Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Hey guys, I'm Sorry to say that team 808 will not be participating in FIRST this year.

We really hope that it is only this year, but it seems that our team is falling apart. Two years ago our team had a lot of members and was spirited. It seems like everything that we have worked for has dissapated.

Our team has gone down to about 6 members who actively participate. We lost three mentors, this year. :(

Okay enough with me babbling, its not all that important to you guys I'm sure :p

We Hope to see you all next year.

-Steven A. Farley
-Danny Lin
-Chris Kuhanek
-Jeff Kidwell
-Andrew Wolfe
-Jacob Oblander
-Nathan Prioli

Re: Hey Guys
 

Umm, wrong. We DO care and it IS important. Well, at least to ME it's important. I can't speak for others.

If there's no money, well, there's not a lot that can be done. But, if the issue is one of lack of interest by students and/or mentors, the cure is to recruit. Perhaps you've done that already, perhaps we're past the point of saving it and we can just give up - for now.

But, if there's anything we (and now I speak for everyone) can do to help - remember I'm in New Jersey - just say it and we'll do the best we can to help.

Don

Re: Hey Guys
 

I care! I care a lot! FIRST is the greatest part of being in high school for me, and I know I'm not the only one that feels that way. You know, it's really not all that late in the year. There are still plenty of things that you can do to revive your team (namely, recruiting. You could also do several things to try to attract mentors). There's no reason why you should give up now! PM me or email me (pdanilyuk@gmail.com). If I or my team can help your team in any way, whether it's in marketing strategy or with funding or even in engineering, we'll certainly do our best. Don't give up!

Re: Hey Guys
 

I would suggest that you latch onto a team in your surrounding area for this year just so you can "keep the dream alive". If you do this, at least it won't be as hard getting started back up and you can still keep existing members involved in FIRST. Just a suggestion. :)

Re: Hey Guys
 

This is what happened with team 73 Edision Tech. They had lost thier sponsorhip and issolved and some of the students were taken in by team 1511 Rolling Thunder. They are now comming back again this year.

Re: Hey Guys
 

Everyone cares! You should not give up, not with all of the time you have before kickoff.

Does your team really have to be composed only of high school students? Invite some middle school students into your team, so that they get addicted to FIRST. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts... young people of any kind. If a nearby middle school has a Lego team, get some of them tinkering with the robot. Their parents will likely want to help out the team if they see their son/daughter participating in a high school competition, and they will most graciously want to help you.

For rapid fund raising ideas, see the following thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=46224

Ask your high school of you can have a lunchtime rally, where you show off previous year's robots and talk about what FIRST is about. You will hook a couple of students this way for the 2007 competition, and everyone will feel a lot better about the team. Getting people interested in your team is not something to be found at the end of some mysterious path. You need to show other people why they should be interested in this high school robotics team. You know if they are interested when they offer to help out the team.
Don't give up!

Finally, take a moment to remember your own experiences about robotics. Look through old robotics pictures, and think about kickoff, which is still a long time away. Go on the Internet and watch competition videos. Get yourself mentally ready for the kickoff, which I should mention is not until January. You have time!

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Feel free to contact Delphi E.L.I.T.E.
www.delphielite.com frank.bosak@gmail.com
I'm pretty sure that we could work something out. Maybe the students could come help out on weekends. I'd hate to see your team completley dissolve. I know that alot of our members have created great friendships with your team.
If there is anything that we can do to help out, please let me know.

We also have some collegiate mentors that might be willing to help out on weekends or maybe even weekday if you plan on building up the team in alliance before the season start. Just a thought.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

All the others above me have pretty much said everything that can be said, so I'll second all of them... just remember that when it comes to losing a FIRST team, everyone (I hope) is disappointed, and wants to help out however they can.

Best Wishes,

The Canuck

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

NEMO may be able to assist with some suggestions or ideas. Also, have you considered forming an FVC team this year instead of an FRC team? It is a more moderately-priced program than FRC and may be a way to keep FIRST going at your school. PM or e-mail me for more info - kathiek@firstnemo.org

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Steve,
It is pretty easy to see we all care. Where there is a will there is a way. Let us know what the problems are, contact NEMO and your First regional director for help when you need it. If nothing else, please come out and cheer for teams at regionals in your area, and bring along some teachers and parents.
Let us know if there is anything we can help with.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

You have more members than team 1893 did and IT WENT to regionals and IT competed! They were pretty much a team of one or two. You can always have other teams help maintain your robot. Every other team did something to make sure that 1893 was able to compete. Other teams even helped drive the robot. That's gracious professionalism for ya.

And don't worry. As long as you have the money and the will, just go out and roll. But I understand why you can't. But teams reorganize and regain their strength. Take 1893 and also 399, which lost a head mentor and the mentor's son. Hence--the team name TNT! (They ended up going to championships as well as Chesapeake and Vegas and they're still goin' strong.)

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

If you have the funding, keep going. Team 294 only has about 10 active members and does well enough each year. 6 can't be terrible, especially with the kitbot/trannsmissions and delphi willing to help.

If its funding, all you need is 6k, and a little extra and you can still compete and have a great time.

It actually makes me sad when I hear of a team being shut down.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

I'd like to begin by saying, that I did not expect such a response from people. For me it was more of a way to finalize the idea that we weren't doing First this year; an epitaph of sorts.

The problems are many. Lack of funding is one of them. We're sitting on about $1,500 in the account right now.

Our mentor feels that FIRST has lost sight of its goals; I agree to an extent, although that doesn't mean I no longer wish to participate. It wasn't a team decision, as much as it was our mentor bottom lining it for us. He feels we would get more experience out of something like the NRC (which the team as a collective are participating in.). The rest of the team had a bad response to the idea of not doing First, driving away even more people. His action basically stopped us from having to deal with irate students.

Danny, Chris and I (Steve) would like to find a team to latch on to, or even do First provided we find funding, although I feel it would be going behind our mentor's back. I may have made him seem like a Draconian driver, which he isn't, but he has been with us since I began, I guess you could call it a type loyalty

It seems from my view point, that when Alliance started doing FIRST, they attracted mostly freshman. But, from then on recruitment steadily decreased to the point that we have no new members this year. Three years ago, "Captain Hook"'s year, all of the seniors graduated, leaving us with maybe 10 members when we originally had 30.

Some of these problems seem irreparable to me, though that doesn't stop us from trying. Last year a number of students didn't meet the 70 hour requirement to go on the trip, and they argued until the Mentor just gave up, The horrible thing was is that the rest of the team with the exception of a few of us, stood there and just let it happen. She had been with the team since its conception, and gave up on it.

Again I appreciate all of the comments you guys have made; all of us do.

Instead of FIRST, Danny, Chris and I are doing the next best thing. Building a First robot during the 6 week build season and going to off season competitions, since the budget currently allows for it.

It hardly seems adequate compared to what we having been doing the past couple of years, but you have to choose your battles.

Even if we had the funding, the decision has been made. Jeff doesn't feel that we should do First, and we can't change his mind. We could do it anyway if we had the money, Providing we could get access to the account from the school, but its not worth losing another mentor over it.

Thank you all, for your support.

We hope to see you next year.

-Danny Lin and -Steven Farley

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

While you are on sabbatical if you have any events nearby that you can go to, consider volunteering. It's a different side of FIRST that you will see; one that many of us enjoy as much as sitting in the bleachers!

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Danny, Chris, and I are thinking about volunteering at the Pittsburgh regional. Only Drawback is trying to get out of school for a few days. Since the Team isn't the reason, it may be quite hard to leave. Thank you for the Idea.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

As far as recruiting is concerned NO one team should wait up until graduation day to realize that you went from 25+ members down to a handfall and possibly even less than that if you only count those in which are truly dedicated. It's always good to keep the recruiting of members alive by making constant announcements at the beginning of the day that the team is looking for students to come and join the team. You should be able to get at least a new face or two on a daily basis.

I am kinda interested in the 70 hour rule you guys have and would like to know about it. If its what I think it is and I'm not to sure about it maybe you guys should try chopping the 70 hour rule down to maybe 48 hours instead.

Fundraising is always a must. No one team can honestly go off and compete off of sponsorship alone. Unless its a really big named company / organization. Sponsorship is not always dependable so whatever fundraising that gets done will help and fill in the gaps the sponsorship missed.

Myself coming and graduating from a team of maybe a dozen kids as well as a team with very little funding from sponsorhip; I can understand and sympathize for your team. It feels horrible to be the smallest and underfunded team in FIRST, But guess what with the little bit you have you can come a long way from having nothing at all. I wouldn't go behind my mentors back and doing something they said can't be done however I would continue to rub hope in their faces and continue to tell them that there are other options.

While I won't be too detailed as to where I came from since many of the local members on CD (local in my area anyways) know me, My old team had about 15 participating students on a yearly basis. 6 - 8 of which were extremely dedicated. We managed to build a name for ourselves and made ourselves known to FIRST in every way a large team could. We built extremely robust robots with little to no funding, thanks to the mentors who had much knowledge of what they were doing. The 15 of us that went to competitions cheered louder than the larger teams competing. And if you were to walk in the school and look at the awards cabinet you will notice that with as many students on the team participating and with as much funding we stuggled with on getting we have become one of the many success stories of FIRST. A Team with nothing - No funding - No membership have won close to or above 30 awards most of which came from the regionals and championship and the few from off-season competitions all awards ranging from Quality to Team Spirit to Event Winning. Even with nothing you can be successful, You 6 students and that teacher should have another meeting and re-discuss what could be done to keep the team alive. Boxing up the shop would be one option I wouldn't accept. All you need at that drivers station is 2 drivers a human player and a mentor a total 4 members from the team. I say you guys can do it. All you need is funding. Theres plenty of time to register your team and elect your first Regional. Remember the deadline is in December and Kickoff is in January.

If you guys need help there are plenty of teams in this organization that will be more then glad to help you guys with whatever your needs are.

We are a family and family members help one another.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Well Mtaman, I wasn't a member of the team then. I onto the team in the middle of the situation.

The hours required came from an average of Hours/team member last year.

70 hours was not considered an outrageous request. The Most dedicated had upward of 200. But next year that will be something to look at. I guess I really don't want to recruit people who aren't interested at all. We had that happen last year, and it turned into disaster. So we're struggling, but First for Team 808 isn't going to happen this year. Next year it will, I'm NOT going to give up my senior year for lack of funding or lack of interest, I don't really care what the rest of the team thinks. :)

Thanks for your encouragement,

-Steve

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Seventy hours is about 10hr/week during the build season with no regionals thrown in. Our students on robot mechanical, electrical, playing field, strategy and software put in at least one 3 hour night plus Saturday during the build. One week from ship, this skyrockets.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Yeah I had a feeling that was the 70 hour requirement was all about. I actually kinda like that requirement. It seems unfair and all but the truth is in order to go and spectate you have to work for it. I like that method.


If I sounded a little too forward in that last message than I'm sorry.

I guess every team can use a break for a season. Gives them a chance to build themselves up and all.

Looking forward to seeing you guys in '08

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Too bad about the dwindling interest but I think you could probably build a robot with 6 members. It will most likely be very tight and stressfully - but isn't it always ...

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

Well, Its not the building part thats the problem. Our mentor has barely time right now to come one night a week. Last season, we had no mentors there, and just people parents and one coach who came to watch. We still did pretty well considering (1st place for a day and half). That was the regional, where we got turned down for invites in the tournament. :-p It was interesting to have both martian teams turn us down, and then try and pick eachother, we got a good laugh out of it.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

So you need more funding and mentorship support - never hurts to start looking within your community now, even if your team does take a one year hiatus.

Has your team ever gone out into the Alliance community seeking help from area businesses? Many teams have developed a "tiered rewards" program that grants different levels of promotional advertising to companies and individuals based upon the level of financial and personal commitment they donate to the team. Here is one such example from one notoriously successful team :p :

http://moe365.org/prospective_sponsors.php

Teams 48 and 2010 are working on their own sponsorship drive plans (geared toward the current economic state of affairs in Northeast Ohio) and are preparing to go out into the Warren and Champion communities to seek out help from area businesses, which have long been an untapped source of support for 48 (who has relied almost exclusively upon Delphi for corporate support for nine years) and will hopefully be a primary source of support for 2010. We are integrating rewards for personal time commitment and team mentorship into the overall plan, to go along with the standard promotional considerations for monetary donations. Time is money, after all! We'd be happy to share this plan with your team leaders.

One other potential source of income - NASA provides a one year grant to veteran teams who want to attend new regionals. This year, that includes the New Orleans Regional. 10 such "veteran grants" are available for New Orleans. Get a bus and go! Here's the link to the application page:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/firs...ication_07.php

In addition to the competition itself, I can think of many educational opportunities travelling to that competition and that region of the nation would provide to 808's students, considering the events that have affected that region over the past year. Maybe that would be a unique selling point to your school and your team advisor? Just an idea.

Re: Team 808 not participating in 2007
 

http://www.girardrobotics.com/media.htm

This is a link to the Robocats 379 team media page. It contains a link to our hand out on how to raise $30,000.00. This may be helpful in the fund raising area!