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White House Petition for FIRST Funding
Greetings,
The students of FIRST team 1086: Blue Cheese has logged a petition with the President of the United States to help make FIRST teams available to all high school student in the United States. Getting 150 signatures make it public on the "We the People" website. Please take a moment and sign our Petition and share it Social Media Encourage the federal funding of FIRST robotics programs in every school in the United States. wh.gov/EQk7 Quote:
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Encouragement for the Federal Government to fund FIRST robotics in all schools
A bit off topic for week 2 of the 2013 build season, but I ran across this and thought I might share
http://wh.gov/EQk7 The link is to sign a Whitehouse.gov petition for the funding of FIRST in every school in the United States. Sign if you are interested, every single person helps! Edit: Sorry for starting a second thread! Thank you for condensing it! |
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You should have started this yesterday. Today, they changed the signature threshold to earn a response from 25 000 to 100 000.
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yeah, we didn't notice the change. The new goal is a bit high. However, if a small fraction of the students who have gone through the program and the adults who have seen the positive affects FIRST has on young people sign this petition, we will get there. Please, Share this link on social Media: Facebook, twitter, Etc.
Link to Facebook http://www.facebook.com/frc1086 |
Re: White House Petition for FIRST Funding
73 signatures in 12 hours. 77 more and it goes live on the website. Who is going to be the 150th signer?
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Word has it that the Simbots have touched the lives a million or more people. This should be a piece of cake.
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Be careful what you wish for. Many federal funding grants comes with HUGE strings and reporting guidliness attached. The red tape can be overwhelming.
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I am sorry but I don't see the constitutional mandate for the federal government to fund First Teams. If you started down this road, where would it stop?
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The thought process of our team was this: We had millions of people talking about the government funding a Death Star and had the WH reply to that petition. Heck there were blogs saying that it would be a great way to spur economic growth! Why not use this tool to promote FIRST? It's far more relevant and just as cool as the Death Star. |
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I'm going to be a wet blanket here.
This is a terrible idea. (cue angry looks and cries of outrage... read on and then hit the neg rep button) Let's talk growth - In the last 2 years JC Penny was heavily involved in funding teams. They gave schools money for the KoP and that's it. Our growth numbers were great. Lots of rookie teams. Pats on the back for everyone, yay us. The bad thing with all of those teams was that they had money for registration for an event. They didn't have money for additional parts. They didn't have mentors. They didn't have tools. What's more, FIRST didn't/doesn't have the resources they need to train new lead mentors. So we ended up with this group of teams who showed up to their regional with no bumpers, or with their motors wired directly to their battery, or who just never show up because they got discouraged. Now, a lot of us don't see why this is bad. But then, you've never spent 6 weeks fighting with a system in your teacher's garage only to never have it work. You've never gone to an event and been struggling to move while the uber elite team next to you has this professionally built machine. It's bloody discouraging. So, what's the problem? They don't come back. Big deal right? They weren't the type of students we were looking for? Screw that, we just created a whole new group of students and mentors and parents who say "math and science is too hard for me". Instead of changing the culture we've perpetuated it. We've moved backwards. So, how do we solve it? We change our focus, we stop focusing on growth. We need to focus on sustainability. We need to focus on helping teams build sustainable models for funding, for leadership, for recruiting, and for sponsors. I hate seeing rookie teams form and fail in short spans. FIRST is hard. It's supposed to be. We can't keep giving people a check and expecting them to succeed. We need to stop this model. It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a community to build a FIRST team. |
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This petition is not meant to get that funding. It is a tool to get the conversation started about the importance of STEM in our country's future. |
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Good points andrew.
However, what about he teams that do have the mentors, but barely have enough money to go to the regional and build a robot. They apply to those grants and sponsorships and often they dont get it. The way I see it it is another way to fundraise and to promote science and technology and FIRST in this country. If this administration wants to help education and increase STEM education in schools, they should consider this petition. It is our responsibily to get 100,000 signers, if every team gets maybe 50 people to sign it we could very well get over that number. Andrew it is great that JC Penney gives out grants to those teams but FIRST is a learning experiece, most teams do horrible in their rookie season. They return stronger the next season because they know have the experience on how to build a robot in a given time constraint. We can do this, it is a great idea in my opinion. |
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Speaking as an adult, I think one of the best things we can do for the next generation is stop borrowing money that they, not we, will have to pay back.
This might be a great thing were there money in hand to pay for it, but there's not. As with any new spending, every marginal dollar would be borrowed. If engineers cannot appreciate that there's no free lunch, who can? Sorry. The thought is worthy, but the idea is ultimately bad. No support here. |
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EDIT: As for the criticism, I can understand those thoughts, but I think it's still a great idea to fund education. The government education is underfunded as it is, but that's another conversation for another day, and not for Chief Delphi. I support the idea despite the criticism. |
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If you want to help fix some of this problem... document EVERYTHING. Show how much it costs. Show how hard you work. Show the hours you put in. Show the partnerships you have had to form. And if you don't know how? ASK. Then get out in your community, work with your RDs and your Senior Mentors. If you want to spread FIRST spread the wealth of knowledge NOT just money. Maybe instead of focusing on getting the White House to fund teams we should get them to bring HoF teams back in. Maybe we should have them bring in WFA winners for debates on STEM education policy. And I fear that any federal funding would exacerbate this problem to the point of over-saturation of teams. FIRST is a plant, a living organism. What happens if you water a plant too much? We need to grow smart not grow fast. |
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Not a bad idea, but such a petition might be better served targeting something like "co-curricular STEM activities" with a nice overview explanation, as opposed to targeting a single entity (non-profit or program) no matter how cool it may be.
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I will not avoid saying that I look forward to the inevitable, creative rejection letter that will be received if this petition earns enough signatures to merit a response, like most other wh.gov petitions have earned. /s |
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Just to be clear, I've never been behind the idea of aimlessly throwing money-bombs at FIRST. In the past two years, Virginia (the state in which 1086 and 422 operate) has netted +2 FRC teams, but has had 9 rookies register. That means we lost seven teams that last competed in 2011 or 2012. One of the teams was the RAS at Virginia and the Highest Rookie Seed on Galileo. I have actually sat in a room with people and I just kept asking the questions "What are we doing wrong? Why aren't we doing enough?" Because it is obvious we are not doing enough. Virginia veterans are not doing enough to support rookie teams. The Mid-Atlantic does not set exemplary examples you see in the Midwest, Northeast, Michigan, California, Texas, New England, and Canada, and it's something that needs to be fixed even though I have neither the time nor physical availability or training to help. I'm just throwing that out there. I shot off a bunch of emails to rookies last year, only heard back from two, and both said they were fine. Only 1 still exists. Whether it be at a global, regional, or state board, or team, we are doing something wrong and throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it, that much I know. We try to plant trees in the desert. There may be enough money to throw together for a rookie KOP and registration fee, but there are improper human resources, improper or incomplete preparation or training, and a host of other things. Granted, nothing can prepare you for a rookie FRC season, but in trying to spread the gospel of FIRST, we try to sell a product some school districts and communities can't buy yet for a variety of reasons. FIRST is important to us. It's important to me. When we start teams that just aren't ready to exist yet, they will fail, and when the time comes for a team to GROW there instead of just come into existence at the fling of some veteran team's wand and a trickle of cash, it won't happen. Why would the community want to get burned again by robotics? The whole organization is doubtlessly on the precipice of a huge boom. The students who participated in the beginning of the modern era of FRC are now employed, settling down, and may be looking to mentor a team (and 1114 and 2056 can tell you what FIRST alumni-mentors can do to a program). The American economy is starting to actually perk back up. The organizational infrastructure of FIRST is shifting the competition structure to prepare and enable us for this. This isn't a time to push for inorganic and possibly disruptive or destructive growth. That's all, I guess. |
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While I agree that the discussion is inherently political and pretending otherwise is a bit silly, I'll let that go to say this:
I'm inclined to agree that the focus should be on sustainability, and not expansion. Our non-profit has created two FRC teams in three years, one of which fell apart after one year due to reasons that had nothing to do with money or build space or even mentors, while the other is going strong and building wonderfully. Invite parents and students from other schools into your team for a year, or two, or three, or five. When they are ready -- with experienced mentors and students, eager sponsors, build space, tools, etc, spin them off into their own team where they can recruit a bunch of rookies from their own school/town/community. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that this kind of organic growth will in the long run be much more successful than showing up at a school with a pile of money and saying, "Hey, who wants to build robots?" The current method is a bit too Darwinian for my tastes. |
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as of the time of this post: 165 signers. The first hurddle, and by far the easiest has been completed.
Thanks to Jeremy G, from Lancaster, CA, for getting us over the hump! |
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36 hours into it and and we have over 400 signers. Not bad :-)
If you are so inclined, please post the link on your teams Facebook page and twitter feeds. |
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I don't think limiting to FIRST is such a good idea. There are other robotics programs that schools should be able to participate in.
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Now I don't want to get all political or controversial here, but...
I must agree with what some are saying. I don't like the idea of federal funding for multiple reasons. First off, yes, FIRST is incredible and (proper) growth is excellent. But I don't think the government should be paying for it. Now I'm no expert, and I'm probably about the farthest from, but I think we should be cutting spending, not adding to it. I think if we want growth, we as teams that already exist need to get out there and facilitate it. Just my two cents. |
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Wow. Lots of piling on here. Let's all take a step back and breathe.
Nobody's writing a bill here. Just a note to the White House that says, "Hey, we like this thing, it helps us and it helps our future, and we wouldn't mind it if some of our tax dollars went this way." It's not a mandate, it's not a demand. It's a suggestion. If nothing else, it will perk up the White House's ears a bit and let them see that these programs - which they know about; we've sent teams there and a few presidents have appeared on broadcasts - are still around, are still viable, and are worthy of consideration for federal funding. Maybe they'll come out and say, "You know what, this program is great, but we already do fund it through NSF and NASA grants" - and that's fine because that means they're thinking about it, talking about it, addressing it, and the first step to culture change, or any successful marketing campaign, is creating Top Of Mind Awareness. Add another signature to the list. |
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I agree with many of the criticisms raised and if this was actually possibly going to become law I wouldn't vote for it. However, the history of responses on this website shows that it is just a way to get some kind of response from the government and spread awareness of an issue. I signed. :)
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I had been interested in an idea similar to this. I called it:
"Mentor Match". If your program was an approved Mentorship Program, then mentors could apply for a Federal Match when filing for their taxes. The match would be an exemption that would be the equivalent of up to the minimum wage value x 200 Hrs. maximum. For instance, if you make $20/hour of $40K/year, your federal income tax rate is probably on the order of 10%. 200 hours = $4,000 deduction which would in turn be paid to your charity to the tune of $400. Assuming a minimum wage of $7/hr, then the cap would be $1,400. This would be the approximate deduction for someone making $100k/year or more (At $100K your income tax rate is around 14%, 200 hours at $50/hr = $10,000 * 14%= $1,400). My thought was to keep it fairly general in the sense of "Mentorship Programs" so that programs like Big Brother Big Sisters, Scouts, 4-H, .... Might be able to get some additional benefit from the hours a Mentor provides. |
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As many people have stated, the best thing about this is the potential to get people taking about FIRST, people who haven't heard of it before, possible future mentors & coaches. We have a new mentor for 1086 this year who had not heard of the program until his coworker's daughter joined our team and she told him about it.
I also coach FLL & previously Jr.FLL, which I did not do until my daughter joined 1086 and then through that exposure, my 7 year old son DEMANDED to participate as well. So I, who had not heard of FIRST until then, started a team. Getting people to talk about it is how we will find all the resources we need to support all the children who could benefit and thrive in this program. The greatest thing I think would be when I do not have to explain what FIRST is to my son's new teacher each year or the parents of the kids who hear about it and want to join or my coworkers. We all know what someone refers to when they say their kid is in Little League, First should be at least as well recognized. |
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I'd say that it needs to be capped though (to reduce abuse & address fiscal issues), and the audit trail needs to be standardized. I know I put in 500-700 hours a year into overall mentorship activities, and at my hourly rate that would be quite a chunk of change in deductions as well as quite a nightmare to track/audit/verify. It'd give incentives to people who mentor. That is, IMO, the biggest hurdle to FRC team sustainability. Individual team funding will come with that, eventually. |
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I'm all for spreading the word of FIRST, it's a great method of advancing STEM in our school systems. IMHO the fastest way to spread the FIRST programs is through an existing partnership...GOOGLE. I've been quite dumbfounded seeing and hearing what GOOGLE does for FIRST and then championships come and go without a robotic mention on their homepage.
A petition to have FIRST highlighted during championships on GOOGLEs homepage would be awesome. |
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http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...80&postcount=1 |
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