Team in Danger!
 

Team 1022 is in danger. Here are our problems:

• Our school has too many teams to compete with for members and not enough interest.
• We're losing our main sponsor and our money situation is looking bleak.
• 1/3 of our team is graduating this year and their knowledge wasn't passed on nearly as well as we'd have liked.
• Our GE/Regal-Beloit mentors have an unstable work situation and may not be able to help us next year.

The options we're considering now include:

• Vex
• BEST robotics
• Slow build / year off
• End of team

We're pretty sure that we're going to have to be a multi-school team, for you teams out there who are multi-school, how does that work out for you? Any advice, ideas, suggestions, ect?

Let me explain the slow build idea. We'd basically take a year off to teach new members, fundraise, ect. We'd build a robot and enter only off-season events. That cuts down our cost by a substantial amount and gives us lots of time to build and teach.

BEST is very similar to first, but much smaller.

Does anyone have any suggestions/advice/help/ideas/ect? Right now our leading idea is the slow build, but we're still going to need lots of help from all of you. We're leaning heavily towards getting out of FIRST, but I really want to stay. FIRST boasts about the companionship and gracious professionalism that the FIRST family has, so here's a chance to prove that true.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

I'm very sorry to hear about 1022. You guys are a really nice team.

I am on Team 461, WBI, in W. Lafayette IN. We are comprised of 2 local highschools, formerly 3, but now Jefferson High School is a separate team affiliated with the same Purdue University program.

Multi-school teams are only a hassle if you make them be a hassle. Here are a few tips on getting started:

Callouts are crucial. Make them informative, organized, and plan ahead. Provide calendars of meetings. Provide event information. Provide FIRST brochures. Make it fun, have free food. Do presentations for science classes where people may have interest.

Your concept of Slow Build is intersting. It has a few advantages and a few disadvantages I see. The main advantage is training. The main disadvantage is taht if you don't compete, it may be harder to get sponsorship. Here is what I would recommend:

If you are registered for IRI, bring potential members with you to see the competition and get them hyped for a great year. If you aren't, bring them down to watch. It's a great event, and a lot of fun, and in-state transportation is easier to handle.

Next year, only attend 1 regional competition, or 2 if you're close enough to 2. In-state is always less expensive than out of state, and Boilermaker is a great Regional.

Start training for build early in the fall. Train students specifically in what they need to know to succeed during build season. Train them in pneumatics, electronics, programming, information technology, and any other thing you choose. Make it fun. As a veteran, you have the resources and the experience to reach out and help new members. Use it, and things will go well.

Good luck!
- Genia

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Sorry to hear this. I'd recommend doing a few exhibitions, at a sponsor's place, at school. Definitely pull back on some FIRST activity....only go to one regional, maybe do a few off-season competitions and bring the school board. Good luck!

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Go outside of your local area to look for sponsors. Write up hundreds of proposals and requests, get people out and about. Do not let your team die. Get everyone out to fundraise, start NOW. Do demo's with your robot(s), fundraise like crazy. Hit up local businesses, all of them. Do whatever it takes to keep your team alive.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Our team (1014) is a three high school team. We started as a two school team and then the school district opened a third high school. Are there other high schools in your district you could partner with?

If so, then the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to reach out now. Get students from another school (and as importantly at least one teacher from the other school) interested now. A new school can mean new ideas and fresh excitement.

Multi-school teaming is not really that hard. The biggest issue is communication. You have to devise a system to keep everyone informed about what is happening. You can do this by having returning members step up and take responsibility for various activities. You have to make sure that all of the schools involved get information and that no one feels second-class.

Remember that rookie teams start with no experience. Leverage the experience you do have by working this fall. You might even want to do some work this summer while your veterans are still around. Plan some lab activities for the fall.

If you are losing a major sponsor, start looking now for more sponsors. Make up a brochure, train everyone in what to say and then get out and pound the pavement looking for sponsors. You should also look for grants. A lot of these can be found by searching the internet, and a perhaps even better (and certainly less-utilized) resource is your local library. Librarians can be of immense aid in any search for information.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

This is something I hate to see. You guys are one heck of a team and always have been a great friend of 45. You guys should work your butts off this summer and I am sure there are prospected sponsors in your area. The school would be the biggest thing to get around. Try to show them what you can learn from FIRST, and how enjoyable it is for kids. Keep with it guys, I know you can come through, this will only make your team stronger in the long run.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Sorry to hear about your team. But as far as the multi-school idea, it seems to work really well for us. Personally I enjoy the idea because it gives you access to more resources and a whole bunch of new people to have fun with! A couple of things with this are communication and too much school pride(it may sound weird but can cause problems). The solutions we have to these problems are:

Communication: This one is rather simple to solve so long as your team has easy access to the internet. We use an e-group that all of our members are signed up with. If something needs to go out to the entire team you simply send the e-mail/message through the group and everyone will get it. It's great for sharing meeting times, important dates, etc.

School Pride: Yes this sounds foolish, but if you have multiple high schools in your area I'm sure you've noticed this with sports teams. We're lucky enough to have a local shop sponsored to us to work in. We do use still use the schools for they're resources but our main spot for the robot is the local shop. Also extra advice for this one is to NOT name your team after one high school.

I'm not sure how much this information has helped you, but good luck with finding funds and members! Just get out there and spread the great word of FIRST.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

I agree with Ryan...

... Jill thats the best way to get the local companies attracted to robotics. Take your robot out there, do a presentation on FIRST and what do you guys do. Why do you guys want it. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Multischool teams are great if you could get kids from another school involved. My school's principal and dean of students are pushing for a FIRST team, the problem is the guy we want to be an advisor isn't completely sure if he could take the time to do it. If he agrees we'd probably combine (or offer to combine) with an existing team because we're in a key sponsor area with 2 existing teams within 10 minutes of our school.

In the past we have had members on Team 237 and 1071 (I don't think either team regrets it or has a bad thing to say about the years they were multischool). Unfortunatly, neither team has maintained a close relationship with my school over the years, but if either team decided to really push FIRST and demo robots to our students and help kids put presure on teachers to become advisors, the administration would have OKed it. After we had a few kids on team 237, a few kids on 1071, my school now realizes it's a good program to look into really supporting since we've had kids continue to join teams year after year. I'm willing to bet you guys could find another school or two that would be like mine and allow you guys to come in and open up your team to their students.

Who knows, if you guys find another school that's interested, you may find that they have a generous board of education to put up some money for the team as wekk,

If worse comes to worse, maybe your advisors and students could find another team nearby to combine with for a year or two and try and rebuild the program.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Thanks for all the feedback guys, keep it coming, we need all the help we can get, I can't imagine losing my team now.

You keep suggesting only going to one regional a year, but we already do that. We've never been to more than one regional per year. Most of our money the students and mentors raise, a very very very small percent is sponsership money. Our team only had 15 students this year, we're small.

Multi-school seems to be the only way we're going to have more students.

As far as I see it, we really need to quadruple our sponsorship efforts and just find another place to build. Thats actually one of our biggest problems right now, we're going to be losing our build shop and our school has no metal shop/wood shop.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

If you don't have one Jill, create one of these:
http://www.cybersonics.org/cybersonics/contribute.asp
-then send all of the kids/parents/mentors out into the community with 20 copies each.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

I'm from team 1055 in Chicago and we were basically in the same situation as you guys are now. Unfortunately we did not have a sponsor and our school was completely unwilling to pay for any part of the team. Our teachers decided that we were going to take a year off and see if it was possible to continue the team next year. Thankfully I discovered the vex competition and we will be competing in that next year.

Just wanted to share my experiences. Good Luck!

Re: Team in Danger!
 

A callout is definitely a good idea. One of the last major callouts we had/needed was at the end of my freshman year. The demonstration was for junior high students to get them involved in robotics next year, either with Lego League for 7th graders or FRC as freshmen. I drove the 2001 robot and capped a troublemaker :yikes: , and the next year, there were at least 20 new members. (I admit, it probably wasn't all my credit :D ). Also go to local events (I'm sure there are quite a few in Fort Wayne) and display the robot there. Small businesses are extremely generous and community-aware, so try approaching several small businesses and ask them for small amounts of money. Of course, be organized. Have a team of 3 or 4 people, including someone who the boss/owner knows somewhat well, and give a 3 - 5 minute presentation about the team and its community goals. Include plenty of time for questions and answers: there will be many. Also, don't ask for money. If they are convinced, they will offer money to you. If they offer services, take them. They could be as valuable, if not more valuable than the money itself. It doesn't even have to be metal/pvc related, even pizza donations work. Try this, and if it doesn't work, keep 1022 going (maybe through VeX), or don't compete one year, but focus that year on fundraising. And remember, hard work always pays off. It's just a question of when it pays off.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

15 students.....WOW :ahh:
We had only 7 students on our team. We had more mentors than students.
We worked out of an church basement. We only had a Drill Press, Belt Sander and a Band Saw to build our bot.
We didn't have real sponsorship till about one week before kick-off.
We only went to one regional (Boilermaker) and no Nats.
The reason I bring this up is to let you know any thing can be done if you have the drive and willingness to succeed.
We are just down the road from you in Huntington and we will help you if we can.
All I ask is that you stay with FIRST. It's a great place to be ;)

Wayne Doenges
Lemmings non Sumus (We are not Lemmings)

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Team 180 has been a multi-school team since it's birth. This year we expanded to include the two newest high schools in the county, so we now have team members from four different high schools.

Logistically, it is not too difficult to pull off. You need at least one teacher from each school as a contact point for the students.

We try to spread the meetings around in the pre-season so each school has some visibility to the team.

The one thing that helps us out is that we have solid support from the principals of each school and the school disctrict.

As for funding, I can only suggest getting the word out through the malls, and newspapers.

Good luck with your efforts. I hate to see any team fold. It's too good of a program.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

as warren b. stated it is hard with multi schools with support and rules about having a teacher representing each school...so good luck with that.

funding...go to malls, outside of businesses to get the word out...especially go to small local businesses and just ask for like 10 bucks. it slowly adds up. candy sales work wonders it seems at my school just go to bjs or sams or costco and buy bulk.

a home...we had that problem forever in s.p.a.m. finally we have a solid home. we moved 3 times during build season one year. we went to a warehouse that had some empty space for rent.. try to make a deal...instead of paying rent that can be their way of funding the team. publix use to just provide subs, sodas and chips as their funding for S.P.A.M.
or if you have a willing parent to give up their garage that would be nice...

try for grants...always some around...talk to your teachers and staff at your school and show them how important this program is along with the school board and community..put out a news article in the local news and get on TV!! people love to help out if they realize it's how great FIRST is...some businesses just love you aren't asking to fund a sport or cheerleading.


BEST OF LUCK!!!

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Team 104 has been struggling the last 2 years. 2005 could be it. I'm going to try and find some hope for a couple VEX teams. I think we have fallen below critical mass to continue the FRC team. That's the appeal of VEX. It has a low buy in and can be more of an independent study for students. We too are a muti school team. I'm looking at some possible games to have between the 2 high schools The first one is maze madness.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

sorry to hear that. i do agree that the multi-school idea is good, the only problem is with mulit-school robotics teams is that sometimes its hard to get things settled with where you guys are gonna build( which school) and sometimes theres some friction between people from the other school. but if you choose a school that you guys trust and everything, you would be able to create an awesome multi-school team which i bet you guys will.. good luck from team 22

Re: Team in Danger!
 

that realy sucks.. your team was really cool ..

well team 1596 is comprised of ..4 schools..

SSM Ontario, Korah C & VS (13 ppl), St. Basils (1 person),
SSM Michigan, SOO High (12 ppl), Brimley (2ppl)

logistically....all the build members travel to the school with the best equipment, then the animation and webdesign team go to place with best computers. and any other stuff that can be made in other places gets done.. but keep one place central (likely your school since you guys started the team), and have a email list (our head mentors all have a list of our email addys.. all events are sent to us .. *they just go send to "Team" and it sends to all the ppl on that list..

that seamed to work really well. as long as you delegate the tasks up and make shure everyone knows whos in charge (per school) and one ultimate head person..

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Our team is also very small (about 16 students and 1/4 are graduating). We also don't have a major corporate sponser. However we are supported by many local foundations and our school board pays the entrance fee.

Even with the much appreciated support and great mentors, the students have to raise about 15,000 dollars (assuming we continue to go to two regionals.)

Most of our fundraising is done by students going off in groups of two (generally) and asking local businesses in our rural area for sponsorship. This has been very successful. We also try to get involved in community festivals such as Railroad Days and the local Audubon festival. Charging $1 to drive the robot seems to be pretty successful.

As for recruiting students...most have come because they had heard about it from a friend. So see how many friends you can make and get them to come.

Best of luck!

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Multi-school teams can be a pain. I'd guess that your organizational hassle is of order n^2, where n is the number of schools. My team is a multi-school team, and organizationally it's hard, because we only have one teacher involved in the team at each school, and they're full-time teachers as well. A crucial part of making this work would be having a good website/email list/communication system so team members all have timely notification of events and time to work things out. Things have to be coordinated farther in advance so everyone knows about it. I've missed my share of meetings because they were announced during the day they were being held and I didn't check my email. That kind of scheduling works in one school, because you can just tell people in person, but you have to know everything 1-3 days in advance to make it work. However, you do get a much bigger community and the possibility of more mentors. Good luck.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Nonononono, it's lemmingi non sumus (or maybe lemminges non sumus), you have to use the nominative plural of lemmingus.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

The best thing I can see you doing is start searching for a new corporate sponsor and start some of your wonf fundraisers. Also, Wheeler has participated in BEST robotics for the past 2 years. It is a large step down from FIRST but can still prove very challengin due to the enormous constraints.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

I think you guys should start going around tomorrow and try to find a new big sponsor. If you can't get a big sponsor, try to get a few smaller ones. Do tons of fundraising (as much as you can stand. It may be tedious but it's worth keeping your team for). As others have said...if you're thinking about becoming a multi-school team then go to the other schools in your area. explain the problem. try to get funding from the school board. have a robot demonstration at one the schools and try to get kids involved. and if you become a multi-school team make sure you have good communication. I noticed someone said about having at least one teacher at eazch school. though this would make it a lot easier, it's not absolutely necessary. coming from a two-school team myself I can say this. We have one teacher and she is at the other school (not mine). we have a nice mailing list for the whole team. whenever there is news, our coach sends out the information via email to the whole team and we respond if necessary. It helps a lot with communication.

also to keep your team together in a multi-school team...try to have get-togethers. like parties. every year my team has a party at the beginning of the year and one at the end. these are just for fun and it keeps everyone friends. we have a few meetings a year. and our schools are basically rival schools. so we have friendly competitions when at the events as to who's school was announced. it's all in fun. but all in all, i wouldnt want my team any other way. it's perfect the way it is. so try to find more sponsors and do whatever it takes to keep your team alive. even if it means going to BEST robotics. it may not be FIRST, but it's still keeping alive your spirit about science and technology and gracious professionalism. I hope this helped. :)

Re: Team in Danger!
 

The majority of FIRST teams have problems with lack of funding, team members, and knowledge being passed down. Part of the greatest things of being in FIRST is being able to look back over a season and talking about how you overcame all of that. Don't give up. Obviously you realise that because you are asking for help.

My advice for funding is ask everyone you can possible think of. There are probably people in your school who have parents/relatives/friends of bigger companies that would make good potential sponsors. Ask newer businesses that need the publicity. Set up a booth in a mall. Put flyers up around schools, libraries, etc. Sure hardly anyone looks at those flyers, but the one who does might just be the one you need.

No matter what, don't drop out of FIRST, even for a year. My advice would be to stay with it, but take next year slow. Maybe a robot that does only one thing. Don't try or expect to win a lot of awards. And as selfish as this will sound, but don't try and help other teams out. Take the year to focus on your team and rebuild yourselves.

Good luck and I hoped I could help.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Don't forget the money from the Google people. Was that $50,000,000? Might be chump change to some, but goes a long way in my neighborhood.

Another way we have found to generate visibility is to enter into parades. There are a lot of people out there that would love to help, but they don't know how or where. Beat the bushes, local hardware stores, service stations, pizza joints. Everyone wants to help, just tell them how.

Are your graduating members returning as mentors? The knowledge is already there. Bring it back. How about working on weekends when the college folks come back?

Good luck to you guys. If we can help in any way, let us know.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Our team has varied from 15 to 30 students over the last few years...... and the longer we go on, the less corporate sponsorship we've seen. Fortunately, Dupont is still sponsoring our registration..... but the team has had to earn/raise the bulk of the money. We usually go to 1 regional and Nationals and have to earn at least $13K each season. The students and parents do most of the work and are able to raise the needed funds by putting on a Golf Tournament <see the Team Fusion website for a guide to run your own ( http://www.teamfusion364.org/modules...rtid=16&page=1 ) This 2004/2005 season, the team had a net gain of over $23,000 ..... in a single, well-coordinated event. It is amazing what can be accomplished when the team works together to overcome obstacles.

And our team size was dwendling for a bit.... but the team modified a previous year's robot to be a T-shirt shooter, and now attends the school's sporting events and local community events to show what they've accomplished, to show their team spirit, and to do a little advertising. The team was HUGE this past season compared to others.

Don't give up. Get out there, roll your sleeves up, get a plan together, and put that plan into action.

Good luck!!!!!
Christine

Team #364 Mentor
Who-Ra! :D

Re: Team in Danger!
 

1102 is a county-wide team. Our county is 40,000 people and 5 high schools, plus the Career Center. We started as a 1-school team, and added schools each year by going to to registration in the fall and inviting science and math teachers to come look at the team workshop.

There are advantages to multi-school teams.
1. You don't compete with other schools in your area for sponsors.
2. The school board and district offices can see it as a community effort and send some $$ your way. They don’t have to worry about "hey you funded school x, but not us".
3. If you get too big, then you can "spin off" a second school team, mentor them, and they hit the ground as a rookie with some experience.

M'Aiken Magic won a regional Engineering Inspiration Award and they cited the fact we have 5 schools and county-wide exposure as a big positive.

As for sponsors, build the robot, and they will come. Like others have said. it is your best fundraising tool. Put it in the 4th of July parade, take it to the church picnics, school registrations, and the county fair.

We got on the "rubber chicken" circuit and went to ladies clubs, Rotary Club, garden clubs, ASME, National Management Association, Computer Clubs, LAN parties, Toastmasters, anybody who holds a monthly meeting and has guest speakers.

Look in your newspaper and see those obscure articles entitled "Local Lawyer Tells Rotarians about Mission trip to Bahamas". Those are the folks who will listen, and pay. Rotary came though in year 1 with $1500, and this year with $5000. (and their logo is a gear, it looks cool). Also look at your graduates this year and see what companies gave scholarships. That is a good indicator of who is interested in education.

Finally, rent the local movie theater or playhouse and have an open house. Demonstrate the robot and lets the kids tell what they have learned. We invested $300 in an evening rental and got $2000 in sponsors and t-shirt sales.

good luck

Re: Team in Danger!
 

our team is verys small, we only have around 16 people, 3/4 of them are senoirs and graduating leaving 4 freshmen, including myself to fend for them selves. Our school is very athletics oriented and recruiting is hard. we could only afford to go to 1 compatition this year and we're hoping to fill up the roster with local graduating LEGO leagers which means we'll have a very young team.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Well, our team is in it's rookie year, but we have members from all over the county and even some out of it. Members come mostly from my high school's SCI-MA-TECH (sicence-math-thelastpartexplainsitself) group, especially the sophmore class. The other largest group is from the Manufacturing Tech. Academy for precollege students attached to the city college, some from the other high shool in the city (rivalry aside), and like I said, a few from other nearby highschools. I'm the only member on the team that actually just showed up, as far as I can tell, and I'm a senior to boot. The problem I've noticed with it, though, is that there are too many people from every place on the list that either dont have transportaion, motivation, and I am starting to think that a lot of the 50+ (Yeah I know...) people at our first meet before the kickoff didnt understand the sort of commitment they were really in for. Plus conflicts with sports schedules, and there are maybe 15 of us on actual full-time duty. So, in a situation like ours, having a multischool team was just about the only way to actually get any motivated, dedicated people to go on all of this. I dont know if that helps any, but I hope it might add just a bit to the influx of information.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Three things:

1. Definately build a robot this year and goto at least one regional. You cannot under-estimate the importance of the official events on the moral of your team, and the life of your team (future funding).

2. Make everything as simple as possible. Design a base model robot (FIRST drive train and frame) with the simplist attachments and features you can come up with. If it moves and it passes the inspection, then you have succeeded. If you get over ambitious and your team shows up with a non-functional robot then team moral will take a huge hit.

3. If you dont have funds to send your whole team to the nearest regional then you only 'need' to have 5 people there: the 4 on-field players and one adult mentor. Two hotel rooms and a borrowed mini van are very inexpensive.

In other words, set your goal as the bare essentials / minimum requirements for all aspects of your team. Then if you can do better than that, and have 10 people attend the regional instead of only five, or you add some additional subsystems to your robot, then your team has done better than expected.

A survival mode mindset will get you through this year.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

We had the same problems back in 2003 and now again this year. All but two students on last years team graduated last year. We also lost two of our main sponsors, going from a 30k a year budget to 6k is very hard but we are making it work. Just hang in there everything will work out for the best.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

From what I know, my team was made up of two of the schools in the district. Now it's only my school, and looking at the back of my t-shirt, we have three sponsors other than my school(one of them is called "the cad store" and I asked what in the world that was, but no one gave me an answer yet).

For in-school fundraisers, candy is popular. I myself sold 70 truffles bars this year(10 sold on an average day). All I did was carry a clear bag(like ziplock) of truffles to every one of my classes, put it on my desk and people would buy them.

I am really sorry to hear about your team's situation. My sister's school's FLL team(their first year) has disbanded because the teacher didn't find time to do it. As long as all of you, your mentors, and your teachers are willing to do this, you should be able to. So keep your hopes up! :)

Re: Team in Danger!
 

we where in the same situation this year. the school was going to cut our funding for reason i am not going to go into, but we just went to local companies and got sponsership, we found every machine shop with in 20 miles and called them up and we are doing fine now.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

Our team is kind of (I think) a non-standard set-up. What happened was that we were going the be the Park School FRC team. Skipping over boring details, we found another school called the Science and Math Academy of Auberdeen (SMA) and were going to establish a partnership BUT they weren't really contributing anything except students (they choked off our fundraising options in the area) so now it IS the Park team that excepts outside students. Most of which happen to be from one school.

Our school wouldn't have enough kids to make a complete team (and by complete I mean build a robot, not do fancy web graphics n stuff) by ourselves. So far, it's worked out pretty well.

Anyway, in terms of your current difficulties: try not to get discouraged =)!

As several people on this thread have said, multi school programs can be great! If your school isn't big enough/interested enough (interest is our problem) try and talk to local to local schools that might have been wanting to start a team but were unable to or or just haven't done it yet.

Someone may have said this already, but try scouting the upcoming freshman class (if you can).

Best of luck, and keep your hopes up!

Team 1719

Re: Team in Danger!
 

My team was a rookie last year, and everyone except for 4 of us were seniors. As such, they had the greatest role in building the robot, and now we had a huge boom in interest, so we have had to take alot of time to teach the new kids. Being one of the four veterans, I am glad that we will be competing, as it gives everyone a chance to work for a deadline, and then compete in the real tournament. I think that even if you are unable to field the best robot due to the lack of experience, the chance to compete in a regional is very important experience for the new teammembers. If money is an issue, thats a different problem, but for the lack of experience, it just means you may have to look to some slightly less intense solutions to the problems.

Re: Team in Danger!
 

"News team! ASSEMBLE!!!" -Ron Burgundy

What I mean by that is, you should call out to your community and your school. Get more people interested. I hate to see this happen to anyone. Try to call around and hook up through connections.

Good Luck! :) And I wish you all the best