have had students from some of the other schools, and we have also welcomed members from outside the district and did not have access to a team. The makeup changes every year.

During the fall, we hold recruitment events at all three public schools and sometimes at the private schools. We also try to rotate the team meetings around to all three public schools, as we have better access there than at the private schools. Once build season is underway, we work exclusively from one of the schools where we have our storage space and access to shop facilities.

This year we have teacher mentors from two of the public high schools, and also from the district-wide Project Lead The Way team, which teaches combined classes that are held at a local Jr. college.

We have, and have had, student leadership from all the schools. One of the great things I enjoy about the team is that unless they happen to be wearing something that indicates their school affiliation, I can't tell or remember who goes to school where.

The biggest problem we have had to overcome has been communication with the students spread across multiple buildings. It's especially hard at the schools where we do not have teacher mentors in place. So we primarily communicate using a combination of email distribution lists, text messages, and a FaceBook group, as it seems that no one method reaches everyone.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Team 1676 has two schools in the same district participating.

It gets done without much additional effort, aside from carpooling during build season to get to the one school where we meet and work. Although the schools are theoretically rivals (the Cowboys and the Indians), the reality is that the students from both schools get along well (and not just in robotics).

Our biggest problem (literally) is the huge number of students who want to be on the team. We only have room for about 75, so those not showing real interest and enthusiasm are asked to stay home. Politely.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Exploding Bacon has students from 10 different schools and homeschoolers. The way we did it was to become a 4-H team. We have our own insurance, our own checking account and no one can tell us we can't go somewhere because of testing.

We keep all the principals of all our schools informed by way of a bi-monthly newsletter. Some schools even invite us to come bring the robots out to their schools. Some even come to competitions. It is the best of both worlds for them, no cost or commitment but something they can offer to their students.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Our team has always been open to any students from anywhere. We say we're from "Greater Sydney Area High Schools," but our first year we had participation from a group in Melbourne. (They later went on to form Team Melbourne, the first FRC team in their state.)

At the moment we're from over 20 schools throughout the Western/Inner West/Northern/Northern Beaches/North Shore areas of Sydney including public, selective, private, and homeschooled students.

Re: Two school, One team
 

If I may ask what is a 4-H team?

Intresting, has anyone ran into problem thier first year, I would assume that the school would have to coordinate transportation to bring the students

Re: Two school, One team
 

If I may ask what is a 4-H team?

Intresting, has anyone ran into problem thier first year, I would assume that the school would have to coordinate transportation to bring the students, is thier more issue of bringing students from other school district

Re: Two school, One team
 

Hello,
Good way to find out about the relationship between 4-H and FIRST would be to go here: http://www.explodingbacon.com/4-h-and-first/

We run independently of the schools that our students go to (think club sports team vs a high school sports team) so all of our students are either brought by their parents, carpool in, or drive themselves to wherever we happen to be meeting.

The one big problem we've run into is a lack of a home, we've built in 5 different spaces and store all of our stuff in a storage unit or garage during the off season. 4-H provides our team with meeting space during the off season but unfortunately they cannot give us a build or storage space.

We're working to solve this problem.

I hope this helped, feel free to post or message if you have any questions.

Re: Two school, One team
 

I know that the Kauaibots team 2465 from the island of Kauai here in Hawaii consists of all the high school on their island.

Kauaibots - "Building geniuses island-wide"
Founded in the fall of 2007, Kauibots has competed in FIRST Robotics Competition season 2008 and 2009. We are gearing up for our third competitive season. Because of the size and location of Kauai (the westmost Hawaiian island), our team draws members from every high school on the island. Some of our team travels over an hour to participate with the rest of the team.

Re: Two school, One team
 

yes thank you for the link, im gonna check it out

Now the insurance part, how would that work? would the district with the team be responsible, or would the two district have to get together and work it out? What would be the best route to avoid having any issue over this?

Re: Two school, One team
 

Same here. We're a 4H team but our single biggest problem at the moment outside of funding is a place to build. Last season we built inside the Parks and Rec maintenance building but during the spring/summer/fall they're using it so it's absolutely full with fertilizer and other stuff. All our equipment is in the metal caged-off portion for storage, which certainly works better than our previous arrangement, but we can't really do any off-season build projects without anywhere to work.

Re: Two school, One team
 

1038 has students from 4 different schools within the same district, 2 High Schools and 2 Freshman Schools. We also have students from a nearby school district and a home schooled student from near Dayton. We have always had an open-door policy for students who did not have a team in their school.

We currently work at a local mall, we have our own store that we lease and use as our build and meeting space. We also use it to showcase FIRST and our team to the public. We carry our own insurance since we do not work at the school. We still house some of our funds at the school for those sponsors who only want to donate to the school. But we also started a non-profit group that manages a Fund through the our local Community Foundation that is a 501(c)3.

Re: Two school, One team
 

4-H can help with insurance if you work through them. I believe they use American Income Life.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Team 447 in the last few years has operated with all school districts within Madison County though the majority of our students are from Anderson High School. We have had as many as 7 high schools represented before on our team in a season. It does create an interesting communication challenge between the team and the schools, but we never have had any problems with this setup. Additionally, we used to meet at a school within the Anderson district but have since found a local business that has allowed us access to their building. We are also an explorer's troop with the Boy Scouts and have insurance through them. To manage our funds we are grouped with Madison County Community Foundation (a 501c3).

Re: Two school, One team
 

294 has been doing two different--and might I add, rival--schools on one team since 1998. I don't know much about how they work, so I can't comment on that, but they do have 2 World Championships to their credit (2001, 2010) so they must be doing something right.

Prior to that, teams 294, 207, and 330 were on the same team; I remember hearing something about 4+ different schools in 3+ different districts being a bit of an administrative nightmare, which is why there are now three teams.

Re: Two school, One team
 

1918 is a county team and is open to all schools within the county, including home school. We have members from four public schools and a christian school. There is only one school district in our county that we do not have students representation. We operate under Newaygo County Regional Educational Service Agency. We meet at the Career Tech Center. Works out real well.

Re: Two school, One team
 

We are pulling from 4 different Districts this year As attempts to form teams at these other Districts have been met with resistance from Administrators. Our Hope is that this will drive home to those Districts the realization that they have enough student interest. The financial constraints of small Districts is a big fear to overcome. We are doing what we need to to get these students into the FIRST program. Parental support has been tremendous. I feel this will sway administrators.

Re: Two school, One team
 

1189 is comprised of students from both high schools in the same school district. Due to district restrictions, we could not accept students from other area high schools (public or private), but one of the local private schools has formed their own team (3175).

For us*, it isn't very difficult at all to operate with students from two schools. In Fall 2009, we moved our build space from one school to the other, and since then the amount of students coming in from each school has been pretty balanced (there used to be a severe deficit of students from the school with the old build space). I don't know if it was a district policy or just a coincidence, but we also got a new faculty advisor that worked at the new school. If forms had to be turned in to the school somewhere between meetings, we would designate one person from each school to collect them and turn them in at once, but we gradually moved towards releasing the forms far enough in advance so that they could be turned in during meetings.

For banking, I believe that we had one account with the district, but if we needed to talk to someone about getting a check or whatnot, the advisor talkled with the appropriate people at the school they taught at.

One of the challenges is recruiting evenly at all of the schools you have participants from. You may not get the same amount of interest from every school, but it is still probably best to give students in the same district an equal opportunity to get involved with the team.

As with all things involving schools, your mileage may vary. School districts can be finicky, especially if you cross district lines.


*Okay, I'm alum, but from what I've heard from and observed of the current team and its operations, not much has changed.

Re: Two school, One team
 

S.P.A.M is the FRC team for the Martin County (FL) High School District. We are as inclusive as we can be under the school district rules, and include 3 county high schools, a charter school and home schoolers. There have been instances in the past where students who were county residents, but attended private schools outside the county, were also team members. The number of students from each school varies widely from year to year. The high schools are sports rivals, but that seems to melt away as we collaborate for the FRC season.

Our shop is an old, converted storage shed on the South Fork H.S. campus. It was given to the team by the County School board around the end of 2000. They poured a concrete floor and added A/C and electrical service. Our original sponsor - Pratt and Whitney - donated a Bridgeport mill, lathe, band saw and drill press. Prior to that, S.P.A.M had the problem of never having a permanent build space. Our financial account is held by the school district through the South Fork school administration.

We only have a ~10' x 15' space for driving in the shop. Each year we go to the South Fork administration for permission to schedule gym time for field set-up and practice. We have rolled carpet for a ~1/2 field and build the game pieces for as simple set up and tear down as we can. Getting gym time is a challenge, since it is also winter sports season.

To operate under the school district, we need a Martin School District representative (ie employee) present any time we meet or travel. Most of the mentors - engineers or NEMO's - work outside the school district so, we recruit teacher mentors from each of the schools. Together they can share
their time so we can meet during the grind of build season. In the past it has been quite a challenge to recruit teachers to support the team. Fortunately, we have had a very helpful group that "get it" the last few years, and we have profited as a team from their commitment.

Re: Two school, One team
 

My high school team, Team 176, is officially associated with two rival high schools, Suffield and Windsor Locks High Schools. Our build space is at WLHS, and our scrimmage is hosted at SHS every year. We have 2 advisers, one from each associated high school. Also, Aside from pulling approximately 35 students from SHS and WHLS, we accept another 15 or so students from local private schools and home schools. Schools which are not officially associated with our team do not have teacher representation on the team, however many parents of students from outside schools join the team as mentors.

In 2012 we had a total of 53 students from Suffield High School, Windsor Locks High School, The Master's School (private), Metropolitan Learning Center, Ellington High School, and a home school.

Re: Two school, One team
 

WildStang has always been a team of more than one school. The team name is a combination of the Wheeling HS Wildcats and Rolling Meadows HS Mustangs. For the past many years, team members come from several District 214 schools and home school students in our area.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Team 456 - Siege Robotics accepts applications from any student in our area that wishes to apply. We have team members from both public and private schools as well as home school. This works well in our small town and everyone benefits. We are held up as an example of how the public and private schools can work together. As others have pointed out, the only issue revolves around communication. We just can't make an "announcement" at one school and cover all the bases. There is a lot of email, phone calls, text messaging, facebook, etc. to reach everyone on our team but we make it work.

Re: Two school, One team
 

Wow thank you guys for all yalls input and advice, so i see it pertty common for teams to have more than 1 or 2 schools in one team

Now i was wondering if anyone has ever had another school shadow yall for the a season just so that they can see how a team is run, and to find out if they are willing to take the plunge into the FRC world?

Re: Two school, One team
 

Team 100 has 3 schools. In 1995 we were just Woodside, but in 2002 or 2003 Carlmont joined, and then in 2007 or 2008 Sequoia joined. In the last year we've started to get a few from Summit Charter School as well (though we're not sure if we want to openly recruit from charter schools yet). The proportion of students from each school fluctuates a lot depending on the year, but it works out well. We don't have a crazy number of students despite having a pool of 6000 to pull from. Right now, we have ~70 students on our official roster, of which ~40 consistently come to work sessions. Usually that 70 will drop by the time build season starts, when many of those extra students have realized they don't want to join the team.