Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

This response is so late that I feel bad but roughly speaking yeah a teams resources should be going to growing themselves instead of advertising the benefits of FRC.
FRC has the ability to represent itself better then any group of students (come at me people who disagree) because the people in FRC have better points of contact in industries where if we got more support we would be better off. If we grow the relations between the real world and FRC then a team has a better platform and more support to stand on. If companies more actively came out and sponsored teams as opposed to teams going to companies that sends a pretty strong message. That says this company supports what we are doing, a business is investing actual time or money into these students (or both). That is some great evidence for a school board or a parent who goes "what have you been doing after school?". That would mean that the small team of 5 students and some crazy mentor have some real solid proponents and advocates that help when dealing with naysayers.

IMO...

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

Like the FIRST Senior Mentor position, you mean?

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

For those not interested in doing the digging:
http://www.firstinspires.org/senior-mentors

"FIRST® Senior Mentors (FSMs) are a group of highly skilled and talented technical and non-technical individuals, who focus on recruiting, supporting and expanding all four FIRST programs. Founded in 2005, the FIRST Senior Mentor program prides itself in its cross-program, grass-roots approach...."

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I posted this because:
We do not have them in Michigan (to my knowledge), so I didn't know there was such a thing until probably 2012 (after 7 years of involvement in FRC).

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

I understand your general rhetoric, but I'm still having trouble seeing how anything changes in reality. Are you saying you think FIRST HQ needs to attempt to recruit sponsors to help various individual teams?

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

What I interpret it as saying is: FIRST should have companies that would be willing to consider sponsoring FRC team(s) make it more obvious that they will consider it. When you are seeking out sponsors, it is usually easier to get a sponsorship from a place that you have a 'way in', or direct connection to (i.e. parent or mentor works there, etc.). But if the company is willing to consider sponsoring FRC team(s), then FIRST could help make it so that saying "I'm from FRC team ####" can be your 'way in'. Not sure if that makes sense, but that's my interpretation.

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

One person for a large number of teams is not very much "institutional support."

The problem with placing the onus of finding money and mentors (especially mentors) entirely on teams is that it results in a "rich get richer" system. Teams that are struggling to scramble enough resources to produce a working robot at the end of build season naturally do not tend to have overflowing spare time with which to pursue acquiring new resources. On the other hand, teams that have a comfortable amount of resources and lots of spare manpower can spend quite a bit of time hunting down new mentors and sources of funding.

It is tempting to appeal to the "well, if you want to do well, work harder!" line of rhetoric (and I have seen many people do so), but this fundamentally ignores the fact that teams that are struggling and at risk of collapse often have mentors who are overworked in the first place. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I took a semester off from my undergraduate education and loaned a large chunk of money out of my pocket just to keep 4464 afloat in 2015. I burned out pretty badly as is. It was not reasonable to expect me to hunt for mentors to replace ones who had left, or even to search for my own replacement for future years. My hands were full.

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

As Alan mentioned earlier, I think the pilot funding model that PNW introduced this year is a great first step towards this "institutional support". By simplifying the cash flow model through teams/local FIRST organizations/HQ, FIRSTWA was better equipped to fundraise on the behalf of the teams. Looking at the registration fees that PNW teams paid this year, there was a substantial benefit.

Yes, this only addresses the monetary aspect, but I think it's a good starting point.

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

I agree this is a problem, or at least a symptom of a problem.

Do you have a method in mind for accomplishing what you would like to see change?

Do you think what I suggested (suggestion) (or paynetrain's two-divisions suggestion) would take a big bite out of this reason why teams struggle?

Blake

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

So.... like the NASA grants?

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

How many FIRST Senior Mentors would you want in order to call it sufficient support? This past season, I think there were enough to average one for about every 65 teams.

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

Keep in mind that the FIRST Senior Mentor program is for every program FLL Jr. through FRC. So that number might be a little small :)

On a personal note, there are more teams in MN between the 4 programs than I have time to support. I do everything in my power to do so but at the end of the day I do need sleep. In an ideal world, we would have many more FSMs.

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

I can imagine, but not realistically expect FIRST HQ, or any other entity I know about, will be able to hire "enough".

Oblarg might have a different expectation.

Seems like recently posted data showed about 8% of roughly 3000 teams dropping out of FRC annually. If most of those are teams that wanted to stay but couldn't because of too much struggling, and if FIRST HQ wanted to have someone meet with each once every two weeks throughout a 26? 52? week period...

Back of the envelope says:
8% of 3000-ish teams = 240 FRC teams to be helped.
Traveling to visit 8 FRC teams every 2 weeks = Visitor's rate
(240 FRC teams every 2 weeks) / (8 FRC teams every 2 weeks / visitor) = 30 visitors.

Employing 30 people on the road across North America, and a few other parts of the world, for 26? 52? weeks per year to try to prevent 8% of the FRC teams from leaving the program would be a huge expense, and might not have a large effect.

Also, what I roughed out above would not give any special attention to the remaining 17% (510) FRC teams that would be in the bottom quartile (in terms of team "health") each year.

Maybe investing in online classes, and similar training/help would give a bigger total ROI, and consume a smaller total investment?

Blake

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

1/regional, plus an additional 1 per 50 teams in a district, would be the bare minimum, I'd think, if it was just FRC. And I do mean bare minimum (it's not uncommon to find 3 FSMs at a single SoCal regional of 40-60 teams--and at least two of the same three at a different SoCal regional a week later).

The problem is that when you add FTC, FLL, and JrFLL, a 1:50 ratio rapidly turns into more like 1:200+. Not all teams will need the FSM's help (and the "smaller" teams are more likely to be able to get 3-4 teams helped at once, courtesy of often having 3-4 teams per school), but even so, the poor FSM is trying to coordinate help to way too many teams. If you were to call it a 1:100 ratio across the board, you might be able to get there... but that's a LOT of FSMs, something like 300 for FRC alone.



My thought would be to, in addition to adding FSMs, have various "instructional" videos on various ways to find funding, mentors, facilities, and other things that teams need.


I also like the idea of an early simple robot. Concept: Teams who opt for the kitbot in their KOP have it shipped to them and are allowed to build it immediately, and use it in competition that season as their drivebase. Teams that don't opt for the kitbot would have to wait for Kickoff to build stuff for competition. Basically, you got drivetrain going right away, you got 6 weeks to build the superstructure and make it work. (Or...not. BLT robots work too, now you got 16 weeks of driver practice!)

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

Little bit of both well minus picking favorite teams.
If FIRST was more mainstream, if more people heard about it, if companies took FIRST seriously getting sponsors would be a lot easier for any team. It would shift the appeal to sponsors away from what impact a team has made and move it to "oh you guys are with FIRST sponsoring someone in FIRST is a smart decision cause of how good the program is."
If FIRST was more mainstream and more prominent in its impact with the world, more schools would be open to the program, and more schools wouldn't just view having a FIRST team as a money sink and a legal risk.
If FIRST was mainstream it would be a lot more likely that teams would have helping coming to them.
I'm not saying being part of FIRST should make us entitled to help, I'm saying that if FIRST was a household name, and taken more seriously it would promote an environment where growing is easier.

FIRST needs to step up its presence on social media, and general presence to the public. It isn't a shocker that people don't take FIRST teams seriously when they don't understand what FIRST is or frankly even know about it.

The other thing FIRST needs to do is towards its clients towards the teams it needs to find a better way to deliver information to where it is needed. Teams shouldn't be coming to chief delphi for information FIRST is supposed to be in charge of distributing. Its dumb, the best way to deliver content about your product isn't through someone elses website. Even those of us who participate in FIRST people like me who aren't "hardcore" not knowing resources exist is kind of weird.

An interesting aspect to point out about the community is that FIRST doesn't have a decent wikia (which I find hilarious). With a community this large you think someone would have thrown together a wikia for FIRST. Most video game communities come together and get a solid reference point and factual database done for a video game in like a year. Yet somehow nobody has spearheaded a top level FIRST wikia where we centralize useful information taking some of the burden off of FIRST to distribute said information...

Re: What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?
 

Every year I have been involved in FIRST, I learn about a new piece of documentation or document repository that I've never heard of previously that has been around for more than a few years. FIRST as a whole needs to sort out the documentation process and library/catalog. It's a mess. In fairness to FIRST, they know it is a mess based on the conversations I've had and there are plans to work on it. I'm not convinced putting out all of the documentation in a single place will make teams more sustainable but it will help with the headache of constant searching and data collection.