My School = STUPID
 

yeah, since we didnt qualify for Nat's this year b/c we came in 3rd in QP/ T-3rd in Elim. Our team decided to try and go to the Lonestar competition for at least another competition and a last ditch effort at Nat's..... Well, needless to say, we needed more moola, and when our team mentor from our school asked them for their share of the bucks, they said they would only pay if we were going to Nationals, not for another Regional, I, as a senior, and the 4 other seniors on the team, are feeling shafted right now, and i am thinking of threatening them w/ the fact that two public schools from our county/city won the regional b/c they had money to compete and go to 2 regionals, no offense 108, but my school, Pine Crest, feels they are all high and mighty and that other stuff and may hopefully reconsider in the future, some good that does me, Well, i hope we get one of the spots for Nat's, i just felt like ranting about how annoying my school is after i've been there from PK - 12, (yeah, 14 years).

hey...dont feel too bad...our school doesnt give us any money...we scrape together what we can through fundraising...our team has no money left to pay for nationals if we qualify, and as a senior, i too would really like to go to nats for the last time as a student.

Sorry to hear that, good luck scraping up the money

While I understand how you think it sucks, I have trouble sypathizing with you. Most teams don't recieve a large amount of school board support and can only go to one regional. Going to Lone Star is great but nationals is something different. I would ask them to put money towards your guaranteed trip to the nationals next year even though you won't have the privledge of going. Enjoy your experience, don't feel bitter and ruin the good memories I'm sure you have of your regional.

Re: My School = STUPID
 

Suggestion:

Get some team members together and go raise some money. Maybe then the school will decide to reward your responsibility and determinism. Of course they may not, but, who knows, you may just figure out how to get the money without them.

Right now, we are planning on going to the Nationals, but don't have the money. We are going to have to raise it by getting sponsors, etc. Currently we are raffling off robotic vacuum cleaners, called Roomba, made by iRobot Corporation. We sell 500 tickets for $5.00 each and then raffle off the vacuum which costs a few hundred. Then we do it again. We will probably be raising money for quite a while after we come back.

Of course, we would love to have some more ideas ourselves, but we are going, come hell or high water (as the saying goes).

We would, only our school also has these stupid rules about fundraising, like... your not allowed to ask companies for money, and basically everything else that you could do to gain money for the team, they also have a track record of stealing all money that has its name anywhere on it to build random parking garages and gold domes.

First off, I suggest changing the language used in your post. Innappropriate and offensive.

Second, many schools can't afford to go to a second regional. Some can't afford Nat's even IF they qualify.

At GLR my team qualified for nationals based on Leadership in Control award. We have $8,000 in our account and need about $20,000 for the group to go. We asked our main sponsor and they flatly told us no. (Now we are asking them nicer.. trying again). We've hit up every one of our sponsors and don't have a dime to show for it. We will be doing massive amounts of fundraising/begging over the next two weeks so that: a) We can go. b) We have money to survive off of next year.

FIRST is a very expensive thing, just because you have the opportunity time-wise to attend another regional doesn't mean your school can afford it. That they would say "Ok for nationals, No for another regional" is kind of crude but understandable. Saying "Blah blah blah our robotics team went to nationals last year" sounds a lot better (from a political standpoint) than "blah blah blah our robotics team went to another regional last year"

Notice the difference? Yeah you do. :)

I know what it's like to be shafted when working for something you believe in. I was the only 4-year member of the team at my high school (which I have been attending the district of PK - 12), I am on another team that is 35 miles away now because I couldn't afford how much my school's team has to pay out of pocket.

There are a lot of "rich" teams out there, there are a lot of "poor" teams out there too. The teams who are "rich" often seem to flaunt their money around but I think overall the "poor" teams take more pride in their accomplishments.

Be glad you were able to have the experience at all. A few of my friends lost that chance this year. Many more don't ever get it at all. In the whole scheme of things, one regional isn't that bad. My team, had we not won Leadership in Control, would have only been going to one regional because that is all we could afford. (If we were to go to a second regional then we for sure couldn't go to Nat's. So we sacrificed that and took our chances).

All in all, you have had a good year. Your robot performed well at a regional. A lot of teams can't even say that (including teams only attending one regional). Be happy with what you are leaving with. You are getting more hands-on experience than some kids could dream of.

point very well taken, i guess ive just been tainted by the money that gets thrown around at my school, and none of it in the direction i want it to... Thanks for re-knocking my head straight. i mean, we managed to get third in our region, that should be enough for me... thanks for the yelling.

That will happen at almost every school that doesn't fully back robotics.

My team last year now has to pay upwards of $800 each to stay on the team while the school is spending $5Million in bond money to build a new astro-turf field with a brick enclosure for the football team who didn't win a single game last year.

Yeah, one teacher at my school once said "If you ask them for a hockey team and $500 they will say NO, but if you ask them to build an ice arena for several million they will say yes, then you tell them that to build the arena they will need a hockey team and they will let you have ur team" and our football team doesnt really win either

Hrmm I have to say Powers your post did sound very selfish but let me correct a few things, please don't make it out to sound like we are an unfortunate team.. tho we are probably in the poor category we make the best of it and have an amazing mentor sponsorship

there are a lot of teams that do not have access to the mentorship and machine shop and tools we do. You can't take this for granted especially when our robot performs so well. I understand you feel shafted and we are doing everything we can to get that last trip for you seniors but it might not work out how we hoped.

2nd let me clarify a few things so that we kinda don't sound stuck up to the rest of chief delphi.

Our school gave us some initial support but only because we aren't allowed to fund raise. We are only allowed to ask imediate relations ( at both schools in our group for money ) for help, and aren't allowed to do most traditional fund raising ( thus we have many creative ways.. but most were developed to late for this year ) But the fact of the matter is, we weren't allowed to fund raise they basically hung us out to dry.

Our team scraped together every bit of its 8000 total ( which came from the family's pitching together and pulling some strings ) budget for this year ( that counts all parts, registration and travel ) All money for travel mainly comes out of pocket, now being 3 hours from orlando this was norm. not a big deal. We all just hitched a ride and paid cheap hotel rates and we just brought everything with us to regionals and nationals, we've never been in the situation we are in now.

Right now if we go to nationals every member on the team must pay about $500 ( because our team is to small to justify a bus.. and the mentors .. bah always the mentors... want to fly and not bus ) This is an EXTREME amount for any family to pay. I know for one being the main bot operator on the team ( Powers is main arm operator ) I don't know where I'll get the money. So contrary to popular belief ( at most regionals ) tho 710 is 2 private schools, we get the shaft constantly and must pay for almost everything. My school does everything they can, we just aren't very affluent and whatever we can get donated to us.. imediately goes to athletics or our new campus. So we know what its like to live with little.

Now I'm not going to scold Powers comopletely because even tho his comments were out of place, and should have been phrased differently, I believe there are many out there including myself ( on his team and all ) that know the feeling. It might even be a bit more frustrating for us, because we weren't allowed to do much fundraising, and we know that Powers school could drop 20k in the blink of an eye and wouldn't phase them a bit. But thats the nature of the politicaly inclined money Beast, and tho Its selfish to want some of that money for your own so you don't have to pay 500 out of pocket to go to nationals, I'm not gonna sit and complain because thats not what these forums are for.

I'm just trying to straighten some things up and John please realize, tho we don't have much, we have a heck of a lot more than some people in this competition. We can have envy for some of these 3/4 million dollar budgets or we can say " Heck, my bot is competing with yours and we have 1/100 your budget."

IMO you can never be grateful enough for what we actually get to compete in here, and tho sometimes we feel shafted, and there are those that are better finacially equipped, we come away with the same experience and never let that be tainted.

Just remember what Dean said, this is never really going to be fair.

Dan

why doesn't your school allow you to fundraise or get a corporate sponsor? That doesn't seem like an intellegent practice to ban... "Donated time and money for better education of our students? Ewww no!" - School District

ahh
 

I was so lucky to be in an Orlando area team. Kennedy Space Center was driving distance and obviously Disney is in Orlando. Also, my teacher helped us out a lot. He gave a lot of his own money and he didn't need to do that at all. I am very greatful for it though I guess I could see your anger because every senior in high school wants to have that unforgettable senior year. FIRST is an unforgettable experience and I have wished that I was still in high school getting to have those good times again.

It's unfortunate that you are not allowed to do traditional fund raising. Still, there has to be some type of loop hole that should let you do some type of fund raising. I mean, is a car wash an EVIL deed that must never be done that will shame your school? My old team used to do beggathons where we take the robot out and display what we're doing and people get really impressed and are willing to fork out like $10 bucks each. One day we made $500 infront of Publix.

I sympythise with your ordeal and add the note that I think FIRST shouldn't have instated this qualifying for nationals. Granted that FIRST has grown HUGE over such a short time period and that nationals would probably have to take up 5 bowls or twice the parking space of Disney but to tell somebody you can't go is heart breaking. I'm UNBELIEVABLY glad that my last year we were an even # team. If I didn't get to go to nationals, I probably would have broken down :(

To be a winner in FIRST, you don't need to be rich, you just need access to a machine shop (How many championship winning robots only use two motors). To be succesful, you need $5000 USD +$1-2k extra, team spirit, and a good team. Succes in FIRST really isn't money dependant, winning a regional can be.

I agree with all of those comments about a team not winning based on money, but on the team members. Last year I was on team 832 (rookie all-stars at nats) and we had a rather expensive bot. It was made almost entirely out of Rexroth (tm) extrusion and was built to do about 15 things, but it didn"t do any of them. This year I started my own team and the only way we managed to get enough money to register was that 832 gave us the money they were going to use for nationals this year so that we could compete. We did all of our work with hand tools that team members brought in (with the exception of three pieces of metal we had machined at our mentor"s brother"s machine shop) in a portable classroom. We have one mentor who is an electrical engineer, a parent with an art degree, a sophomore in high school with one year of experience (me), several helpful chaperoning parents, and a bunch of rookie students. We now have one of the best bots at the Peachtree Regional (IMO, we"re the only launcher anyways, HOO-AH!) and we"ve actually been able to help other teams make their bots work.
btw, our accounting totaled $330 this year, we mainly built ours out of the KOP and imagination

We started the season with $2500 in our account. The school gave us and additional $2000. The school also rented us a $3400 bus to Phoenix and back. We attended Phoenix and will be attending LA. The rest of the money we needed we fundraised ourselves and the students seeked sponsors and supporters. We also had to ask for $250 per student (14) who went to Phoenix.

In response to Gadget - both of our schools on team 710 do not want a club to go and ask for money from companies or rich ppl or anything b/c they want to ask them, and do not want that person to say they have already given to a club. In response to everyone else.... Yes, i realize that money doesnt matter, look at 212, they won UCF and didnt have much money at all, i was just in a bad mood last night and i'm sorry for all my pointless, incessant ranting. There is still a slight chance we will make it to nationals, and i hope i can see you all there so i can shut up and stop complaining.

scrape!!!
 

Put on the puppy dog eyes and get fundraising! All I know is that last year we weren't goin' till a week before! We drove in school vans and fundraised up the ying-yang. YOU CAN GO IF YOU WANT TO. it just takes some elbow grease!:D

Yeah, funding is definitely a difficult part of FIRST.

But then again, you see some teams in pit stations near yours that have an entire posterboard filled with sponsor logos, a large canvas inflatable weather-sized balloon with a team number on it, a working booth complete with fan and set of roller-stools, and other such luxuries.

Paul's right about our team. We don't have much. A few parents to watch us when our mentor isn't there, his dad helped us with the crate, and no one has any experience except for him. We got money for registration c/o 832-- many thanks to them and congrats on the Judges' Award!. We used the KOP, largely brought in our own tools, and a few families paid for most of the rest of the stuff we used. $330 accounts for the stuff we put on our bot-- not the stuff we bought and didn't use, team equipment, tools, etc.

Our bot's been suffering some problems here and there, and we've been working hard. We've been helping other teams with getting their hardware to work, lending tools, and helping out where we can.

Personally, I think you take what you can get, and you think about things ranked by importance. I'm just happy I got to experience the build period and then a competition, though that isn't to say I wouldn't like $5000 to appear in my hand for us to register for nats. Just being there has taught me a lot about people, made me some new friends and some better ones, and allowed me to tinker with something I probably wouldn't otherwise ever get to play with. (How many kids can honestly say they've built a working robot out of something other than LEGOs or K'nex?)

Considering that I've only got two more years in this, I may not ever see nats-- though hopefullly we'll get enough funding by senior year to go.

Sure, it's upsetting to see that you can't get money out of your school, but there's a lot of us in the same boat. We simply can't all be teams with 15+ corporate sponsors. (And from what I've seen, teams with 15+ large corporate sponsors wouldn't be much fun to be on.) However-- and I don't mean to sound nasty-- you didn't qualify for nats at your regional, but you got to compete, and you should be happy with that. If you tried your best at region, you should just enjoy that experience.

We're currently ranked quite low due to some drive problems so far, and with just a few more matches to go in the morning, I'm kind of upset that we won't get to show off our bot in full working order. BUT, I've still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the disappointment in no way takes precedence over the experience and the memories I've made.

^^All that was not supposed to sound malicious in any way. Just my take on things. I hope you can manage to get enough funds to go to your other regional, and maybe nats, should you qualify. :)

Yeah, i'm happy with our effort at regionals, it was awesome, and i realize that money is hard to come by and we are better off than a lot of other teams, if my school would say flat out no, you cannot have money, that would be one thing, but when they say we will not give you the money UNLESS you go to nationals. We tried to just get to the Lonestar regional and not go to nat's even if we qualified just so we could compete one more time for sure. That and my school just threw $6 million into a parking garage. Yeah, my first post that i started this with definitely did not send the message i wanted, which was that my school would donate to nationals and not a regional, although it was the same amount.

I understand both your point of view as well as the school's.

The school isn't recognizing that both are equal learning opportunities. You'd get just as much out of attending a second regional as you would attending nats. But, you've got to understand that to a school, $5000 is much better spent when they can boast that they went to a national-level competition rather than a second regional-level competition.

As long as they don't try to boast too loudly that team 108 hears (down the road) b/c they won our regional :)

I find it interesting you mention us. Just to clear things up, the school itself gives us almost no support. Our money comes from our sponsor Motorola (and they have far less to give then you might think), a number of smaller sponsors we have gotten, and our own pockets. UCF was our first regional and the only one we are taking our entire team too. It cost roughly $250 per person to go. If we hadn't qualified for Nat's there the chances of us getting to go to nationals would have been very slim. Only 8 members from our team will be attending nationals this year due to the expense and short amount of time available. We are going at all because of a lot of hard work. Everyone should consider themselves lucky to be part of FIRST. Our mentors and sponsors didn't have a FIRST program. Do the best you can with what you've got.

hehe, i just mention your team b/c our school is so uppity and like, we have the best technology EVER.... then you come along and beat us :) serves them right :) good job guys, i remember playing w/ you in the opening match and kciking some serious (you know). congrats and we hope to join you... still waiting on that notice saying we got off the waiting list

Then I personally think your team needs to talk a little funding and priority... Right now if we go to nats ( which we aren't ) it would cost us 450, but this is besides the point

Team 108 gets 10k just for scouting alone ( I was talking to your mentor who buys all the equipment, he decided to critisize our program a little, I thought it was a little pompous but I let it slide ). So they can buy new servers for live broadcast. You also did get sent to 2 regionals I understand the whole team doesn't get to go tho, But if they are rippin the team, because they want to buy higher tech video feed equipment.. I don't know if I nesc agree with that. I'm just biased, because as a 3 year member of my team, I can't afford to pay for these things, I always either have to do my own fundraising so I can go on these trips.

Money Priorities frusrate me, I wish it grew on trees but this is not the case. Ughh excuse my rants

I feel that everyone on the team that has contributed a large portion to the program should go. Any leftover money should go for next years payments. We had about 25+ members and only 20 could go. Of those 20 they had to have signed up and paid by a designated time and at least done something in the program. The day before we leave, 2 members drop leaving 2 open positions that are too late to be filled. What I don't support is that if they just want newer tech stuff and will sacrifice members for it, that's not right. Moneywise, we were lucky to get a really big grant which we probably won't get next year but we'll have better fundraising practices. Our school is happy with the team's preformance and they will definitely support us next year.

Our school gives us as much support that they can. This year they paid for our bus to and from the Manchester regional for all 3 days. We consider ourselves lucky for any of the help we get! One thing we do, at the beginning of every year, we set a budget for each student with a payment plan. We do a lot of fund-raising, and all the money a student earns gets deducted from their balance. The students can either choose to fund-raise all of their money, or pay for part in cash and the rest with fund-raising, or pay in full. (surprisingly a lot of parents prefer to pay in full so they won't have to fund-raise.) We like it this way as there are no surprises, every student knows in advance how much it is going to cost them. Every student who is in our club knows that we will only be traveling to the Nationals every other year, so all of our juniors are going this year knowing it is their last year to go. When you are a small team like us, making a last minute decision to travel to the National competition is not going to happen. It's unfortunate, but we all have a great time at the regionals we attend . We also participate in a few invitationals in the off season which are very affordable and just as much fun.
I just wanted to point out something else, my husband is the teacher adviser for our team (I donate my time as an adviser) he also coaches Football and Baseball, some of you have said how much your schools give to your sports teams. It's not the same here in Keene NH! Our sports teams have boosters clubs that are responsible for raising the money those teams need. The school pays the coaches salaries. They also pay a salary for my husband for FIRST. The unfortunate thing is we are all in public schools, and it's the public who vote on our school budgets, which struggle to pass as it is. I think we need to realize that the schools just don't have any money to give. This is why fund-raising in so important. We have all proved we can excel in the FIRST program with no money!

Aye.. my school just finishe buildling an 7 million dollar sports complex just so they could be the #1 ranked higschool sports complex in the nation... Now as I am a football player ( and used to play basketball and baseball ) I think its cool and all.. but I'd love to have more than like 500 dollars of support from our school

Also our baseball coaches gets paid about 2x as much as the nearest teacher to his salary

At my school funding is whacked, Infact, Even the money we did raise ( which turned out to be like 7000 total ) can be at any time witheld from us because it is in the school account. They have the " right " to freeze it.. even if we have to pay a regional registration fee... That pisses me right off, first they say " You can't ask people to sponsor you " then they reserve to right to keep our money that we earned outright

Things will be different for this next year, I refuse to get my senior year screwed by politics in money. But the good thing is because we didn't end up making the trip to nationals, we have a lot of money left over for next year. So we will be in a good situation to start.

you think none of YOU have MONEY?
 

Several of you are complaining about ONLY having $2,000 or $5,000 which you should all be gratefull for. I'm from 212 and we arent allowed to fundraise, nor do we get ANY money at all. Several times weve gotten up at 7 am on a saturday to go outside in the street and have a garage sale, selling old clothes, books, furniture, and anything. Our school wont even let us say its name in our cheers so were not affiliated with them. All we have a bunch of kids with blisters from sand-papering down holes, and sleep-deprived kids who work all night programing and building becuase we have NO professional help or ANY sponsorships. Our only engineer is our teacher and mentor, and several parents who put their hearts into our team. We made it to 1st in the UCF regionals and werent gonna be able to go becuase we had NO money in our account.. AT ALL. The only reason we made it to nats is becuase THE FLASHBACKS (team #168) who won 1st with us at the UCF regional gave up going by plane, staying at a different hotel, and getting the meal plan - all to go on a 24 hour bus ride, squished, stay at a different hotel, walk almost everywhere, and pay for their own food with us. Thats what FIRST is all about - thats the meaning of togethrness to me. Its become too much of a competition based on the sponsorships and what team has how much money.

Its not the schools responsibility to give money - if they do; great, if not; oh well.

Withal, our team loves each and every moment; sleepless nights, stressed out times etc - becuase we know that wherever we get is becuase WE did all the work and WE made it that far - we dont have anyone helping us build our robot, or more like building it for us as many do - and we take much more pride in our accomplishments.

<3 ashz!

212 UCF REGIONAL CHAMPS WITH 168 and 108!!! whooo!!!

Re: you think none of YOU have MONEY?
 

I've heard that before. I don't understand the school's reasoning. You willing to say why they have those boundaries?

Bravo to the FLASHBACKS and your team!

I thought this thread was dead, but its been revived.. we know Powers is sorry for what he said, and said so himself

Just some frustration we had and he happend to vent in the wrong place

As for fundraising.. we have now found ways around it, so we will go around it. I vow never ( while I'm at 710 ) to have the same problem we had this year. WE sent representatives to Nats and we learned a lot from vet teams, and it'll be a lot better next year.

We know 212, you have it rough.. I talked to you guys a lot at nats your darned cool and I hope you do well again next year. Atleast your school lets you use their shop, I don't really understand why a lot of schools are so anal about FIRST, when all its doing is making the school and district look better.

But then again, who am I to question, according to them, I'm just a silly lil student lol.. ohh well world aint fair is it?

The reason were not allowed to fundraise is becuase of miami-dade regulation (our schools county). A year or two back a teacher in another school from our district embezzeled about $15,000 and since then teachers arent allowed to fundraise in order to avoid situations like that. The reason we arent allowed to say our schoools name at all is so we cant claim were affiliated with them - which we could then 'demand' money for. Also, becuase of the new rules robotics is a club, not team, and all money (in order to actually get to us) must be given to the robotics booster club; if its given to the school they dont have to give it to us. Its really complicated for no reason at all.

As for our tools, they werent purchased in particular for the robotics team, but rather for the class offered as part of the school curriculum. Although we are very lucky to have those machines nearby, we wouldnt object to having actual money to get materials and especially after this year professioanal help becuase all our seniors (who compose the bulk of the team) are gtraduating.

Thnx to all you who notice us, and how far weve gotten with our little robot.

x0x0x - ashz

*drops head to hand*

Sorry. I have heard of another situation with a teacher nearly prosecuted for embezzling like that. The school didn't stop fundraising tho.

I don't understand not being allowed to say your school's name cuz that would mean you could demand money. Reminds me of another team I know - a press release mentioning the school and suddenly they were getting support from the school.

I've heard about CA schools having to give the money to ASB I think it was, and the school gets 50%. I've heard the easy solution is to get your own 501c3 - you can raise your own money and put it in your own account.

this is a little bit off topic but i didn't want to start a new thread..
 

If you want to talk about your school=STUPID than you should hear about my school.

A little background info first......
I am the only one from my team at my school. And my school is VoTech
My school never herd of FIRST until I started talking about it, and i got the team to come in last year for a talk, to about 15 students not including me because i was talking an English final.
I am in the CNAP (Computer Network Administration Program) program its a Microsoft program thats offered in (i think) only 5 other schools in the US.
My school offers no AP classes at all.

Now to the reason my school=STUPID. I am a sophomore, like I said I am the only one from my team at my school, so there is no one to understand when I talk about FIRST or my team. My school has a six day attendance policy, which means if you miss six days in a marking period you fail all of your classes(unless it is for medical reasons etc..) if you miss six days in one marking period you have one chance to get your grades back, you have to not miss a single day for any reason(other than medical etc..). if you don't miss a day you get your old grades back. but one missed day in the next marking period you loose your grades again(unless its a good reason).
Now there hasn't been many people at my school affected by the policy because most have been able to fight the reasons they were out.
Heres where my problem enters.
during the 3rd making period we had two regionals, thats 4 days missed, i had also missed 2 other days because of some problems(i know this could be used against me but i really couldn't go to school and i didn't think the days would hurt me) so there was 6 days now I would have had no problem not missing anymore days the next marking period but Nat's fell right at the start of this (the 4th) marking period. So I couldn't make up the days I missed cause of the regionals.
I did have an agreement with my school to have the days count as a Field trip but because of the war my school district canceled all out of state trips, and there isn't a comp in Delaware, so the agreement was dropped, I had a choice go to Nat's or loose my grades, what would you do? I went to Nat's, came back and I received my report card and I have a 0.0 GPA as of now. I have had talks with the school officials and there is nothing they can/want to do.
The leader of my team has offered to talk to my school, but since the school has to be this bad about a honers student missing school than I don't want to return next year.
I am leaving the school now, I'm going to the school that is about 185yards from my front door and has one other team member there, they have agreed to get my grades from the school I am at this year and use them for next year.

thats my story of why my school=STUPID
Sorry if the story isn't written to well I am sorta upset about having to leave my computer program because it is such a great opportunity for me.
I didn't post this for any one to feel sorry for me or anything, I just had to sorta vent how I feel I also wondered..

Has anyone else had any problems like this from their school?

that sounds a little wack. the 6 days isnt your school fault tho, thats a state set law. I am not shure where you are from but in florida its 9. They should not count days that are school sponsored events. When we attend regionals or nationals we get counted absent but they dont take it off are total of 9. so if your school sponsors your team you should go to the school board and present a case of not taking off your 6 days

Our school has the same rule, however it didn't affect us because we only missed a few days, ( and I'm not sure if its fail or just certain percentage points lopped off your grade ) and it also counted as field trip, we didn't have to worry about nats because we didn't go

The other school with us can't miss more than 2 days of school period.. major trouble if they do ( in a row I mean )

so thus the reason we have to fly everywhere makign it all more expensive

also :: edit ::

I highly suggest you write a letter to FIRST mayb they can help you out.. never know mayb woody flowers/dean kamen will ruffle some feathers if the school sponsor thing doesn't work

Missing school...
 

Yeah, a lot of schools have ludicrous policies when it comes to stuff like that. In my school you can miss no more than 10 days but it also counts if you misscertain classes becuase every class is 2 hrs and they count hours. I know i have over 70 already and obviously i didnt miss 70 days of school, but like becuase of the way its arranged thats how it works. But i guess the one good thing about my school is after a certain amount of absences you get a note on your report card saying the credit may be withheld, but its up to the teachers to decide so most of the times if the student is passing with decent grades, and does all the work etc. its not a problem.

Hehe... that's what we call "exempted absences"... They don't count towards your 12 allowable absences, so long as it's a school function and you make up your work.

I highly suggest you write a letter to FIRST mayb they can help you out.. never know mayb woody flowers/dean kamen will ruffle some feathers if the school sponsor thing doesn't work [/b][/quote]



I would have done that or got my mentor from my team to talk to my school, but I really don't want to go to a school that wont support something I love so much, I would also rather go to a school with other team members in it, I have given up on that school and I have found many may better things about the school I will be attending next year.

changing schools always works, Our school has given up on keeping tabs on Seniors however. If you miss school and actually have a real reason i think they are more relieved that ur missing for something and not just skipping. Yep, our senior class is slackarific, and the majority of our team, you guys better step it up next year... but im sure you'll be fine

This may be true, but doesn't solve the problem at hand, the problem is you have F's (unless something as changed and you are not telling because you don't feel its relevant ) in everyone of your class's... Having a problem like that is very serious concerning your future. It may be hard to get into a college where you have an entire semister of F's

I was just giving suggestions on how to help your situation. Mayb the right move is to switch schools later. Or you can try to arouse more interest in your school about FIRST. But try to take the 2nd part like a man and get those grades fixed!

I have got my teachers to write my grades down for me so if there is any reason that I have to show them than I have them.
once I leave the school I am at they have to send my correct grades with me since I am switching to a different district.
That means when a collage looks at my grades for this year they will see my correct grades. my problems with the school are for the most part solved, its just the fact that they did this to me for no real reason and i am much better off at a new school, yes my report cards from this school will have I's(Incomplete) as my letter grade but i really don't care because it wont affect anything except how i feel towards the school. I have just learned just to let it go and make it through this year and next year it will behind me and everything will be ok.
the collage classes that I take now have already been told about my grades and they don't care as long a I get letters from my teachers. So every thing is going to be fine now I will pass this year and move on to a new school.

i agree with the people who are saying that you don't need a ton of money to be a successful team. it's better to keep your robot simple instead of putting all these hi-tech things in it that don't even help much. that "driving tomorrow's technology" award gives many teams the false idea that hi-tech is the way to go.

i was in the pits for most of the nationals and people kept coming up to me saying stuff like "our robot has 3 optical sensors and a gyroscope and 50 self-correcting autonomous programs". and i would say "our robot hits the wall really fast and it's strong" and some of them would kinda look at me as if to say "no expensive gismos?"

but we still got to the finals without all that stuff, and a relatively inexpensive robot

My school doesn't give my team any money, which really sucks. One thing I noticed last year is that the choir was supposed to go to a competition in Hawaii. They fundraised and scraped together the money to go, but the administrators mysteriously went along. My problem is that our school is one of the top in the district with one of the highest budgets, but we struggle for sponsorship money.

well those things come in the kit, and the autonomous programs have nothing to do with how expensive your robot is.

Those things even tho supervised by a mentor on my team, were completely added by students ( after playing around with the edu bot however.. we discoverd it was 2x faster to get up in auto mode with out line tracking )

I also agree that you can have an amazing robot w/ out a big budget, I felt we competed well and thats what was upsetting about going to nationals

Only thing powers complained about was not being able to pay a registration fee.

Nothing to do with actual robot performance due to lack of funds

Actually dan, it was not really that we couldnt pay the registration fee.... It was that we COULD pay for Nats, due to my school contributing, but we COULDNT because they wouldnt contribute for a regional, knowing that it woudl be the same amount on them either way

but yes, you can build a good robot w/o much money, that i agree too.

Schools are really hypocritical sometimes... we don't really have much issue with ours spending money on other stuff becuase all we have is a dance team and robotics...we're not allowed to have sports teams...

It's be so nice if everyone just had the money they needed...

Like powers said, you dont need a lot of money to make an awesome robot - we got 1st in UCF with a robot that came out to be about $1200 total (TOTALLY not a lot in comparison to some of the other teams whose robots prices are in the 5 digits!). What isnt right is the fact that FIRST robotics competitions are no longer about the kids learning team work, engineering, etc.. it became a competition of the companies which isnt just to those schools that arent supported. Also, many teams that complain about not having money have sponsors.. my team (212) doesnt have ANY sponsors OR money.. our robot is built and paid for by the students!

*ashz*

Well, that would be pretty hard, considering there's a $3500 limit on additional parts. I know we spent about $2000, and most of the work was done by students. Don't be so quick to judge other teams, just because they have engineering help. You can do a lot on your own, too. My team is living proof. But don't look down upon other teams because they have engineers and you don't. Maybe it should be an incentive to you to get out into your community and try to recruit some help?

Hey, just found this thread sitting out on the portal, my team told me about it but I hadn't seen it yet...

I noticed one of the PAW members posted a post about us getting 10k for scouting...WHAT?!?

Our scouting/video system is no where near that. All of our network equipment for nats was donated by cisco for the purpose of competition. They provided WAPs, routers, etc. The rest of our networking equipment is old motorola equipment, that's good enough (sorta) for us, but not to be used in a commercial motorola environement. That was seen in the case of our main router, which is quite a few years old, but it ran what we needed it to run.

Server-wise, our 4 main video streaming servers are some Dell Optiplex workstations that we borrow from the Motorola plant we build the robot at. Those machines are borrowed for a few weeks, ghosted back to factory afterwards, and put right back. Our video encoder machines are Dell laptops checked out in the name of various students from our school, which has found numerous government grants to purchase them with.

Sooo, if we got 10k somewhere, I'd love to know where, lol. On the note of money, like Mark Hamilton said, we get almost no money from school. In fact, at this moment, our budgets are frozen as they do about halfway through the year every year. At this point in the year, we are not allowed to spend any money (this freezeing process happened either before or during build season). The only way we get money to go is from asking some of our local businesses for money, and kindly placing them as a list of our sponsors on our school's website (www.dillardhigh.com, a totally student designed and run website).

I just wanted to clear that point up :) , if anyone from 108 knows differently, please feel free to correct me, but this is as I know the facts to be.

We're always striving to do the best we can. Sometimes we do well, sometimes we don't. It's not the winning of competition or the ability to compete at more competitions that REALLY makes FIRST worthwhile, its the knowledge you gain. Team 108 this year had numerous transimssion problems, we pulled our transmission and reworked it 11 times between matches at UCF, totally taking the tranny apart, fixing anything broken, and shoving it back together for a last minute install into the robot before a match. We were really down about it for a while at competition, but then we realized, its not about how well you compete, its what you learned. Our whole team learned soo much about force, torque, shaft length issues, gear ratios, and machining processes than we've ever learned, all because of a tranny with a few design flaws. We took these problems and turned them around to redesign a few aspects and ended up with a GREAT transmission by nats. FIRST is about learning, and there's almost no dedicated 108 team member that dosent know more about a transsmission this year than they ever really thought they would know.

Well... you probably got 10k in equipment, albeit secondhand. Your donations are still a lot more than most teams have, and I'd guess that's what makes people jealous. I don't mind... you guys do good work, so it's worth it. I don't complain...

Oh, sorry, I forget to point out that we have to give it all back :p

lol, we get to use all this stuff for comp then it all goes right back where it came from most of the time.

Re: My School = STUPID
 

Our school doesent back us at either so we do a lot of fundraising and even then end up in debt at the end of the season. Its also hard for us to get sponsors b/c were a suburban middle class town. Most of the trips our payed totally from our pockets and the sponsors we do get go to paying for the kit and regionals. Our robot is often well built but not to complex or expensive so it amuses me when we beat highly sponsored teams such as Nasa, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, GM, etc. No offense to these teams but when a $1000 robot beats a $5000+ CNC'd or Water Cut bot it puts a smile on my face. But hell, I'd still love to have those kind of sponsors backed by 30 engineers w/ state o the art equipment. 348

Re: My School = STUPID
 

Wow, thread from the dead!

Well, at least you guys got the chance to do the competition. In 1999, i tried in vain to get my high school involved in FIRST. School's line: "You can do it if you can find the funding" Couldn't find it, First was noting more than a dream for me for the next 6 years.

Flash forward to Saturday, Buckeye Regionals, I sat there, after packing up our pit, After 6 long weeks of mentoring team 1278...my team, the team that took me in as one of there own. i sat there, fighting back the tears. Not because we placed so low, not because i was exhausted from the week of solid work, but because i was so happy that i got a chance to finally live out my FIRST dream.

So remember, we may be envious of teams who can do water jet cutting and has every possible monetary and engineering advantage, but there are many more people who are envious of Evey team who has a chance to compete.

Re: My School = STUPID
 

My suggestion is to go in front of the board of education. Ask them for the money. If you guys are really desperate for the cash, do some really quick fundraising. Complaining about something will never get the job completed. Bake sales, pasta dinners, asking for change outside a grocery store. Go for it!