MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

... 40% of our team is graduating, many going to out-of-town colleges. We may lose all of our work and storage space. On top of that, our main sponsor (they give us $6,000 per year) is leaving. We have a business plan and plan on surviving, but have any other teams faced similar situations, if so, had did you deal with it? Do any teams have tips on making the transition easier?

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

To start yous need to come together as a team and focus on the chance for a new beginning, not on what you have lost.

Fresh team... fresh ideas, fresh energy,fresh adventures.
Finding new sponsor should be utmost, get out, net work, talk to business people... there are a lot of folks here that can help you polish your approach and help you with ideas.

Yeah its a challenge, yeah it a problem but you can grown from such challenges and look at it all as a chance to refine your team. :D

I wish you luck!

-p :cool:

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

:eek: O wow im sry to hear that. Sry i cant rly help you on this subject... but i really hope you all are able to stay with FIRST. I'm always excited to see what MARS has built each year.

We too are loosing a major part of our build team this year, however we are somewhat lucky that those that are remaining are freshmen and sophmores so the team has some time to grow back to size, and 3 of our main seniors are going to a local community college so they will be around to help. Unfortunately the same cant be said for yall. Hopefully everything will work out. Good Luck!

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

One thing i have noticed is that your team has A LOT of parents who are prominent in the businesses around the aria. I would recommend that you get info out to them to ask them to try and get there companies to sponsor you. even if there kids are leaving chances are they will still help.

And you know 179 is down the road if you guys need any help with engineering, parts, machining ect.

lots of little sponsors are just as good (if not better)than a one big one.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Every year that passes we lose important seniors, but that give the underclassmen to take their place and become that important part of the team. when the senior drivers left when i was a freshmen the next coming year i was given the chance to become a driver, and have been one for three years, now next year the team is going to need a new drive team. while the people moving on may be extremely important, they won't always be there.

As for storage space, and money, you'll hae to just make due with what you can get. from the beginning of our team we have never had a permament home. each year we use one bay of our schools maintenance garage, and we store our stuff in the upstairs room of the garage. we also have to go to individual buisnesses in our region to get sponsar ship. Good luck with the changes.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

we are going to be going though the same thing. Most of our best programmers, wirer, metal workers, and welder (me) are leaving. Then our main sponsor is gone. But on 05 we lost many of our skilled workers they where replaced, it's a cycle.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

cold calls, cold calls, cold calls!!!!! Make a packet with all of the teams, triumphs, needs, useful statistics (such as how many grads went to college, got scholorships, want to go into tech/buisness fields, etc.) Go out to all of the companies in the area and any company that you might have contacts with and ask to talk to any public relation people. Let them know that any little bit helps. (Alot of little sponsers>one big sponser). Also, don't lose hope. A solution will present itself, all you have to do is be ready to take advantage of it when it does.

I hope this helps, the FIRST scene would not be nearly as Mega Awesome without MARS.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

I second that. Its basically one of the best ways to sort of "sell" your team. And yea, don't be afraid to ask help from other teams. That's what they're there for.:)

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

we had this happen, but it was more like 75 percent of our team left and we didn't have our shop or workspace pre-season. we got 14 rookie members, but didn't have anywhere to train them before hand, so we kinda through them into it and told them to watch us... it only took them longer to learn everything, and only two people were involved in designing the specifics on the robot and knowing kinda how to do it. so my advice is find more members, even start looking now, and train them early. as for the work space, look for a local community college, or any type of semi-industrial buisness park to set up a small camp, and as for the money, if you have any intel plants nearby, you get 10 dollars for every hour they mentor... thats all i can say

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Wisdom.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

See this powerpoint on fundraising I did for another organization:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...7&d=1206321268

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

I agree with all the suggestions made above. Two things that I want to point out again.

1) Recruit - Knowing you guys, I don't think you guys will have any problems with that.

2) Fundraise - Please approach all the local companies possible. I know there aren't many down here in South Florida, but anything will help.

Mr. Z or any parents, please send me an email about this situation so I can discuss this with all the other Area Coordinators and maybe we can come up with something that we can suggest to you.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Recruiting and getting a sponsorship packet together are the two main things. Other then that keep the faith guys and keep working hard you are a great team. Please let 1251 know if we can help in anyway as we are not too far away.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

we had this happen, but it was more like 75 percent of our team left and we didn't have our shop or workspace pre-season. we got 14 rookie members, but didn't have anywhere to train them before hand, so we kinda through them into it and told them to watch us... it only took them longer to learn everything, and only two people were involved in designing the specifics on the robot and knowing kinda how to do it. so my advice is find more members, even start looking now, and train them early. as for the work space, look for a local community college, or any type of semi-industrial buisness park to set up a small camp, and as for the money, if you have any intel plants nearby, you get 10 dollars for every hour they mentor... thats all i can say

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Believe it or not, this is a blessing in disguise.

Your team will come out of this stronger than it went in. My junior and senior year were a tough time for my home team. The senior class that graduated ahead of me was very successful, and my senior year we lost our big sponsor (10000+ a year). We found out soon that the underclassman were more than capable of filling the shoes of the seniors that had left, and we sent out a bunch of letters to companies in the area. The result? Our first chairmans award, more sponsorship than we had before, and a much stronger team as a whole that was able to adapt to its environment (survival of the fittest ;) )

As long as your team is willing to work hard, and work together, you will be fine.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Start recruiting new students, NOW! Spring is a great time to recruit for the fall!

We were impacted this year by a large number of Seniors graduating on 2007. The team "recruited like crazy" and around 40 new students started this fall. By the time build season rolled around we still had 18 new students, all of them engaged and essential to our team.

Some of our recuriting lessons learned:

Try to get twice as many new students as you need. Once school gets rolling in the fall, many end up choosing alternate activities, especially when you clearly communicate the time requirements during build season.

Don't forget to recruit from friends of current team members.

Recruit from other special interest groups - don't overlook the need for artists, presenters, business types, etc.

Do specific activities to acclimate / assimilate new team members to make sure they feel that they belong and to make sure they know what will happen during build.

Don't forget to get their parents on the loop too!

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

he nailed it you need to get the word out and look for more students
this it a chance to really step it up a rebuild

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Make sure your seniors teach the underclass as much as thy can before they leave!!! Have them write out things (powerpoints work well) on everything they were good at that, maybe they did better than everyone! That way you may end up being stronger if all the juniors get these messages, and they all become as strong as the seniors, thus making you team stronger!!!

I wish you guys the best of luck!! and don't forget to Recuit!!!

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

We have a packet of triumphs and stats, it won us the Chairman's Award. We already have a bunch of little sponsors and are good money savers. But one problem is that a lot of mentors have kids who are graduating, many seem very dedicated so maybe they won't leave with their kids. If MARS loses school affiliation, it'll be harder to recruit, but we'll manage. Our workspace had tons of computers with expensive Autodesk software, so our Animation crew will have difficulties if we lose our workspace. Does anyone have suggestions about dealing with a lack of computers/nessesary software?

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

One thing that we are planning on doing this summer is having a few seniors teach the students in their specialized subgroup. Our normal teaching program, MORT U. is not within the reach of the seniors leaving for college so we want to have a good start on the learning process beforehand this year. Something that we want to do this year is have each student know how to do more than just one thing really well. We believe that being on drive train or end effector should go hand in hand with being great at inventor or other CAD. Basically, you'll be surprised by how much the underclassmen can step up. Like Brandon stated before, we've had similar problems like that in the past and came out stronger from it and it looks like something similar is happening this year with around 17 of the most brilliant people I have ever known leaving from the team not to mention a mentor who is retiring from teaching. Those are all heavy hits on a team's morale and spirit, but just remember to take it in strides and still be confident in the students.

I'm not sure about it, but check Microsoft's site about software grants like free copies of Windows and stuff..its always good to check. Also, ask around if any companies, schools, or libraries are throwing out or planning on recycling old computers. If it comes down to it, just ask people around town. We always have people willing to donate computers, if not forever, they let us use them for build season and return them afterward.

Best of luck to you guys:)

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

FIRST gives out the AutoDesk software every year as part of the KOP (I think like 10 copy's of both 3ds Max and the AutoCad Suite, correct me if my # are wrong) and i bet if you ask the students they have laptops capable of running these programs they are willing to bring in. 100% of our animation and Cad this year was done on personal laptops and it worked out well (plus they can work at home with this method)

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Talk to big companies. 330 got a bunch through Lockheed a few years ago. Often, companies will have some way of getting old functioning computers out to people that need them. You'd probably end up with a 3-year-old computer needing an operating system, but you'd be able to choose your system and it'd have enough for text, Inventor, animation, and programming. Free.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

I am going to have to agree with Holley on this one. It seems like this is a great opportunity for the underclassmen to take the brunt of the load. We had a team of 5 people in '07 and I got to take a role that no rookie freshman on a more experienced team would take.

-Vivek

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

Just had another idea:

If you guys will be at Mission Mayhem, ask teams to come for an open discussion or help session for your team. Its better when you can talk to the teams who are close to you on a one on one basis. Ask them to bring examples of their best sponsorship letters and just ask for help. It works better when you can actually talk to more than one person at a time b/c ideas develop better that way. And who knows, maybe some other team is having the same problems?

+$0.02:]

EDIT: Here is the team list with their websites and such (Not 100% sure if that's for 2008). Try to contact some of them beforehand and ask them to bring examples of their best work for you guys. I'm sure they'd love to help.

Re: MARS 1523 is Facing a Problem....
 

You've gotten a lot of great advice for what to do to help with the current situation, but I have a suggestion to help you for the future:

Always make sure you have someone to replace your graduating members; have a senior member train an interested buddy to step into their shoes when the time comes. In the past, our team lost about 2 seniors a year, and this year, it's losing 11 (about 30% of the team). While this is a huge loss of talent, wisdom, creativity, and knowledge, the team is still prepared for next year because they will have people to replace the graduating seniors. Also, start training your freshmen early!

Good luck, I wish your team the best.