How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I just wanted to know how much your school actually supports your FRC, FLL, and FVC teams
Its pretty difficult for us to gain much notice in our school as we're one of hundreds of clubs/teams.
Still, our FRC team is gaining more and more notice every year, we're invited to every alum/ incoming student event, and we had a presentation go on in our school's library earlier this year.
Has FIRST become a big/the biggest thing in your schools? I'd love to hear about it!

Yon

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We are very low recognized in our school. but we are in a bad school. The students always have nasty comments to say about our members like we are going to the Detroit regional tomorrow and the teache was giving us our work and it took him about 10 minutes to give us our assignment because the class didn't think it was fair. there were alot of rude comments and there are very few people here that actually care about ChiefDelphi but we are better recognized worl wide than locally and that is bad. There is just a black cloud and the only thing that really gets out of here is all of the negativity. We are one of maybe 5 groups/teams that are even a shining example. we get in the local paper once in a while but that is good. but if you were to ask the students about chiefdelphi here they will say i don't know and they really don't care :confused: :)

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

www.cccsd.org

There is a picture of the team leader with the President of RIT and the CEO of Bausch & Lomb on the front page of the district website and a picture of the team with the chairmans award on the senior high website.

Considering the school built a robotics room in the new tech wing and is creating a robotics class, I'd say Churchville Chili does an outstanding job supporting Team 340.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

As far as I can see, the school's support of us has declined over the years. This year the robotics class was cut, and we've gotten even less funding and support than last year. We lost the ability to use the shop over weekends, had to leave earlier at nights, and could only go to one regional... They did however give us a classroom to use 100% for FIRST until the end of the build season, but we didn't receive that until the last two weeks. (Not to say we didn't appreciate that - Allowed us to work right up until when we had to leave instead of cleaning up for classes the next day.) Hopefully next year will be better...

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our team is really a combination of a number of schools. At most the schools provide a few hundred dollars, a place to build our robot, and a couple of handy machining tools. Our team is, from what i can see at my school, somewhat recognized by the teachers. We are not at all recognized by the students, though. The fact that our team is made up of many schools probally limits the amount of intrest they show. I have also noticed a decline in technology education classes at my school. This might be the result of increased focus in the standard academic classes to meet the par and get on the "good list" of schools. This could also be a contributing factor to any lack of intrest.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

931 gets an aviation bay (think small hangar) to build the practice field in, support from several very enthusiastic teachers, use of the engineering classroom after hours, use of hand tools, band saws, drill presses, arbor presses, a lathe, and a Principal who has, on more than one occasion, personally transported our robot in the back of his own truck!

I'd say our school support is pretty strong.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

well, we got a robotics class last year and we still get funding and support by the district, but when we won nationals in 2003, our basketball team also won state championships, ..so we werent as recognized that year, but id have to say, the support is rising

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Ours is a collection of schools though we do all our work at the career and tech center. In the schools its pretty much unknown because none of the mentors or teachers are involved and we don't meet at any of the schools. On the other hand, the tech center has been very supportive letting us use the PLTW room and shop and the machine tech teacher will make parts for us if we give him a drawing and notice ahead of time. The team (Carroll county career and tech center robotics team) is slightly misnamed (there are only three or four students that actually go to the tech center) but its OK because they have given us the best support, a teacher to run the club and a shop to build in.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school pays for our initial entry fee...and our teachers have generally been very understanding about getting in late work. Also our assistant principle, a math teacher, and a secretary and her family all came to our regional. They are great. Actually I feel as though we've had more support this year from our school than any other year I've been on the team. We had 52 fans (from families and the administration) at Hartford.

And our custodians lend us one bay of the heated (very important) garage for our build season.

There are plans for renovating our old agricultural building, turning into a technology center that would also host our team. But initial funding and the budget have been a problem...so we'll see how that goes.

Actually on another note, our former principle let us stay at her house when we went to the NJ regional last year. We had 20 people and it so we slept on the couches, porch, and in the dining room but it was great fun. And it worked well for meetings.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

your right on Kate last night we went to a Churchville Chili school board meeting and gave a presentation they love it and most had some positive experience with are team or Rees. cccsd is very good to us

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Yon most kids don't even know that there is a robotics lab in the school. We also have a robotics class, but there is usually no people who do both FIRST and the class.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We are the only team at our school, unless you count two Lego League teams. We get a lot of support (our vice principal comes to competitions with us).

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I would say our school gives us very minimal support. There is some politics going on behind the scenes at the administration level or something. It was sort of iffy whether we were even going to get to have a team this year. Our teacher mentor (Paloma Garner) applied for and received a grant to help fund the robotics team to be administered by the school. The catch was that we had to fill out requisition forms for required parts/materials, then when the guy felt like it he would take it to some committee for approval, THEN when he felt like it he would go and get our stuff. This guy had absolutely no involvement with the robot. We made a request for some basic (but essential) tools 1 week prior to the kickoff. We did not get a single tool until 2 weeks before the end of the build. He would not except receipts for reimbursement. If it wasn't for the fact that our sponsor, MAES, came through with some valiant fund raising, we would still be staring at a bunch of bins full of kit parts.

Second thing. As the build season progressed, our available work hours kept getting reduced. Strangely each reduction came soon after a visit by the principal...hmmm. The whole thing reminds me of the movie "Major League". She would come in and see we were making progress then throw another hurdle in our way. During the week we were allowed to work from 4pm-7pm. Sounds pretty good except the first and last half hours are spent setting up the classroom and cleaning up. We COULD have worked more hours, but we had to pay the janitors over time to stay later.

This is a mostly low income student school. It's almost as if the school administration wants to say "LOOK! We gave them this great opportunity and they screwed it up!" Some of the students were disheartened by all of this and left the team. I let the rest of them know that they were being used as pawns. It made me so proud to see them work doubly hard with what we had.

Our team motto? "If we're going down, we're going down swinging!"

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Although we are 2 schools, the school i attended has never even recognized the team's existence. On our school website it use to say "Robotics Club" and then had the description of the photography club. Now they have omitted that as well. :ahh: This year is the first year we have gotten any acknowledgment and it is because i have been so annoying about it.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

1293's lucky to have a pretty supportive district in general, plus a pretty helpful staff at Irmo High School, where we build. School District Five pays for the entry fee for Palmetto--any shirts, additional events, parts, or sexy use of aluminum comes from sponsors, parents, or from our own pockets. Our coach has keys to the places where we work, so access generally isn't an issue so long as we clean up after ourselves.

All told, it works out pretty well.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Yeah, our school's team is the only FRC team in the county, there are several FLL and Vex teams however. We are lucky to have the support of an excellent, very dedicated mentor who teaches Calc C, the Engineering Design classes, coaches soccer and softball, and teaches nights at a local community college. Our team is only about 15 strong, but we have a great administration who supports 100% of what we do. Teachers are supportive for the most part, there are always exceptions, but getting out of class for building or competition isn't a big deal. Our boosters club gives us a little of money, but most of it comes from our primary sponsors. We are also very lucky to work right in the shop at school, and our working hours are never limited by external powers, ie prinicpal, custodians.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

5,000$

Am I the only one to answer the thread's question directly? :rolleyes:

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Where we are, we have about medium support. Many students know about our team and come to Chesapeakes that are not part of the team. But still, like our ice hockey team, the majority of the student population here does not know about us (or even care). However, this is true about a lot of our clubs (though there is a great deal of student participation.) We are about at the level of an athletic team in terms of outside support from the school. Our administrators back us, and actually got us in FIRST in the first place. (Originally, we were a part of #165 early in its history (us, Broadneck, and Severn), and then our Head Mentor decided to pull us out, and when we did not have a Pre-Engineering class, we founded the team to give opportunities to those students.) But as opposed to team spirit. It's mdoerate, though we're doing more stuff for it this year.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We are very lucky. Our current Superintendent/volunteer mentor started the team 6 years ago when he was HS principal. We have teachers willing to supervise a pep bus to our local regional (90 minutes away) and volunteer/work "overtime" - 6 a.m. - 7 p.m. to do so.

Our school is financially unable to support us with money, but they do pay two advisor stipends of about $3000 total (everyone else volunteers). There were 3 paid positions, but budget cuts 3 years ago ended that. Students pay all travel expenses and for school buses.

Our school is also extremely gracious in allowing us to host an Engineering/Techonology Career Fair & all-school assembly (which disrupt the schedule for an entire day) and allowing us to work with no custodians on duty, among other things.

Every year at least 2 of 5 board of education members come to competion.

The school has also added an Engineering Pathway as part of student scheduling (with help from a local university) and a robotics class and the requirement for AP science and math course students to spend time with us during build season.

Qe decorate our main hallway with FIRST posters/banners as well as posters/banners recognizing all of the other teams (athletic & academic) who succeed.

We also sponsor/plan an assembly which provides time for every HS activity to present their activity and recruit new member every Spring. Of course, our team/FIRST gets 5 minutes more presentation time than anyone else!

Football players & cheerleaders have volunteered to "sit" in our dunking booth fundraiser.
So, I guess the point is that support doesn't always come in the form of money!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

This type of thread has been given many different names - but really has the same point as the others, which I've responded to several times before, and what do you know I'm doing it again in this thread...

In the end, you'll hear about the great support at some schools and at other schools, they're building a robot in some shed. If the program is important enough to you and your team - do more in your school to gain support - make presentations to the board, football games, etc... Give out press releases to the local media and better inform the parents about your program. At our site, support has been mostly positive, because we've taken the time to get the word out. Unfortunately in the past year, we've not been recruiting new members as much, so the future looks like a difficult road - but I won't complain, because we didn't do enough to recruit more students and are trying to improve this.

So be proactive, take initiative and change the culture in your school/community the best you can. Don't wait for others to define your future!!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

As previously mentioned, the district didn't just handout the $5000, we had to inform our superintendent about our program and its purpose and mission, and lobby hard for it. We are getting $5000 this year, while personnel are losing their jobs, programs are being cut, etc.... We educated them about how important this type of education is in today's society and they agreed.

You want school and district support? Go after it and be tenacious and if you don't get anywhere go to the county and ask for it there (ROP programs love this type of education)!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Everyone has replied perfectly well. By support I meant both your team's influence in the school, and money def counts as well.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

we get no financial support from our school. The fund raising is run by our business members. The school may have initially given us money in our first year last year, but i dont think we get money from the school anymore (i need to inquire). Other then that our school just lets us stay on campus pretty late but the custodian has to be there to lock up and close some gates.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our School is very supportive. We have a highter status than the sport's teams and everyone knows our team Number.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school supports us in every way except financially. This year, we were able to start 2 FIRST Robotics classes in our school. One was designed to tackle the Fundraising and Administration aspect of robotics where as the other one was a Manufacturing class. These classes allowed our Team to do new things like organize a coin drive for underpriveleged families and organize our trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Regional. The teachers are well aware of our program due to presentations made to them by involved teachers and seminars during PD Days. Our student body is aware of us as we have a display case with our trophies and updates in our newsletter.

In terms of finances, our school gave us $1500 for the first 2 years but then all of a sudden last year, gave us no money. They do however give us supply days so the teachers can take time off for the trips. Our school board gave us $7500 the first year, then nothing the next year and last year, all we got from them was a bill for heating and hydro from when we were in the school on weekends!

It is great to walk down the halls of Port Perry High School and see our banners displayed and our trophies for everyone to see. We have our own room for storage which is in a central location. A lot of people are supportive of us and it is awesome to have our administration, staff and student body behind us!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Here at Mishawaka Indiana, team 135 gets a lot of support from our school "Penn High School." Since the beggining of the 6 weeks, we've been able to work from 3 pm to midnight or sometimes even 1 or 3 in the morning! We have an awesome shop available, and its always available! We've even built a half court playing field for practice! Most of our classmates are very supportive of us, and if they didn't know about robotics, they were always curious to know. Our school board gave us 2,500 dollars " We worked very hard for that money!" through concessions and having "Robotics Night". Our school supoervisor came to the Purdue regional and so did two representatives from the Patrick Metals company. I feel very grateful and fortunate to be supported by our community. We've even extended our outreach program to the South Bend team and we've helped them weld their parts! I do believe that every school should support their robotics teams 100%. Because that's what schools are for right? To educate kids? Things are pretty backwards these days. Best of luck to all of you and see you at nationals



IF YOU NEED ALUMINUM OR PARTS AT NATIONALS, STOP BY TEAM 135'S PIT!


:]

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

469 Las Guerrillas is not supported by the school very much in any way that I can think of. It's pretty sad actually, but we still put the International Academy under our sponsor list =/. Although we are recognized by announcements in the morning, that's it. Our friends know about it and when the team walks around with identical sweatshirts and clothes, the other students in the school are either like..what the heck? or ..oh..robotics people. But in our school, we are all equally geeks so robotics doesn't make us stand out much. It would be nice to have more school support, but idk. I don't think that's going to be happening any time in the near future...

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

well...I guess the only people who know are the teachers and the srudents who have friends on the robotics team. and at rallies and the team goes out to show the school, It's something I wish could be improved more at our school is the the students supporting well, their school.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We have a fairly supportive administration which lends us half a room. The janitors are always happy to unlock doors for us and aid us when they can.

As for the student body, well - I don't think any of them know we have a team(aside from the friends of the team).

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school is very supportive in what we do, although I wish we could get a robotics room or a robotics building but we dont have the space on the poperty. BUt our school does acctually give us varsity letters for being on the team which is a huge thing, and they are realy supportive with ramp riot and stuff. We are really fortunate to have their support!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

School? Support us? Ha! there's a new idea!! :yikes:
I remember at the regional competition when we had a list of sponsors on our robot, our captain said: "Hey! why are they on here? they don't sponsor us!" and pointed to our school name

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Well, let's see, next to nothing, the only ones who are supportive are our janitors (quite a unorthodox source of support might I say), and some of the other science teachers in addition to our sponsor. We get most of our funding from local corps and little businesses and the 2 or 3 fundraisers (not really used to raise funds, but more to "raise awareness", since we make very little from them- sub-$500- for a lot of work). Last year, we wanted to build a shed like the sports that our school sponsors, but the admin shot it down. We attempted to bribe our principal with a XXL team t-shirt specially ordered for his horizontally challenged physique, but that failed. What made it worse was they built a shed thingy in that exact location for some unknown purpose.
I jsut feel like most FRC teams are just undervalued in their schools as opposed to the "state championship baseball team" or the "all conference tennis players" , I wish it was as easy as "raising awareness" in the community to get more support, sometimes, people are just indifferent....

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

my school does NOT support our FRC team at all.

even though we are a rookie, and may be going to nats...

the school recently decided to help pay for us if we go to atlanta.

but during build season, we were given a classroom, denied entrance to the workshop, and kicked out at five o clock most days.


and, an interesting conversation between me and a girl in my class when i was telling everyone about what the team was.

her-"ew....robotics?...NERD!" *laughs...gets 3/4 of the class laughing*
me-*stands up* YEAH. I'M SMART. TOO BAD YOU AREN'T.
her-well....yeah. *walks away*

i thought to myself...
SCORE:
ROBOTICS-1
SKEPTICS-NEGATIVE THREE.


our school also refers to us as a "club" denying us priveleges such as...oh, i don't know....FUNDING?

and our "club advisor" is not even a science/math/computer teacher.


not very fun.

hopefully better times next year.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Barely...pretty much not at all.

Our school is mostly about football and speech team. Basketball is a close third. Robotics...half the people at my school don't even know there is a robotics team.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Today our school said WildStang on the announcements. :yikes: hehe

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Usually, there is really no say in how much we would get every year. Depending on the funds our school/district has will determine how much we will receive. One thing I am very glad about is that we're still able to travel and have a competitive robot regardless of how the situations are.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

The plan is that you have as many members on your team join the other clubs. This way robotics has a hand in everything. Then it will also be easier to pull strings when you need it the most. Other clubs can always make "donations" to robotics; all you need is a little more than half of that club be in robotics then you got it made.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Not very much unfortunately. Our Rookie year, we were not even recognized as a school team and were pushed off to the side as only an afterschool activity. Luckily, we had teachers and mentors that cared enough to sponsor and push our team to the top.

We are an IT school and yet our own principal dislikes technology and does little to support our extensive IT facilities such as our ~400 3GHZ computers that the IT students and teachers devote time to maintain. Robotics originally was supported by only the IT coordinator and the IT department teachers along with students. After our RotY win at Championships, our school has given us a much better status of a fully recognized team, as well as our own display wall and expanded usage of facilities.

Hopefully this next season we'll enjoy the same privileges of other school teams and get the recognition we worked so hard for last season.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school has been alright about supporting us this past year. It was our first year in the school, so hopefully things will be better next year.

We have access to 4 rooms to work in. A computer lab, classroom, auto shop, and a room connected to the classroom with tables and stuff. We also have access to the gym and practice room when other sports teams aren't already using them.

The faculty support is decent, but student support is pretty low. We put the jaws of the wrestling team to the floor when we were practicing, though. :D

Edit: Julia Magoolia reminded me of Intro to Engineering class we got set in to the 2007/2008 year cirriculum.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

actually, this does not fare well for all other clubs.

For example, there are a few students on our Robotics team that are also in our Festival Jazz Band. In 2005, there was a trip to Boston for the Berklee Jazz festival. this festival was the same day as the Saturday of the UTC regional. Being the driver of 177 I opted to go to the UTC regional instead. however, I did not have a happy jazz band director after that one.

Doing a lot of clubs is always a good thing, but with robotics being such a big time commitment, sometimes there are scheduling conflicts. I already know that we have a band trip to Virginia the same week as the Championships in 2007... :confused:

Some teachers are really supportive of the robotics team because of what it does for students, and how much of a learning experience it is inside and outside of the classroom.

On the other hand, some teachers are not supportive and think that schoolwork should always come first and academics is more important.

As a whole, our school is not very supportive of the robotics team, yet there are induviduals who support us a lot. Our school's principal makes sure that he goes to the Hartford regional every year on his own time to see us compete. He also came to see us off before we left for Atlanta and watched the web cast as much as he could. This kind of support is personal and I know our team appreciates it when he is there.

Because there are a lot more students on our team now than in the years past, we have made a bigger impact in our school. And after every competition that we attended, there was an announcement over the intercom giving the student body an idea of what we have done. Unfortunately, we started to get a lof of schoolwide attention because of the fact that we won competitions, not because of what we were doing.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I'd like to second Kim's spectacular argument. I too, had a musical conflict. As a result, I too did not have a very happy band director.

However, I think there's a greater message here: you, as a team member, should not decree what extracurricular activities your teammates participate in. Throwing them into other clubs will not help your image, it will only postpone the work that you need to do to improve it. Do not postpone that work. This is one situation in which you can destroy your team through an effort that you consider a shortcut.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We in Warren Ohio, though our School System is constantly near dead last on our states district report card, Have many great programs that those score do not account for, Such as the international baccalaureate program, A very excellent band program -which I was also part of- that made it to Macy's Thanks Giving Day Parade in 2004, and the point of this thread our Delphi E.L.I.T.E Robotics team, which over the years has gained a great deal of respect from our community, community leaders especially our board of education members(some of which started the team it's self in 1998),even our principal(ex- now) has come to our regional before, we even have a public broadcast TV show every Thursday during the season put on by our WSCN Communication Class to update the community on our doings at regional and so forth. So from the administrative side of things we are beloved, But our student body still thinks we are odd or not worth there time. They often ask me why is it that you spend so many hours after school IN school, my only answer is for them to join the team and find out. As for the teachers it's a mixed bag, some, like the band teachers and most of the science and math department love the program and understand the goals it is trying to achieve, the others accept it but dislike that 50 or so students spend more time in the shop than in the class room. also as for conflicting schedules, such as Between band and robotics, Believe me I know, over 4 years I was able to go to 12 regional and 4 national events...basically every where my team went I was there...and I had the time to keep up with the music, the marching drills and the Concert, marching and jazz band events, while also receiving many awards in the process and becoming Trumpet section Leader My senior year. It is possible, it takes loyalty the first 2 years and developing and understanding of Schedules the last 2.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I’d have to agree with what my fellow 166ian said. Our school was nice to us, offered us rooms, and even let us in on the weekends, which was a small fight. And as well as the wrestling team we kicked the cheerleaders out of the gym for a bit. Though they were a bit less nice about it. To further the conversation I am in a TON of things other than first. Including anywhere from sports to theatre, and while id say the school is slightly more supportive of track, (much to my dismay I’m more of a FIRSTian) Id say that FIRST gets more attention than theatre of the math team. I balance the whole schedule by blocking my build season life for first, and keeping specific dates open for fundraisers. Several kids in our band, somehow, work great in first; one of our team leads is even in band. So I’d say that first and other activities work well together you just need to work with them.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I must third this. Our choral ensemble is awful at coordinating with HOT's schedule. This last year, for example, I had to miss many choreography sessions and dress rehearsals. The end result was me not being able to be in a few numbers. But I like FIRST better so it was okay :o

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Although 1251 would like to see more financial support from the school, our school does help us out in many other ways. They let us use our pretty new Tech lab to work in and base our whole operation out of. Since our school is a tech training center, we have access to a machine shop, welding shop and a pretty amazing drafting lab which we don't pay for. Oh one more thing Toyota just happens to have a auto collision repair shop at the school, which comes in very handy for making the robot look good. 90% of the schools staff and teachers are supportive of the program enough to donate there classrooms and time to give us support/ resources. No complaints from me during my three years on the team so far.

-Drew

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

most kids in our school don't even know there is a tech wing!!! :ahh:

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We're one of maybe three teams in the school that actually wins with any consistency, so we get some respect. It doesn't hurt that the TV classes who do the morning announcements include a lot of MORT kids...
The administration loves us because we win and because we send kids to college. The principal comes to the NJ regional every year on Friday. He was pleased as punch when we came home from Palmetto with the blue banner. I think that it's mostly because of him that we have free range of the entire basement (shops/CAD) every night.
Fellow students know we exist and they know we're pretty good, but I don't think that most people really know what we're about. They know the name and they see the video montages on the morning announcements and they see that we always come home with something but no one knows the game, the rules, or the philosophy behind FIRST. "Is it like battlebots?"

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

The school does not consider us as a team. They say we are a "club" because there is no junior or varsity sections. They will put us on the announcements if we tell them, or at least when the vice principal does the announcements. And none of the administration came to the regional at all this past year, at least some of the teachers did though.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Lets put it this way, the school is our only sponsor. And being that its only our second year in compititon, we aren't as known as our schools biggest club(as of last year), our play production company. This year we were known by many more people than last year just through friends, annoucements of how we did at regionals, and a very brief appearance at our school pep rally last year. Because of people in the communtity and in our school have taken notice of our achievements, we are getting more support. We just started our VEX team this year and are currently in the process of maybe, (big maybe) trying to help another high school nearby start a VEX or even FRC team for this or next season, along with beginning to develop FLL and JFLL teams in the grade schools in our district.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Team 1403 is extremley lucky to have the full support of our school district and community. Our school generously pays for 2 regionals and the championship event. The school board, the vice principles, the super intendent of Mongomery Township Schools, the Mayor etc. have been very active in helping us form relationships with local companies and the community. Because of our team, our school has formed a new engineering department with many robotics and vex related classes. Our school was very generous and accomodating when we were planning Monty Madness. It is amazing to see what persistence and a positive attitude can help you achieve.

At first when we started, our school was against the idea of having a FIRST team. During our first year, we did as much as we could to get our administrators out to the regionals and after they saw what we did it they were hooked. After much exposure and after they saw the product of the program, they threw full support behind team 1403. Believe me, this was no easy task but we did our best to get it done. Try, try, try until you succeed. It may take a while, but you will eventually gain the recognition you deserve. I encourage everyone to try to expose your schools, local communities etc. to the world of FIRST. You may be surprised to see how their view's may change. It's not an easy thing to do, but then again nothing worthwhile is supposed to be easy. Good luck to everyone.

-Aroon Amarnani

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our team is very fortunate to have a supporting school and community. In most schools, Football is the big thing, but in our school Robotics is probably tied at #1 along with soccer (Only two teams in the school that consistanly win anything). I think our biggest asset is our relationship with the faculty. Whenever we need anything, getting into the school during late hours, last minute supplies, or even help throwing suprise parties, the faculty has always been there to help out. In the community, we have a good relationship with the mayor, town counsil, local congressman, and the state legislature.

As for the team part, I guess we are officially a team because we got Varsity Letters. :p

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Yeah. About this time last year, we moved into the school.

Since then we have gotten a considerable amount of support from the school. We have two teachers supporting us. The tech-ed department head got us more space in another storage closet, and another teacher is going to be doing basic training in Pro-E.

Our school just administrated a no eating policy due to several kids who are deathly allergic to nuts and just entered the school. No food can be eaten outside of the cafeteria and other specified locations. Hopefully we'll be able to eat in the classroom we work in.

I feel like the school knows about us now that we actually moved into the school. Before, when we worked at our sponsor's facility, the school hardly knew of us.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I think that over the past few years our school support has gone up.
Last year our new principal came to Peachtree and Championships.
The principal before that came to Peachtree and Championships my Freshman and Sophmore Year.

Last year was a real treat. Before we went to Auburn for the South's BEST competition for BEST robotics, our basketball coach learned of this and asked if it was okay to give us a little talk before hand. He is kinda a big deal to most of us (he coached the east in the McDonalds all star game and has won 4 state championships in 4 years).
I think over the past 3 years, robotics has grown from one of those clubs that peopl look at like "eh, they are ok, kinda cool maybe" to "wow, these guys really do some pretty awesome stuff"
We also get some money from our Magnet Program's foundation for outreach puposes.
This is a new building being built at our school and the school is dedicating 950 sq feet to us.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Everyone at our school supports the robotics team. Even if they're not on the team, lunch and chapel announcements get a lot of enthusiasm. Robotics really gets a lot of promotion from teachers and students. Robotics falls at the perfect time of year for us because the school musical is at the same time (the past 2 years) and so anyone who doesn't want to do artsy stuff can join robotics. The good thing about Trafalgar is that if you want to do robotics you could still do swimming or gymnastics, and if you're not on the "technical" team you can do volleyball. This way people can join robotics and still do other things. Either way, my friends all think I'm really "cute" for how enthusiastic about robotics. My best friends even came out to the Toronto Regional last year to support the team. In the halls, people congratulate us on our accomplishments or wish us luck at the future competitions. In all aspects our school fully supports the team.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

After many years, (this will be our ninth year) support of our team within our school(s) and school district has generally been on the rise. The Board of Education for our town is now one of our two main sponsors. For many years (actually up until these past two to three years), our team was largely unknown among the school, faculty, and student population. But starting in 2005, we began to see our support within our schools rise. It started slowly and it took a lot of effort, but in the end it's certainly beginning to pay off.

We started with having our team appear at every open house, student orientation, etc. with our team and some of our robot(s) to demonstrate. With the addition of Vex robots, and the ability of any random person walking by to drive a robot, was certainly a boost. We also succeeded in having a link to our team website put right near the top of the website of one of our schools. At the moment, our team is featured fairly prominent on the homepage of my school's website. (This also happens to the default homepage for every single computer in our school.)

Our team website has certainly helped a lot as well, as a great source of information for students, faculty, and sponsors. Another great marketing tool we found, which may be hard for some teams to come up with, is having someone ride a Segway at team demonstrations. This is a great way to spark the curiosity of a lot of people, and when they come over, let them ride it for a minute or two, while giving them a nice little spiel about your team. From experience, it is quite successful for recruiting new members.

Also, don't just limit yourself to your school. Take your robot out to a fair, or a parade, or any kind of festival. Make a name for your team in not only the schools, but also in your community. Team 228 scored a massive front page article on our team just days before the 2006 UTC New England Regional this year. (The actual article took up about 70% of the front page, and quite to our surprise we learned that the accompanying image of our 2005 student FVC coach and the robot was one of the most popular photo reprint requests ever in their 150 year history!)

The student population among our three schools is becoming more and more award of our team, in a positive sense of course. We've started a much more aggressive marketing campaign, with signs and banners in the hallways, more morning announcements, and prominent places on the school website. Almost every student knows robotics exists now.

In the near future, we are going to directly talk to the math, science, and technology departments to send "letters of recommendation" to some students as an "invitation" to join the robotics team based on their academic performance in the areas of math, computers, and/or tech ed. Currently, several other clubs at our school use this method for recruiting members, like the Youth and Government club (which I'm also a major part of), and they have a high success rate. (My computer programming teacher already volunteered to do this with her classes.)

The last hurdle we are facing is recruiting additional faculty members to help with our team. Since robotics usually involves a lot more commitment that an average club, but lacking the status of a varsity team, it's hard to recruit new faculty advisors. But hopefully this year, we will draft up the necessary paperwork needed to raise our team from "club" status to a lettering "team" and present it to our Board of Education.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school is big on the main sports, football(of course), lacrosse, and many others. Compare our robotics team(which has been quite productive/successful) to many of the big sports teams in our school and we are like a dwarf to a giant! Over the years we have gained respect and notariaty. We have started to do demostrations at pep-rallies. I believe it also depends on the size of the school, the larger the school the harder it is to gain support because of the many other events, teams, clubs, and groups that occur in the school. The smaller the school the easier it would be to gain support because you have to reach a smaller group(if i am wrong in this assumption please enlighten me).

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

our school district made an addition to the budget to help sponser us. they also helped us get to the championship in 05.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

My high school (which usually dominates in sports like lacrosse and ice hockey) has been strongly behind our team. Because Chesapeake is so close to our school, faculty and administrators outside the robotics program have made it on a regular basis to the regional. In fact, the high school's administrators were the ones who got us involved first when Das Goat (165) was formed in 1998. The physics teacher who runs the team did not like it because it was not cohesive enough and split off a year or two later.

Our county Board of Education has been behind the team since 2005, even though they don't sponsor the team directly. They have been willing at points to foot the entire bill to get us (err. the team) to the FIRST Championship if we won.

The team does not have its own class, but it does have its own computer lab in the science wing and its own shop in the tech-ed side (which is shared by the few tech-ed classes that are still left at the school (because most are at the vo-tech school right across the street)) equipped with soldering equipment, several drill presses (including a brand new one), and a storage room full of supplies and tools. Even though the administration changed right after I left, the new one still strongly supports the team because he sees all the progress (and other positive stuff) it has done.

If I am not mistaken, in the midst of a successful season for the football team (a winning record for the first time in a long while), the 2006 robot actually became a part of the homecoming game: showing that it is now truly a fabric of the school.

It's actually ironic that there is so much support for the FIRST program here (and so many sponsors willing to step on board) because the parental community overall is not that involved with the school.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school now wants to take a year off from the "club" of not building or competing just so they can re-plan the entire team. So right now, we are looking at leaving the school if we cant win them over.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school does not even know we exist. Most students in the school I would say don't know there is even a robotics team. We had a class, but that was taken away since our school down sized. Now we are just a club and no longer an established school program. We deserve more respect and credit since we actually succeed in what we do, but our school seems to spend most of their time, money and attention towards our failing football team.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We get nothing...even our fundrasier attempts are shot down by the admin. They care more about sports than anything else. They just do the bare minimum to keep from parents (Of honors students and academically (or robotically) inclined students) from storming the office buildings and tearing the admin limb from limb (no not literally...but thats some of the tension being felt).

We work out of a portable classroom with sporadic access to our toolshop which is fairly pathetic. The only powered handtool we have access to at any time is a beat up jigsaw. Our drill somehow got stolen...yeah...not very pretty. And to top it all off...we are $800 in the hole!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

before last week i dont think anyone in the school even knew there was a robotics team on campus, but we just "showcased" our 2005 robot at the homecoming rally and football game(we shot t-shirts into the crowd) and everyone loved it! so we're being at least a little more recognized throughout the school now. =)

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

The students at my school, are ummmm, well, a lot of them can learn to be more mature about things. There are people who are blown away on how cool they think the robotics team is but then say nothing more. They compliment but usually it's the leadership kids and honor roll kids that would compliment the team then there's the majority of the school, uggh. I love my school because of the leadership programs and tech programs but there are just so many many rude people and ignorant people. Like at the rally where we brought out the robot and the majority of the "gangstas" or "cool", or "pimped out", or druggies just yell out stupid stuff like how (this was the 2005 rally so it was the triple play bot) that we should pick up people and start knocking the crowd out. I was in the crowd and it extremely bothered me when they would say how lame the team is. :mad: I wish I could show how amazing FIRST is but the maturity level just isn't there at my school. :( We didn't show off our Aim High bot because our rallys got cancelled last year and rescheduled because of supposed shootings. Well, maybe this year will be better because the rally is required for the entire student body anymore, only those who do want to come can come and if they don't, they can just go home. :( But then again, the majority of my team just doesn't have school spirit either, except for about three of us and they're the captains. But that's the students, I know the teachers are always constantly supporting the team. Some of them are even going out to help find sponsors for us. :D I love them.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school has actually never supported our team as far as i know very much. The admin and us have never been very good friends considering we're somewhat bad at turning in the necessary paperwork for competitions. Then on top of that, our school is so academically oriented that the teachers don't like us either because during build everyone's grade dips for a while ;) but other than that, there are some pro-robotics teachers around, mostly just our ROP Engineering Tech teacher, one of our art teachers and our faculty advisor :D half the people at our school don't even know that we have a robotics team, which is kind of lame considering we've been around for 9 years already :o but in the end the people in our team pull it all together for us with the enormous support we get from our own members and their families.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

it was amazing for our team to even be able to HAVE a robotics team. the school recognizes our existance.. and once and a while gives us a pat on the back.. but i can't remember the last time that happened. our school kinda sees us a more of a geek fest and a joke rather than a real team.. so that's a little disappointing. but cheers to all those teams who have school support they're really lucky. it's good to hav some ppl cheering u in the stands.. most of the time... we don't have anybody :confused:

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

To most students at my school, the robotics team does not even exist. To most of the administrators at my school, the robotics team does not even exist. The irony is that our school has an Emerging Computer Technology magnet program which is the only one in our county. We have a robotics lab, 6 robotics classes and a visual computer modeling class, we have a large cooperate sponsor, and the school is supposed to be a 'shinning example' of what an inner city high school should be. However, in no harsh terms, my school disregards every aspect of our magnet program and our robotics team. In the last four years I have been there, 3 of the valedictorians have been on the robotics team. We have been more successful than any sports team at our school and yet, when the girls soccer team scores in a game, it gets announced on the PA system but when we are ranked 7th in our division at nationals, we have to beg to be announced, even noticed. The community does not know we exist, nor do they much care either. Out side of the 60 members on our team (who all came to the school to join the robotics team by hearing of it through the magnet showcase or from an FLL team we are involved with) NO one knows or cares. It is sad, pathetic, even disgusting when your principle does not know what the robotics team is. To all the other teams in a similar situation, I feel your pain. Never fret though, one of these days, someone will start paying attention to us 'nerds'.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Well, my school is huge. There are 4k students at it, and the school has a fairly sizable budget (which explains why we ask for more)

They give us around $2k each year, the use of the industrial tech department, and they allow us to skip school days for regionals with no penalties... We also sponsor (for them) a couple lego league teams from their middle schools. All in all not a bad deal, and although the team is well loved, the teachers aren't so. To the school, our teacher mentors are worth that of an assistant cheerleading coach :mad: :confused: (thats the amount they get for the club's overtime).

So theres a good and a bad to it.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Well atleast they give you money. We dont get a nickel from our school. Hopefully your mentors will get more in the future because I know how much time many mentors speed on helping students around the country. Its about the youth, fun, and expeirence though not the money.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

our school practically doesn't support us, the principal gave us 2000 this year and thats it

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

During my years on an FRC team, we got funding from the school (and school system) only as an incentive. They generally didn't pay for us to go to regionals. We had to raise the money ourselves and get it from sponsorships. Thank goodness we had excellent sponsors that believed in us (even though the team is now representing the sponsor at a number of events). We made the press and we became a bigger deal than we were to start off with (probably a bigger deal now this year), but the school would only come behind us financially for Championship (even though the team has enough money to go this year) or for second regional competition. And that payment was===we'll pay whatever it takes. The bad news is, we have two competing teams in the county getting publicity and a governor-appointed Board of Ed, which means the team may or may not get support directly from the school system ever.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school graciously takes any debt that we accrue during the season, so long as we pay it back before the end of the school season. Besides, that they also give us e-mails about fundraising opportunities. That's about it as far as school funding. The school's engineering teacher gives up time, as well as our programming teacher, if you're counting teachers as part of a loosely defined school.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Well, this year was our seccond year. Our first year we got nothing from the school. We got the "OK" for like one fundraiser. This year though, we actually got the Valentine's Day Grams fundraiser instead of student council. Unfortunately though, our dance that we tried to do to make money, which was a rave, got shot down because the vice-principal hates anyone that isn't student council. In her words "Dances are only done by student council". The student council kids, it turns out, were unaware of this and are currently considering running one as a proxy of the robotics club and funneling the proffits to us. Also, this year we got more support because we got all of the pre-paid credit cards from the teachers that didn't get spent before the dead-line, which was a few hundred bucks. I think next year will be much better because the counselors really like us and asked if we could get them all some team shirts.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

1983 comes from an extremely small school. We are a public "magnet-like" school, focused on math, science and technology in a text of aviation. (Aviation High School) We are a brand new high school, this is our fourth year, and my class will be the first to graduate (this year). In the beginning we did not receive an support. They just assumed that we were another science olympiad type team thing. They learned pretty quickly that we were a little bigger than that. We started to get some more support, specifically from our administration. Our school doesn't have any sports teams, so we got some financial support from our PTSA and were able to fund a trip to the Champs after we got a regional in in Las Vegas and Rookie All Star. Our support has definitely increased this season. The school has held a couple of "pep rallies" for our team, as well as initiating an all school field trip to the Microsoft-Seattle Regional on the friday of the competition! It was incredible! Finally, our teachers and the other students could get a better understanding of what we do! It has really worked! The teachers continue to ask questions about what was going on, and what we're doing now, and what Atlanta's going to be like. It was really great to win the regional that they attended! We are already experiencing an increase in interest, and expect another large jump in student membership. It was all very exciting. It is hard with the money though, becuase we do not want to take much from the school. Currently our school is housed at its second interim location since its inception 3.5 years ago, and is still trying to find funds to build a school for us. We will get it, it will just take a little more time.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Here in Old Lyme, we've had up to three members of the school board as parents of Ticks. My wife is Treasurer of the school board. It's a good way to assure support!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school is no diffeant than all your stories. We get minamal support at best. We get the use of a make-shift shop through a hole in the wall the students made to link the "shop" to the CAD room. There are a few teachers that show interest and our instructor is a very well respected man in the district. The Daily News, our local news paper, did a front page article this year. Some of our school adminastrators didn't even know we had a FIRST program. This was my first year with the team and I didn't even know it existed. I call it the best kept secert.

I hope more people notice this awesome opportunity for our students.
We're currently working on fund raising and awareness programs.

The biggest challenges that we encounter is getting the parents envolved. We were lucky to have 4 parents and a team of 20+ students. And keeping the team together after the regional event. We're hoping to change this by promoting what FIRST has to offer and staging public events.

Now that we're on the subject. Maybe collectivly on here or through another media we should ban together. Strength in numbers! It looks to me we're all facing the same issues with just about every team. If we had a couple hundred teams with a campaign highlighting our organization and the positive affects it has that might draw some attention.

Share and brainstorm on these issues. Maybe there is something like this already out there. If there is please let me know.

Dave Team 1708
Mentor / Tech Advisor

daviddujmic@yahoo.com

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

to answer the question, let us have one no funding what so ever

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Wow, no one from RUSH commented yet.

27 is very heavily supported by Clarkston, to the point of we brought the school board president down on the bus with us to nationals. For the life of me Im not sure why he would WANT to be on a bus with 30 smelly high schoolers. But whats better? He stuck around. As for school support, RUSH is part of OSMTech and when OSMTech moved to Clarkston part of the deal was that 27 came along.

As for 397, the school lets us in the building... does that count? (Actually they may support us more but I don't generally have much to do with them so Im not sure)

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Over the years, our school system has gradually increased their support for the district Robotics team. They have decided to become a major sponsor, of around 8K per year, and students as well as staff are beginning to realize that the "Robotics TEAM" is not a joke, but something real and deserving of respect. Since our district proclaims itself as the "eLearning District," it's great that they are supporting us. In addition, their support continued this year so that we may host a post season event, Pascack Panda-monium, in October.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

At the beginning of the season our team was not appriciated/noticed by the school's admin, but as the season went on people began to wonder who those crazy kids driving robots down the halls after school were. Although we didn't get any money from the school this year and we were stuck in a classroom, we were allowed into the school on weekends and were allowed into the show(for short peroids of closly-supervised time). The team has built up alot of support from teachers and it seams that we've got a great response from the student body, and we might even get our own room and $$ from the school budget next year!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Just a couple of days ago one of my teachers announced that our schools FIRST team won the Bayou Regional, and someone turned to me and said what's FIRST. I said she is talking about Bomb Squad then they knew what she was talking about. I guess is good that we are known at our school, but that is about it were just known not much more than that. It seems to me that many of us have the same story about our school support. Even if the school can't be a big financial supporter it can still provide a lot of moral support, and it can lend its support in other ways. If we want our schools to support FIRST then we will have to make it happen. I think this thread has gotten to the point where we need to start throwing out ideas of how to fix the problem. Some people said they invited their school administration to regionals and got support that way. That is a start our superintendent went to one of our regionals and that didn't change much. What else can we do? This is what FIRST is about spotting a problem and solving it. What ideas do we have to help solve this problem? Not just for us, but for everybody who wants FIRST to grow.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Unfortunately our team doesn't get much in terms of help from our school, we get to use some empty space for our 1/2 playing field and thats about it, no funding, and very little support.

I envy teams that are lucky enough to have community that cares, because no amount of advertising, demonstrating, ect, seems to have any effect for getting people interested for us. We even tried to get a few of the local new channels to come check out a few of the events we hosted, only to have them not return our calls (quite rude). :(


Guess we just have to keep trying. :o

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

The support, financial or otherwise, that my team received from the school district was pretty much limited to the initial entry fee plus the use of a small room in the basement with a few 40 year old plus power tools. This may seem generous to many people, but it is ridiculous when compared to the support that our athletic teams receive. A recently approved multi million dollar bond proposal called for the construction of a new field and renovations to the gym but no improvements for science or technology programs. It's easy to see why the U.S. is quickly falling behind when it comes to science and technology.

Most of the administration and students just do not understand what FIRST is all about. For many students, the robotics team was the biggest joke in the high school and our athletic teams were the greatest thing ever.

We certainly did try to raise awareness about the team and FIRST. There were plenty of photo ops with the administration and local politicians after we won the Long Island Regional in 2007. We gave a presentation to the school board every year. We also presented the robot every year at the pep rally. Most of the students and some teachers would laugh or make sarcastic comments as the team was introduced and the robot was shown off.

I am not trying to complain or rant and rave. We were very fortunate to have the school provide us with funding. I am just trying to show how the U.S. is falling behind when it comes to science and technology. Improving support in local schools for programs such as FIRST will help to resolve this problem.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our School greatly supports our team. Robotics Is an actual class which students get grades and credits for. Our Lead mentor is the AP physics teacher, Our class room is a metal shop. Last year the art teacher painted our bot green with silver flames!
And my school Cass Tech hosts a regional, which is great because we are the home team! In total the school gives us around 85% of everything.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

1058 has been in a continuous struggle with the school district since its conception. Unfortunately allegations have been made against members of the team stealing computer equiptment and breaking hardware which have never been proven to be true. There is no inside support when it comes to having at teacher at the school who is also a mentor. All of our mentors are either parents or employees of our sponsors.

Our mentors are given a stipend of around 2k a year to split amongst however many there are as their "pay" for mentoring. Of course, they never keep the money - they put it right into the team account. Aside from the use of our metal shop, we don't receive any funding from the school district. We rely soley on community donations and business sponsorship. We also compete with the "World Famous Lancer Marching Band" and 1353572047203 Athletic organizations that are basically 2/3 of the reason why Londonderry exists. They get funding from the town, but they always have their hands out for more money.

But ever since I've been on the team, the support from the community has slowly been on a rise. Pushing for more media coverage and public demonstration opportunities as well as mass mailings to businesses to let them know what we're doing has helped. We've convinced our principal to come to the live kickoff in Manchester with us, and we're working on getting on the school budget ballot for $7k a year to pay for our registration and some spare parts.

It has only taken seven years to get to this point. Best words of advice are don't let any pot holes get you down. Just because the school may drop the ball here or there, you gotta just keep on top of them. You have to make yourselves hard to be ignored [graciously, of course!].

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school basically buys whatever we need, though we don't try to push our luck. We have a small but functioning workshop that has every tool we need. We are allowed to stay very late after school, and can come on saturday's during the build period. Robotics is a class, as well as an after-school club, so people hear about it. The school also buys us team shirts and hats, though this year we have decided to trade the hats for sweatshirts.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

1751 receives moderate support from our school district. No financial support is provided, but the team is given 24/7 access to a 15' by 30' working area in a shed near the high school. The administration and school board are enthusiastic about the robotics program.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school board (Halton District School Board) has not provided us with any support for the past two years, until recently they gave every team in the district $2400. :) As for our school they have coverd our debt for the past two years until they said not this year :eek: i guess thats the budget cuts. Though the school is not exactly rushing to help the team, a tailer company has been generous enough to provide us a trailer in excahnge for a tax recipt, we have been waiting two to three months for and they have not started the process :mad: yet. Then there is the matter of registration we would be lucky if we can get it before build season. I dont think were that well know in our comunity, but in our school we do a presentation for all the incoming students. We just got a new vice principle this year from OTHS who really loves FIRST so thats a good asset in the school. Most of the tech/science/computer/admisistrators come to the competitions which is good, the friday of the competions we will try to stream the live video from the competitions for everyone to see at the school to increse our exposure. :D

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school and school district support is generally good, though not a lot of money comes in. Farrington, however has given us part of the old auto shop which has been out of operation for two years (19ft x 54ft), and a side storage/programming room (12ftx12ft). We have 24/7 access to this area. We also have access to our schools Metal and Wood shops. The Teachers in these shops leave school anywhere between 4 and 5PM (School ends - 3PM) so we do not have much time in the shops.

Our Principal loves the robotics team and what it's doing for our schools image (She came down to the Hawaii regional for the past two years). We are known as the "Bad school" here in Hawaii because many live in a very low income area. 70% of our students are on the free or reduced lunch program. Most students look at robotics as the team for nerds or geeks so we only have about 20 stable members (Out of 2500)... Boy are they wrong :D . Over this past semester team 2504 has presented at our schools club rush week and recruited nearly 40 new people (Only about 15 stayed after our first meeting). We have also presented at our school community meeting.

As for money our school has provided about $1500 for our VEX teams and none for our FIRST team as of now(We mostly use grant money). I don't remember last year's budget but I believe all of our money came from grants. Since I mentor these robotics teams year round I get paid part time, but most of that money goes back to the team in the form of Food and parts. The advisor for team 2504 also gives a lot back to the team. She spends a lot of her time (After her 2 in progress PhDs and teacher of the year travel) finding grants and sponsorship opportunities for our team to apply for. :ahh:

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

School - they provide a class room for the OCCRA team to use, a teacher mentor and a little funding.

Chrysler, our primary sponsor - We are one of the first (are we the first?) Chrysler-sponsored teams, and they provide us with our own shop (at the Chrysler tech center), use of nearby shops with other tools (welding and such), a CAD/Computer room with a bunch of their old computers (which are good enough for us), use of a conference room, and allow us to build a playing field and store old robots in a storage/maintenance basement. They also provide most of our non-parent mentors and most of our funding.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Our school may not support us financially but we do get publicity. We get into out school newsletter, community papers, and school websites but thats about it. In addition to this we get a 3 workshops 2 classrooms and the entire school. We get invited to a school-wide even called showcase baldwin which shows off clubs and teams to the school and community.(the mayor came) This may be off topic but we get support from the governor and get lei's at the airport when we attend the hawaii regional. Oh and last year one of or VP's flew in to oahu to attend the Hawaii regional which was great.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Last year our school discontinued the FRC program because the head mentor was laid off and no one was willing to step up to the position, so 1930 died. Although several of us joined 2228 at a neighbor school so we drive there every night to work.

This year although our school tried to bring FIRST back with the start of an FTC team, 3750, and we're proud to say we took 2nd at Clarkson.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I'm bumping up this thread in order to bring more attention to it.
We just recently did a presentation to our school board and collected a petition of signatures to get funding for the robotics program in our town. They asked for examples of school support/funding for the deliberative session, and I have collected some of the examples in this thread so far. Any more examples would be greatly appreciated!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Have you shown the video with President Obama in it and a FIRST robot?

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I would love our school to give us more attention, but sadly we are over shadowed by the standard sterotypes of geeks and robotics. I'm here to tell the world, THAT ROBOTS ARE THE FUTURE AND ARE JUST FREAKING AWESOME!!!! No man is going to contain my burn for robots!

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

We are a team made of 3 schools and home schooled kids we get no funding from niether schools or a place to work. Our schools support us none at all, all funding comes from companies.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

My whole campus is divided into 3 separate schools, so the other 2 schools know little or nothing about our team. My separate school is supported by some of the other students. They sometimes ask questions about what our team does (the question I get the most is "So do you guys build fighting robots?"). The staff at my school, though, find our team to be quite interesting and love the idea of it all. So I can pretty much say that, overall, my school is quite supported. :cool:

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I believe our school gives us a good amount of cash, but I'm not sure.
As far as space and tools, we get very good support for that.
We get access to all of our tech rooms (3 classrooms with tons of computers, an electrical/programming room, and a shop) after school and on Saturday. Also we have a nice sized cage to keep our robot and all of our materials, parts, and extra tools in.

As far as being recognized by the other students, robotics is not that well known in our school.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

I just want to give an update after posting a few posts back.

A few weeks ago, we gave a presentation to the school board. We had to collect 25 registered voters signatures to be able to ask to be put on the ballot for funding. We presented the petition, as well as gave a presentation about the program and who we are and why we are requesting their support. We packed the room with students dressed in our team colors, as well as mentors, alumni, and parents. We showed the PBS newshour clip of FIRST from a little while back, and alumni talked about how the program "pays off". We connected FIRST to the mission statement of the school, and were able to answer any questions they had. Their only concern was the fact that this "club" would get more money than any other club, thus what would happen if other clubs came asking for money? Valid question, but we made them realise that we're not your typical "club", we're kind of like a hybrid between a club & a sport. Overall, it was met by the school board, whom in the past has been kind of ignorant to the program, with overwhelming support --- unanimous support!

Later on, the budget committee met and voted 5-1 in favor of supporting the team. And last night, we had the deliberative session where the town comes and mulls over all the articles on the ballot. We were allowed to talk for five minutes and we even got our t-shirt launcher to shoot a t-shirt over the crowd. Nobody that was present from the town had any questions or was negative towards the idea, so now it's down to March 9th and the people of the town to decide!

This is an example of a team that once used to say, "we'll never get support from our school district. we're always going to have to fend for ourselves..." and now it's really happening because WE made the effort to make it happen. Like everything else in life, you can't just expect the school to one day come to you and say "hey, we're going to support you now". You gotta work for it, and show that your team deserves it, and that their support is really important to you. Find out what it takes to get on your school board budget, and make it happen.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Way to go 1058! A truly inspirational story.

Re: How much does your school support your FIRST Team?
 

Not sure about money or anything like that, but the only time you hear robotics being mentioned by a student is "The robotics club should do battle bots" :rolleyes: