Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

I am on a FRC and FTC team, both run through thier own 501C and has no outside funding or help from a school. I've never been oin school run team and I don't know how the run compared to a neighborhood team. I do feel as if we often have a advantage to other school teams.

Some examples would inculde : Not going through the school for funds, ordering parts faster, being able to meet whenever, accepting more sponsors, not having to deal with permission for travel / hotels.

So I'm curious. Do you feel like there is an advantage one way or the other, and if so is it a bad thing? Are the things I listed necessarily true?

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

No... there isn't a huge advantage to not being attached to a school.

For instance, we get a sales-tax exemption because we are with the school. The forms kids have to sign are waivers as much as anything - and I'm certain you have the same liability issues that school teams do. In fact, yours may be worse because you may have to carry your own insurance.

We don't have to wait to order things. The mentors generally pay for them ourselves and get reimbursed later. Not a big deal. We haven't had any problems with sponsors because we're attached to the school. I mean, it's not like we'd be accepting liquor or gambling sponsorships anyway.

We can already meet whenever. Even if there's a snow day, we still meet afterwards as long as the roads are cleared.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

As with all things, it depends. Financial freedom is critical in the manufacturing world (which FRC finds itself in). With the dynamic and fast paced nature of build season, purchases sometimes need to be made and put through within a 24hr window. Of COURSE if the school is holding you back, it will hinder success.

However, school support can be greatly beneficial too! Schools can supply large amounts of capital that would cost thousands of dollars if purchased by the team or its sponsors, such as computer labs and machine shops. Schools can also provide build and practice field space.

I think ultimately the biggest factor is how the school administration views the team. If the perception is that you are just another club, you are probably better off independent. However, if the administration views you more like a team, they will support you as such. What are things sports teams have: playing field, training facilities, coaching staff. All things FRC teams need to be elite.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Team 343 is sponsored and housed by the school district and while that has it's frustrations, mostly snow days where we can't go work and the inability to use 14 passenger vans, we are very appreciative of their support. They do provide us with some monetary sponsorship, but the biggest aspect of their support that I think really helps us be as successful as we are is the facility we get to use free of charge. We are housed in the career center (vocational school) and as a result we have a full machine shop right down the hall, a wood shop that often builds field elements for us, and a welding shop that we can use. Behind the career center there is also a warehouse that we are given a small portion of, enough for a half field and storage space for all our old bots. While I realize that many school sponsored teams are not as fortunate as we are I think that it is definitely a huge advantage to have a work space that is free.

Also from a recruiting standpoint we get the opportunity to drive robots around at open house nights and people can come into "robot central" and see what we do.

As far as membership limits, we are fortunate that our school district does not limit us at all, any FRC eligible student is welcome, including private school students and home-schoolers as we are an after school program and function, as far as the paper side of things, like a band or other sports team.

Also, because we are school sponsored, all our trips are recorded as "educational field trips" and thus they are not counted against us.

In short, there are pros and cons to both, but, at least for our team, I think we would have a much harder time if not for their enthusiastic support.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

It all depends on each individual situation. Neither is better than the other.

We have zero delay with ordering parts, I front everything robot on my credit card and the school writes me a check at a later time. Travel, we just tell them where we are going and when. If it's within Illinois or 1 state over the school district provides school busses at no cost to us (saves us thousands every year!). Kids sign waivers through the school to participate. Our shop is actually off campus so that makes it logistically easier, though if we want to use rooms at the school we just submit a request for it. Not a big deal. School also allows us to utilize their box truck for transporting large amounts of things (like our field).

Snow days do hurt (got lucky the only super cold days this year there was no school anyway). We can't use more than 10 passenger vans. And a school employee has to be present at meetings (though myself and 2 other mentors have become "team coaches" for this reason).

This is just us, I've heard plenty of situations which would be considered the complete opposite.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

I guess the optimal situation is the blend of the two. We are a school team and have a parent-run 501c3 booster club. There are benefits that we derive from each that are almost equally as important as the other. From the school we are provided a great facility which is well maintained and free. We get financial support that is utilized when it is not time-essential (entry fees, general supplies etc.)

From the 501c3 money we have instantaneous access to money without restrictions. The boosters also continue to raise money should a new need arise, whereas the school only provides a set budget each year and money has to be spent wisely.

Each of the two programs has its benefits and drawbacks. Most teams are unable to choose which of the two they would like to have, however, they could have both if they set their minds to it.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We are a school run team and there are very obvious pros and cons to this:

Cons:
1.) Having to make sure we only purchase things through certain NYS approved vendors. This keeps us from ordering certain cheap tools/necessities off of amazon and craigslist. Also procuring sole source letters when you have to order under a time crunch for big items can be annoying.
2.) Order time. Our lead fiscal mentor is really awesome about putting in orders ASAP so that we get things on time - but it's just the anxiety of knowing that we have to go through a process and paperwork for ordering items and it may delay us a bit is annoying. This can be good in a way because it keeps people that need to order stuff on their toes and makes sure they don't slack on their work.
3.) Space. Our school was wonderful about giving us our own space, but many schools have to use the back of other classrooms during build season just to have somewhere to put their stuff and build. When you have a non-school team you can find

Pros:
1.) Lots of easy close opportunities for outreach. Our school district is always having activities and events going on where we are welcome to bring our robot and let the community learn about FRC.
2.) Students. There are always students coming into our high school so its easy to get enrollment in the club. A lot of non-school affiliated teams have to do events and put up flyers in the community to get people to join the club. We are lucky enough to have the district support our club and get to advertise it in the school.
3.) Bussing/Transportation to events. The school will pay for busses that we need to get to events so we can ensure maximum amount of our students can attend. We don't have to pay for them as our district is wonderful in budgeting for them if they are requested enough time ahead of the event.
4.) Meeting times/days. As we are an extracurricular we can have meeting in school and don't need to worry about kids having to drive to meetings.
5.) Biggest One: Money! Our school supports the club and is very wonderful in giving us funding to make sure that we can build our robot and go to competitions every year. I think this year with our great performances at competitions and increased interest in the club our school district gave around $15k!

I personally love being on a school affiliated team, and think that the simple ordering stuff, while a pain, is overcome with the benefits listed above.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Never relaized how many teams travel together either. On both my FTC and FTC team you mhst provide your own transition/hotel rooms (the team does save a block of rooms occasionally).

Every event I've been to my team trickles in slowly.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

There really is no cut and dried answer to this question. Fact is school district policies vary greatly.

For example I know one school where the students are required to travel on the district provided bus and there is no cost to the team or students, in another case the students are required to travel on the school bus and the school takes money out of the team's account to cover the cost and then some.

I know some schools that will automatically pay that CMP or DCMP registration fee because the team earned the right to attend.

Some states have grants available to teams that are affiliated with a public school.

Some schools require that all purchases get approved which can be a several day process, others allow the teacher to submit a PO or check out a school credit card and purchase at will within their budget. Some schools will float the team when they have run out of money. Some schools will charge a fee for handling that money either from grants or that the team has raised.

Some school districts will actively solicit donations on behalf of the team.

Some schools will purchase tools and equipment to be used by the team and in the classroom.

Some schools are very proud of their robotics program, will do things like announce the results of the team's competition in their newsletters, website ect, while others completely ignore it.

So it all depends on the school and school district you are comparing it to.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We run out of a school and have never had any of the issues you mention. From what I can tell our school is more understanding than many though. I think one of the biggest differences with other schools is just increased workload for the mentors to get through red tape. That's a big deal.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

For us, there are advantages and disadvantages. Our team is a 501c3 with no school affiliation. Advantages include not needing to go through the administration to get parts ordered, we can meet when schools are closed due to snow, we can qualify for certain grants, and we're not restricted on building hours. Disadvantages are more difficult travel, difficult time with school administrations letting students out of school for competition, and no constant steam of new kids to attract to our team. Many schools will not let us demo our robot, so recruitment is done via outreach and mostly by word of mouth.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

YES!! I advise two home-schooled vex teams, 8091a and 8091b. They are all amazing, being home-schooled they are all very well disciplined. The other thing is the advisors, not mentors. There isn't that micromanagement that I see with most teams. The kids design and build their robots on their own, with very little help from the adults, its really great to just sit back and watch the kids work and be awesome.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

As others have said, it all depends on the relationship with the school - and unless everyone on a team is home schooled, even community based teams have that relationship (for example, needing to take kids out of school for events needs some degree of school approval).

For my team, I struggle to see any downside. The school built a new STEM center, largely designed for team needs. They help with finding and transportation, tools and materials. We can purchase whatever we need when we need it from any vendor, and get reimbursed later. We have school employees working with the team, providing us direct access to students during the school day, helping with planning around school events, and managing pulling students out of class when we need them.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

It really depends on what school affiliated team you are comparing your non-school affiliated team. Some schools give robotics teams free rage over what they can do and other restrict their every move. A lot of times schools also do require any large donations made by corporations to go through them first and this can sometimes be a pain. A school of course usually gives a team space to work on the robot and practice with it which can make things a whole lot easier. So really it depends on the school your comparing to but overall I'd say that non-affiliated teams would have a slight advantage only in what they are allowed to do such as tools your allowed to walk around with and in when they can work as some schools will kick you out at a certain time.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Same here. Further, in Louisiana, high school students can only have five absences per semester. Excused absences count against these five, the difference being whether students can make up the work, or must take zeros for work due those days. Field trips taken by official school groups are not considered absence, and work can be made-up. These tight rules would make it rather difficult to field an FRC team that is not either related to a school (or perhaps two or more schools, as is the case with 1912) or that is effectively a home-school cooperative.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Quite the contrary, I would say it's much easier to be affiliated with a school than not. While our team is part of a school, the school isn't a traditional high school but a center for half-day technical programs for high school juniors and seniors, as a result, we're in a kind of limbo in between a school team and a community team.

The downside of our school is that recruiting team members can be extremely difficult because none of the students that attend have any "school spirit/loyalty" for our school, but instead for their home schools. In the past we've recruited from other local high schools (most of which also send some students to our school for classes), but in recent years the growth of teams in FiM means that most of those schools now have their own teams, further limiting our options.

That said, on the plus side, we get a full machine shop workspace and class area that we have unrestricted access to and covers all of the maintenance or utility costs. We also have the coverage of the schools liability insurance for team events, and discounts on van rentals; permission slips are required but don't cause any real issues. We used to have problems with funding availability (had to wait 6+ weeks between requesting funds from the school account and receiving them, even though all the money came directly from our sponsors, not the school), but we solved that issue by being one of the founding teams of an area FRC 501c3 non-profit so we now have our own debit card and can buy things whenever we need to.

That said though, having access to resources is nice, but meaningless if you don't have any students on the team to use them.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

For 3476, we have always been a community based team and we find it a huge advantage for us.

We don't limit ourselves to having kids from one school but rather schools and homeschools all over our county. Increasing people in our program, diversity, and knowledge base. I think we are around to 22 schools now.

We also enjoy not being a school team for funding sake. While we did have to apply for 501c3 status as our own entity, it opened us up to larger sponsorship that schools could not moderate. We could choose to accept or decline any sponsorship from any company we wish. Sponsorship is also easier for us to get because schools tend to fight for funding for different programs within their school, we are our own thing.

We also enjoy the fact that we make our own time. We meet earlier than most schools let out because our homeschool kids are available and once that dies down our public school kids take the reigns. Because of this our parents and mentors can have flexible hours.

Being a community based team also gave us closer ties with our community, since we are community based many schools hear about us and flock to us. We make it a point to do a lot of outreach around the community and I personally did less as a school team due to our limited amount of students we could take in (we could only take from our school).

Community teams also offer a larger mentor range since people are coming from schools all over! More people hear about the program and want to help out

The downsides to a community team:
A facility to work in is never a guarantee
Having teachers approve time off for competitions (most are super supportive)

Personally, I was on a school ran team when I was a student and there were so many restrictions that I've never had to deal with as a community team. Being a community team is hard work, it requires a huge push at the start, but I do think it's worth the payoff of in a way "being your own boss"

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

This is not the case for all school teams, and I can say that not being affiliated with a school is a DEFINITE advantage for us. Some teams work better being affiliated with a school, and that's great. Others wouldn't be able to work in the school. One situation isn't applicable to everyone. For example, we definitely wouldn't be able to meet on snow days based on our school board rules. It's great that your school allows you to. For many others, it's a different story.

--

Let me lay out the pros and cons that MARS has experienced, being not affiliated with the school, but sponsored by the board of education (based out of a university), based on the rules of our school district. We are a community team that is comprised primarily of two rival cross-town rival high schools, and several other students. Some of these pros and cons that apply to us might not necessarily apply to others due to differing school districts. There was a team before us that was based out of the school that was never successful, and folded because the school didn't provide any facilities or money or really any support at all.

Pros:
We can accept any student from any county/school.
We can meet anytime/anywhere we want
We can travel using any method (usually we carpool, and we dabbled with a flying option this year)
School board gives us a practice field and a hefty monetary donation each year, but we are not bound by their rules, and the students still get absence exemptions
We don't have to worry about having a teacher involved with the team every year
We can do all kinds of official team events around town and around the state utilizing a carpool (carpools with adults to any official away event is prohibited for school organizations in our county. We would need a bus for everything)

Cons:
We have to organize our own transportation (also a pro because we have leeway, but it's not free like it is for some school teams)
Need our own insurance (completely do-able)

Again, this is for us. Depending on the team and the school, these may look way different for others. Some of our "pros" could be "cons" for other teams, or may not even apply to all.

The moral of the story is, figure out what is best for YOU. One size doesn't fit all, so you need to see what would be best for you based on your situation, your school district's rules, etc.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We can only dream about these. Often the school affiliation feels like shackles.

We can't take home-schooled kids from within our own town.

Except for large distances where air travel is preferred/required we must travel by bus. This is complicated by the fact that our school system's buses cannot leave the state, so travel has become very expensive (sometimes prohibitively so).

The option of going rogue exists but means the students would have unexcused absences for weekday events.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

One big pro about being in a separate building is being able to meet when we want, as often as we want. Of course, we have to pay rent, and our shared building locks itself up at a certain time of night (be on time, folks), and most of our team draws more from one school than most others, and our freight elevator has broken once or twice, but overall this system works for the team.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Can you (or, really anyone) explain the logic in that? The last time I was sick[1] I was mostly incapacitated for over a week, first by dehydration then by the medicine making everything hazy. Under this inane policy I wouldn't be eligible to make up any work. Which, we'll ignore that even once I got back to work I was still nowhere near 100% for nearly a month.


[1] Double sinus infection, not really anything one would consider even a major illness.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

This is a great question. I have firsthand experience with an equally draconian and tone-deaf attendance policy and I have the same befuddled reaction to it that you do.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We have a similar policy although its a little more forgiving.

You can only have 20 excused absences (excused meaning your parents called) per year in every day courses and only 10 excused absences in 1/2 year courses.

All of our robotics competition absences count as exempt absences so they do not count towards our 20. Exempts only happen with school endorsed trips.

However, if you have a specific medical condition that will keep you out of school for extended periods of time you have to call for home bound instruction where tutors will come to your house (2 hours per week each subject) and that counts as attendance.

My freshman year I fractured my skull and got an epidural hematoma keeping me our of school for a month but none of the time I spent in the hospital or at home after the injury counted towards my absences.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Usually schools count illness (when your parent calls in) as an excused absence, so you would have been able to make up work. The 5 day limit is a little low, though... what happens if your sick more than 5 days? Do you just automatically fail and have to redo the year?

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

I would have to agree that non-school teams have an advantage. I work with a team associated with a school. We have had a lot of hassle setting trips up for out of state regionals and dealing with bad weather conditions at our home regionals. While also having conflict getting the manufacturing lab and classrooms for team meetings reserved.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

2706 is a community based team and we have definitely seen the pros and cons of not being associated with a school.

The biggest challenge for us was finding space to meet, build, and store things. Three very distinct problems to solve. A school based team would likely have a built-in supply of classrooms, storage space, and a machine shop. We had none of these things. Our meetings took place at various City of Ottawa facilities including the local public library and community center, and storage has been a combination of borrowed storage cages from the community gym, and mentor garages/basements/vehicle trunks.

Students also find it easier to go to school and simply stay there to work on robotics, rather than have to arrange transportation for themselves after school to get to one of our meetings.

On the plus side, when we do any kind of publicity, it is nice to be able to say that we can accept high school students from anywhere. And our partnership with the local library has been very enthusiastic and fruitful, so there is some built in visibility there.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Meet, build, and storage are not necessarily easier for school based teams. For the first 7 years of my team's existence, we had no space at the school. We built out of parents garages, donated space, and from space we rented. We even had to rent a closet off-site during the off-season to store stuff, all at the team's expense. Building was off-site as well. So you really can't take that for granted for school based teams.

Most people here seems to be under the impression that there are just two types of teams - school based and community based. They assume that in these areas their team is exactly like every other team of their type. That just isn't true. Every team is different, and poses different challenges. They key is in the relationships. The advantage is going to go to whichever teams form the best relationships with their school(s) and community. It's as simple as that.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

Was thinking about posting this exact thing, but you nailed it. It's all about the relationships.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We actually get absence exemptions for our events, which was not true our rookie year in 2008 (my freshman year). Our BoE is quite happy letting us be on our own, but will give our kids the absence exceptions, provided a teacher travels with us. We usually have a student whose parent is a teacher, so this hasn't been a problem for us so far.

Our students have a similar policy, but I can't recall exactly what it is (it has changed since I graduated). But I think it's something like 5 excused/unexcused absences allowed per semester, and unlimited exemptions. The attendance policies (at least at my alma mater, we pull from multiple schools) are based on periods, not on days. They have an odd-even block schedule, so 4 periods a day, switching every day ("odd" days and "even" days. For a regional where they miss Thursday and Friday, they only miss 8 periods. Students at our other high school don't have a block schedule, and have 8 periods a day, so they miss 16 periods for a regional. Luckily, they have exemptions now, so they don't count toward the 5 limit.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

For my team, being school-based is an advantage. The school district for my team actually pays for about 60% of our travel costs, and provides us with a lot of opportunities. All of our absences are excused, and teachers actually try to assign less around competition times. Our school, students and teachers alike, supports us a lot and I feel really lucky that we have that. Not to mention that a school full of nearly 2000 hungry teenagers makes food-based fundraisers really easy!

I really think it depends on how helpful your school and district is, because without that support, it's awful to be a school team.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

+1

I've heard some horror stories of schools making it impossible to order things in time. In our case, we just order things and the school reimburses us using the funds we've deposited with them.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

We are 100% integrated with our school, to the point of it now being a daily class for up to 90 minutes every school day, all year long. (whoo!). And aside from that, it lets us tap a ton of facilities, equipment, resources, and funding streams. Those teams who believe that schools are evil and you'll never accomplish anything inside of one, well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you're looking at the wrong school, and you're really limiting yourselves in big ways by not associating with a school.

Re: Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?
 

I am going to echo Jon on much of this. Just because a team is school-affiliated does not clear up the storage issues. My shop is packed full of Robotics stuff throughout the year - and during the build season the space (and the students) run like a carousel of school projects and team projects.

Communication is key. For those that struggle with their school, I strongly suggest that regular/annual meetings with the school admins as well as presentations in front of the school board are great opportunities to build bridges.

FRC 4607 started as a club team that has retained our own budget. We raise our own funds (school pays for nothing) and we actually bring in more tools to the shop than I can purchase from my school budget to stock my shop. We spend around $2500 each season purchasing power tools, machines, consumables, etc. We look at is as 'rent' for the use of the space.

Each year Becker School District has continued to grow the partnership with our club. We straddle the line of self-funded and school sanctioned. In other words we pay our way, the school admin gets to tout a strong STEM activity.

For the teams that struggle with scheduling, I suggest that you meet with the Community Ed department (in MN CommEd is a BIG part of schools) and see if you can work out a schedule long before the build season begins.

We even host The GreenHorns Ri3d in our shop for 4+ days at the beginning of each season. COR Robotics also runs their summer camps in our space as well. All of this is scheduled through Community Ed.

Communications is key - and going in to each season with a great plan/schedule plus a lot of patience pays dividends.