Re: New FTC Platform
 

You don't seem to understand how schools work, well, at least in my area. If a teacher, such as myself, asks for funding for a program, it will be politely passed up the chain and then buried. If parents ask for the same funding and they are passionate and vocal enough, it will happen. The parents are indirectly involved in the actual program, but directly involved is steering funding. New programs thrive or fail based on parental support.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

This is not a prank. I am an FTC Affiliate Partner and the information that is being released on the blog is valid. Ken Johnson, FTC Program Director at FIRST, is the person releasing the info.

Releasing the new platform via the Showcase at World Championships next month mimics the release of the original FIRST Vex Challenge Program several years ago.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Seemd all the people I talked to at the Davis event today who do Vex sure wish it was a prank. Seemed like they all want FTC to keep using Vex and most will keep using Vex instead of switching to the new platform. I wish FIRST would announce it's all been a bad joke on April 1, that would be cool.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

I DO understand, and you have my sympathy. My mother the teacher refused to teach in our home district because, "in our district I want to be a parent, not an employee." The trick is not to expect money from the school. Dealing with school bureaucracy is the number one reason we started an Explorer Post and delivered a turnkey robotics club to the students at the schools we draw from. The schools are our partners, but they do not have ANY control or input to our funding or activities (as long as we are off campus). Fortunately for us, there is a semi-autonomous theater program attached to a high school in the district that paved the way. The schools are friendly, but don't demand to run things. In some ways, they are even more friendly because we ask so little of them.

As for money, I don't want school money. It comes with too many strings. A school told an FRC team I know of that the students had to return their t-shirts at the end of the school year because they were purchased with donated money given to the school on the behalf of the team, and that all school uniforms have to be turned back in. The school did not provide ONE DIME of funding, but attached a bunch of pretty stupid rules on all the money routed through the school. We joined an educational 501(c)(3) organization that allows us to accept charitable donations that don't get routed through a school. The organization is VERY helpful, and does not expect payment for helping us manage our charitable donations, and I know how fortunate we are. It takes a little faith to climb out of the school pond, but it's pretty cool out here on dry land.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Like I said in the FTC blog, we've been planning on starting a Vex/FTC team next year, and now we're really stuck with not knowing what to do. Does anyone really know why FIRST is switching if it sounds like most of the teams and schools don't want them to? It doesn't make sense and it's really hard for us to submit a budget for something that doesn't exist yet, isn't proven, sounds too expensive and sounds like it's still got Lego stuff in it. We've got until Apr 1 to submit our budget for either FTC or Vex, and right now we only know the prices and parts for Vex. Any advice from people who use Vex? Should we just go with that if we have to make a call by next week and have a fairly slim budget?

Re: New FTC Platform
 

JeffJ, do FTC with the new platform, budget $1,500, and use your existing Vex parts to compete in the IFI series. That's what we are going to do (except that we would like to field four teams, so our budget is going to be more like $5,000).

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Re: New FTC Platform
 

We're in a similar spot, but anything over $1000 for a robot and registration is just too much for us. We want to have a few robots and we want to enter a few teams, but we don't want ot have to raise $5k to do it. We can get 4-8 Vex robots for under $5k in Vex, and that's much better for the local school to get more kids involved. Plus if the Vex competitions are going to be cheaper than the FTC ones like it sounds, then that's even more money we save if we enter a few teams. We need something good and we need it to be affordable. I can't tell if the FTC platform is good yet, but it sure doesn't sound like it's going to be affordable for schools, at least not like Vex is.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Jeff, We're going to stay with Vex and partner with another school holding events in Turlock (we're in Modesto). I notice you're from Sunnyvale (CA, I assume), which is ~ 2 hours from us. I strongly suspect that you would find Vex events closer to you than us, but if not, y'all come. Even if you don't want to spend any money on Vex stuff, borrow yourself a Squarebot (or borrow one from us) and join the fun.

IFI has a vested interest in promoting Vex competitions, so I doubt that there will be a lack of events to attend. The game and the equipment can be counted on -- the quality of the events is the unknown. With FIRST, the quality of events is given, but the equipment is the unknown.

How we all wish that FIRST and Vex would have stayed together, but now that the new system has been announced, there's no going back. We can wonder what caused it, but I can't imagine that there's any way the decision can be undone. All that's left to do is make the best of what remains.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

New post is up. Still no hard info on cost, and it seems that it hasn't been entirely nailed down yet.

However, the good bit:

Re: New FTC Platform
 

What should my team's new budget be for next year? I'm thinking about raising at least 5 grand just incase. I want to push it to 7K if I can.

Suggestions for a budget?

Re: New FTC Platform
 

For how many teams? What do you include in your budget?

Without travel, I'm figuring $5-6k for three teams.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Not including travel because local events are reached by car and if either of the 2 teams i will be mentoring reach Atlanta, they will be coming with MORT anyway. We have old kits and everything (tons of them) but for the final robot we like to purchase new parts each year. For next year I would also just like to have more fund raisers to get the kids involved in something more than just the robot as well. Thanks for any help Rick. It will be much appreciated. Also, if I could get some tips and advice on mentoring 2 ftc teams that'd be awesome as I am only 16 and have never mentored more than 1 FLL team.:)

#1 Rule-I obviously know that it is their robot not mine.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Some mentoring tips can be found in "A Clueless Coach's Companion to FTC":
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2019

Some of the material is obsolete, because it was written for Vex, but some is still applicable. It was also mainly designed for coaches who have never seen any competitive robotics of any kind (which applies to most of the local coaches I recruit), so some material may be too basic for you.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

A new blog post has gone up here, with video of S.H.I.R.T.'s drivetrain with the new platform. It seems a little bit zippier than most Vex robots I've seen, but not by all that much.

Re: New FTC Platform
 

Cool, thanks a lot. :)