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Engineering and Robotics program in danger
I ran across this article in the Nashua (NH) Telegraph online yesterday and it really concerns me. http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/...y-program.html It describes a school board meeting where they are discussing saving money by cutting the engineering program including the FIRST Robotics program and talks about the many people who showed up in support of the programs. It is not my team (although I am very familiar with them) or my town but it bothers me knowing that this was even being considered. These people must not understand the value of these programs.
What can be done to help them get it? I applaud the students and others who showed up to testify at the meeting. I posted a reply in the Telegraph’s comment section with some suggestions to help them understand if they want to. Good luck to FRC team1073, The Force! |
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Well I suppose we could email the district our support for the team, I found email addresses for the school board;
fhubert67 at yahoo.com JAT1942 at MYFAIRPOINT.NET thenright at aol.com scsimons at charter.net twsolon at yahoo.com james_oshea59 at yahoo.com Phone # 603-465-7118 source:http://hollisbrookline.org/ (scroll down and hit coop school board on the left side) |
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Kind and polite e-mails with high-quality reasoning would probably help. Remember to focus on what the school board needs to hear: How to solve their problem (not enough money) and what the educational benefits are. Angry or illogical/disorganized messages may hurt the cause. (Now you know why they teach English Writing in school!)
I'd also like anyone reading this to consider such a letter to their OWN school board, simply explaining what the benefits of technology education are for the community. Or, better still, go to a board meeting and take 4 minutes to educate the board. At 1676, we are grateful for the support our BoE gives us. They know in great detail the benefits of the program, and they support it enthusiastically because of that. We are also thankful that we don't NEED much from them, since we have many wonderful sponsors, but express our gratitude to the board for their financial support anyway. |
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Don is so correct.
Fostering a good relationship with your school board is critical. Invite the members to come see your team during build season and at a competition. Ask if they do program spotlight time at their meetings and request to do one with your team. Make sure they know the benefits of your program so when budget cuts come up you are not one of the places they look. Waiting until your program is in trouble is probably too late. |
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kstl99
I recommend supporters focus on the value of STEM education first and the on the merits of any specific STEM program/team (such as an FRC team) second (or third). FRC is definitely valuable. FRC definitely is expensive. But, the first of those two assertions doesn't (shouldn't) necessarily lead anyone to conclude that FRC is the only way to accomplish STEM education or inspiration. The folks who are actually the government's feet on the ground should be easily convinced that "STEM = good"; but after that, they apparently will be in a situation in which they have to carefully weigh their options and figure out how to make every STEM $ go as far as possible. Maximizing the publics' return on investment might mean that the government dollars get spent in new ways. So, for the students' benefit, when you are supporting preserving their STEM education opportunities, don't lock in on supporting any particular program unless you can buttress your support with hard facts about minimizing the $_cost per student_benefit, and about the total $ that program requires. On the other hand, if the folks involved can come up with private sponsors, then how they spend those private $ is up to them and the sponsors. Bottom line: There are two separate topics. 1) Preserving STEM education opportunities, and 2) choosing how to best deliver them. Don't mistake one for the other or let the tail attempt to wag the dog. Blake |
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Blake ends with a very important point. Preserving STEM education is what is important. You need to be flexible in choosing what program you integrate.
As Don says,you have to quietly educate them to the long term benefits and goals of the program you choose. IMO there is nothing that compares to the skill set that is acquired in the six week FRC build season. What you need to sell is that skill set. Invite everyone to observe the six weeks. Invite them early in the season and late in the season so they can see the progress. The six weeks is what shapes the students. Too often the goals your community sees are the results of competition and not how you have made these students grow. FRC may not be the best program to base a STEM program. It is very time and resource intensive. FRC is expensive and the district model is making it more expensive. Be flexible and listen to the school boards concerns. Modify what you need from them and ask for another year to show what the program can do. |
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Fortunately, my team probably won't have to face this challenge since we don't get any money from the school district. Our administration has always been really supportive to us anyway. I do have to agree with Blake and the others who have said that FRC is expensive and may not be the most efficient way to teach and motivate STEM. I know there are other programs that I would love to participate in if I wasn't in FIRST. That said though, I still wouldn't want to have to leave/disband my team.
My suggestion to the team would be to be ready to establish yourself as independent from the school in case they stop supporting you. Start your own, separate bank account and start looking for more sponsors. We used our booster club to make a 501c3 and they set up a bank account that the school doesn't control. We still meet at school, but I would think that if the school didn't support your team financially, you could still meet there. If not, I know there are other teams that meet in other places. |
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As a mentor for team 1073 we can't thank you enough for your concern and suggestions!!
The team consist of about 10% of the school and is the largest team on campus. We take very little money from the school district, $6,000 a year in the past. But we could fund raise that money if we need to. The biggest problem is the shop space, without it we would have to rent space somewhere not near the school and assume we would have a much smaller team. This came about because the budget committee wanted a zero dollar increase this year. But with fixed costs rising and a larger than usual number of special ed. students entering the coop the only answer was to cut programs. So among others was proposed to cut the Technology teacher, the programming teacher and repurpose the shop into classroom space. So we would appreciate any letters you might write to our school board letting the know the importance of FRC to a school and its students. Or how important the EM are to STEM and the importance to getting students started at this age. Again, Thank You. |
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Kevin:
Thank you very much for your support by posting to the Nashua Telegraph article, and for starting this thread. I am also a mentor for 1073 and am working with Frank Grossman and the other mentors to keep the technology programs in the school. This includes the academic classes, as well as the FIRST team. I believe we have made a good start with showing the community support at the last school board meeting. You would have been proud to see the embodiment of gracious professionalism as our students quietly and respectfully participated in the meeting. However, the school board and budget committees continue to discuss the cuts to budget and space. To date, there are no alternate cuts that have been identified. The support from the greater FIRST community is appreciated. One request: if you send a message to one of the people mentioned earlier, could you also send a private message to Frank or me to let us know? |
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Picking the right program(s) (like FRC or some of the others) that give(s) our people STEM inspiration and opportunities, and that fit our local contexts (shop space, sponsor $, mentor talents and time, etc.) is something wise adults are supposed to do (in collaboration with and) for the benefit of the students. We can almost always do that without putting disbanding or shrinking the team, on the table; and that is a happy thought to hang onto. Blake |
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Thanks for all the replies. I hear what you are saying gblake and STEM education is the goal but I can only focus on FIRST because that is the program I know. I know how much the program means to my team, how much they learn and how many go on to college. The charts are great, scientific evidence. Thanks to Frank and jreuter for giving an insider perspective. I plan on writing a polite, well-reasoned e-mail to the board members, knowing that I am an outsider, and I will PM Frank and jreuter.
Part of what bothers me most - I understand the financial pressures put school systems but I do not understand the unwillingness of the public to pay for our students to have a great education. |
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Seriously, there are a few pleasant surprises out there. In your copious spare time ;), nose around a bit. Good luck in the rest of this school year! I hope to see you in Anaheim, St Louis, on the DC Mall, or ... Blake |
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Hello All,
As many of you know, specially mentors, the economical situation is pretty tight everywhere. I am encouraging teams to think on PLAN B for the current situations : - Loss of Senior Mentor. - Loss of Coach. - Loss of facility. - Loss of Major Sponsor ($3,000>). - Loss of Sponsor (<$3,000). Cheers, Marcos. |
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Another perspective to think about:
Our team was asked to leave the school this year, due mostly in part to the economic times. The school board, nor the school administration financially supported the team. Our teacher was a Technology Education teacher. They were forced to cut his program, as it was an elective and not at state required course. He fortunately, did lose his job and was asked to teach some different courses, but he lost his big lab we used and our dedicated spaces were reallocated by the school administration to storage and a classroom. In our situation, the school board has always been extremely supportive, but the school principal has not. He was not against our program, just not supportive. We wanted to approach the school board when all of this was occurring, but our teacher feared that the principal would not look favorably at this and so he asked us to hold off. So in May we moved all of our equipment out and when school started back we began probing the school for space to no avail. We finally ended up leasing a space at a local mall that was extremely excited to have us and gave us an extremely low rate for the size and amenities. Without our intervention, the school board did hear about what happened to our team and it was brought up at a school board meeting. Yet it did not lead to any efforts to get our team back in the school. But we like the new space, and it should open up a lot of new opportunities for exposing others to FIRST and our program. |
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Jimmy,
Thanks for sharing your story. I think your team story is a great example of how you guys were able to think out of the box and find another venue to be able to continue participating..... Which mall are you guys in ?. Are you guys there year around ?. I plan to go from St. Louis to Washington D.C on April 26, to attend the 2nd Engineering and Science Fair in Washington D.C. I would love to stop by and visit, and if you guys are interested demo a quad-copter robot a group of volunteers are building and plan to demo at the Fair, we hope to have it interacting with a FIRST ground robot by 2016. Cheers, Marcos. |
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Here is another piece of data that has come out recently http://www.atomicrobotics.com/2011/1...reer-interest/
Combine this with things like the Brandeis University Study and you have a good amount of data to show why robotics is a better investment than other projects. http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/impact How ever when i talk to other FTC or VEX teams i believe that is where the school can get the biggest bang for their buck, the teams are a 10th of the price and teach many of the same skills. |
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Thank you! Our current lease is for 5 months, through the end of April. Our hope is to raise enough funds to sign a 1 year lease starting on May 1. Once we moved all of our stuff back in, we realized we didn't want to move back out. I am hoping we are in St. Louis for the championships, competing. But if not, We would love to have you stop by and check out the space. As the date grows closer PM or email me. Our space is in the Cincinnati Mall, for those somewhat familiar with Cincinnati, it used to be called Forest-Fair Mall. It is located at Exit 39 off of I 275. |
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Jimmy:
Finding space at a mall is an interesting solution. I'd be interested in understanding the costs involved, and how you are managing liability issues. Please send me a private message if you are willing to share this kind of information. Thanks, -Jeff |
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Hi Jimmy & Jeff,
We're in the same position - lost school sponsorship, looking for new space and 501(c)3 status. The big question is who will take the liability. Renting space in a nearby shopping center is an interesting option, but I'd really like to know how you handled the liability, if you don't mind my asking. Thanks, Gail |
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We are still in the mall. We signed a 1 year lease at the end of the initial 5 months. We formed a fund within our local Community Foundation as our 501(c)3 fiscal agent. They just make it too easy. We are only charged 2% annually and they handle all of the thank you letters for donations, taxes, audits, check writing, etc. We can usually get reimbursed within a day or so for purchases. This was the best alternative for us. It gave us 501(c)3 status immediately without all the headache of filing taxes and handling audits, etc. We purchased insurance that covers damages to the facility as well as to our property/assets and covers thefts. The insurance covers injuries to a certain extent, I don't recall exactly as I didn't set-up the insurance. I know we have recommended to all of our mentors to purchase liability insurance for themselves as a precation (similar to what teachers get). Feel free to PM with your email and we can chat more and I can get some more details if you need it. |
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Hello All,
Indeed we are in very tough economical times, and my advice to teams is to rotate competitions, the same way master gardeners rotate crops. My current recommendation is to do a four year rotation: High School 1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps. 2) FTC 3) BEST Robotics 4) FRC Middle School School 1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps. 2) FLL 3) BEST Robotics 4) FTC Elementary 1) Draw a robot 2) Build a robot out of cardboard 3) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps - Build Robot. 4) FLL |
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Respectfully, Bryan |
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Still, if you had the infrastructure already--for instance if your larger organization usually does FRC, FLL and FTC across the grades anyway (and have enough for all your students...), you could rotate more freely. Also, elementary school was not so long ago for me (...I can claim), and I have to say drawing a robot for a year would not have satisfied me, and I doubt it'd engage most of my FLL kids now. Cardboard, maybe. Household items? Also not ideal for the middle-high school kids, as for the camp year they're really only engaged over the summer plus some prep work. Maybe not so bad if you were a freshmen in rotation year 1, but what if you started in year 4? Many of my high school kids would probably just walk out. |
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The rotation is just a template, each community needs to custom to their need and figure out where in the process they want to start implementation.
The purpose of the summer camp is to teach the volunteers about robotics so they can teach the students and raise money for robotics. Teams can raise $1000 to $3000 by holding summer camps. The system is not perfect and it is in different levels of implementation in twelve communities. We have been implementing it since 92'. The goal is to have sustainable learning communities We are having a cardboard robot contest in Missouri this saturday, with cash prizes raised for the robotics club: http://www.masrf.net/main_site/pdfs/...bot%20Club.pdf Cheers, Mark Chew |
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1) Is this a school district where all grades (K-12) are in the same district and share resources? if so... 1.5a) Do you share resources between age levels? So is the FTC kit with the HS kids one year and Middle School the next? if not... 1.5b) Is sharing resources between districts possible and how do you go about it? 2) How do you keep sponsorship when teams turnover? 3) How is this better than combining the 12 communities to create a few solid FTC, FLL, and FRC Programs under a 501c3 or something? 4) How many years does it take you to recoup the initial purchase of all LEGO kits for the teams and upkeep as LEGO Mindstorms changes? |
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How do you engage students? How do you engage sponsors? Engage the community to let you run camps? How do you retain mentors to come back alternating years (or do you not have mentors with FRC-specific skills, etc)? Are all your teams attached to schools? Where are they -- do they all have BEST hubs nearby? How large are the areas they cover and with how many students and mentors? What's the average, 4-year-average, annual budget? Is there anywhere this hasn't worked? How do kids that go through this cycle differently (for FRC or FLL their first year) handle it? Also echoing KelliV's #4, but for FTC. Quote:
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Siri,
Thank you for your post, I think the one thing I think is key is to have someone that looks at the program from a long term perspective. My recommendation is 12 years, so if I am starting the program new in a community, I look for parents that have students in Elementary School or teachers. And I coordinate meetings for them at public places such as Yogurt shops. Once you have a core group of 3 to 5 folks, we move the meetings from quarterly to monthlly on telecom. You bring a good point that LEGO mindstorms bring more folks to join, but that's counter to our strategy, in the beginning we want to find the "hard core students", the ones willing to engage without the "gritter" and once we have those parents engaged, them we discuss with them what platform they like to engage and ideas of fundraising the money. A key of the program is to be "platform neutral", so we at Mark Chew Academy, we do not favor a platform over another, since we really have no "vested interest". Once the 3-5 leaders figure out what they like to do, I work with them to find sponsors, and I keep teams at 7-12 students. If there is more interest we split the teams. I write a paper every year on this subject, the latest published paper is enclosed. For photos of past activities, checkout us on Facebook and Like Us : Mark Chew Academy Cheers, Marcos. |
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Kelliv,
Thank you for your inquiry, every learning community is different, so the way they fund the assets might be different, some of them do not belong to a school district and might be home schoolers or in another country such as Brazil. All the projects allows everyone to participate, even for teams funded by single gender organizations such as Girls Scouts, I still have male students participating but on a support role. So we try to integrate all levels, so for FLL, we have H.S students as mentors. Sharing resources depends on the community, and we recommend follow a stakeholder model where we divide the total annual cost by 12 and anyone contributing 1/12 of the budget get's to keep the robot for one month of each year, so for a $12,000 program, if an organization donates $1,000 then that organization owns it for a month, most likelly the organization will let the team keep it, in exchange for demos at their site for the month allocated to them. We encourage teams not to seek large grants, and look for sponsorship around $500 to $1,000 or no more than 25%. Usually once a team has already started, we use new sponsors to sponsor "demo robots" that will not compete....such as $300 to buy parts to build a right arm for a robot that was built out of cardboard. Lego Mindstorms you can buy at a toy store for around $300, have a summer camp for 7 students at $50 each, you usually recover over one session. Some teams get the money for LEGO Mindstorm from professional organizations or borrow from other teams in exchange of the summer session fee. Cheers, MC Quote:
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Not that inspiration is even an inherently better or worse mission than education, but curious. I'm still curious to know your average four-year annualized budget. You've brought up some cool sponsorship tips (I love the stakeholder model), but it doesn't really sound more cost-effective than KelliV's #3. |
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What about the high school freshman who's first year is an "FRC year?" Then they step backwards? What about the middle school senior who ends with BEST? What about the elementary student in their last year who gets to draw a robot the year after competing in FLL? Has your "current recommendation" been implemented anywhere? What are the pros and cons that have been recorded? We all know that master gardeners have an amazing system going for them, but I'm not sure how well the ideas can be transferred to educational robotics. [sarcasm]I propose an alternate system. Ants all live in a colony. We could be like ants. Enforce every team to collaborate, share resources, and share tools. This saves money for everyone![/sarcasm] |
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I don't want to beat the dead horse currently in front of us, but swapping programs on an annual basis is like buying a new workstation every year: I don't buy a new workstation because minor upgrades make much more sense money wise. |
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Siri,
Great point, I agree there are two group of students to be considered : 1) Pre-Disposed 2) Under Represented. In group 1 usually the community is well resourced and just need some guidance. An example would be a parent that is an engineer in a suburb that has a girl that that would like to compete but there are no teams in the school. In this case we work to find the closest program and give them contact information and help mentor the team for the first year, modeling to the parent what are the behaviors of a mentor. Usually by second year we just visit on kickoff and a week before competition. In group 2 there are no well defined resources, like in an urban area in a food desert, in this case we work with the community leaders to identify the resources and needs, we develop a plan and "challenges" for the community to meet. An example is that we had 6 elementary schools that wanted to do robotics, so we gave them a challenge to draw a "gardening robot". They also sold produce from their gardens. They raised by their own $700 by selling produce, cookies and game tickets. We matched with sponsors for a total of $2,000 in assets they currently have, but each school have $300 in assets in the form of a LEGO Mind storm as a minimum. We are still working with them and we are looking to work with them for another 11 years. This is year 2. We switch our focus but it is dependent on the team if they want to "switch in competition", what we have found is that a group of them continue while other start the new competitions. I seen some teams that do both BEST and FRC, where it is required for Freshmen to participate on BEST if they want to do FRC. The largest budget recommendation is FRC at $10,000, FTC at $1,200 and FLL at $600. BEST we budget at $100. On the demo robot path : $300 LEGO Mindstorm, $500 Quadcopter, $1,000 VEX, $5000 underwater and $10,000 unmmaned vehicle. Cheers, Mark |
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Gregor,
The ideal plan is to have all three levels ( elementary, middle,high school) participating, a lot times it is not a choice but more a need. I have seen teams that done FRC, and because of different factors, they go to FTC for a couple years. Every case is different. We have 12 communities we focus, 11 is U.S and 1 in Brazil. I hope to write a book someday on all the pros and cons, but for right now I am working on case study papers, I plan to present on our work with urban schools in St. Louis next year at Tennessee Technology University in Cookesville for 2013 ASEE Southeastern Section Annual Conference. I will upload all my papers on the CD. Here is a video on BEST Robotics, we helped start a hub in Sedalia, MO. A team in Ladue, MO(well resourced community) started on BEST, now they do FIRST. https://vimeo.com/30973757 In Lewis County, MO (rural area). We are currently doing cardboard robots, we hope to migrate to LEGO Mindstorm next year. https://vimeo.com/45783923 Cheers, Mark. Quote:
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Interesting thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=109751 Our recommendation in this case would be to take whatever money the team have and buy LEGO Mindstorms and do summer camps for middle school and elementary students at $50-$100. On second year use the funds to participate on FTC. Third year register for BEST, continue doing summer camp and demo the FTC robot in the community to raise money for FRC. On fourth year register for FRC. In parallel, identify parents that would be interested in running for school board. In my city, registration starts is in December and election is in April. Cheers, Mark. |
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Gregor,
Master Gardeners know what they will plant for many years ahead, I think for four years, so they rotate their crops to minimize disease and also replenish the land nutrients. In the same way different robotics competitions draw on different resources, and rotating on it gives an opportunity to replenish it. Cheers, Mark. Quote:
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Siri,
Let's say you team decide to try this out : 1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps. 2) FTC 3) BEST Robotics 4) FRC 1) The team would have a meeting in December 2012 and invite parents in the middle school to attend. One H.S senior would lead the project of having a summer camp in 2013, to teach LEGO Mind storm to the students to raise money. 2) In 2014 the team would have a meeting in August and invite parents of H.S freshmen to attend to learn about FTC. One H.S Senior would coach the team. Also another one to do the summer camp. 3) In 2015 the team would have a meeting in August and invite parents of H.S freshmen to attend to learn about BEST. One H.S Senior would coach the team. Also another one do the summer camp. And another one lead the efforts to modify FTC robot for demo since you wouldn't be competing. 4) In 2016 : Jan-FRC May- Summer Camp LEGO, August-BEST Robotics, OCT - FTC Make a requirement all freshmen required to be on BEST or FTC to be part of FRC. I think the interest of the kids on the different programs will vary, and you won't know until you see..... There is no "magic bullet" every learning community is different. My goal is to engage as many students as possible while keeping teams small, have 2 students per area (systems,chassis,manipulators,SW, electronics). Have them work in pairs (news/experienced). |
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We got a group of 6 girls in one learning community, this year we started on FTC, next year I hope we will register on FRC and have them not to compete on FTC, but instead modify their current robot, and them a year later have them hold summer camp for middle school and a year later do BEST robotics, and a year from there do FRC competition and just do demos for FTC and BEST on the year competing on FRC....but anyway that's just a "draft" I am sure things will be different depending what they want to do.
When not competing, we hope to be modifying the current hardware for doing demos in the community, on fourth year forward we will have 3 teams: A competition Team and 2 Demo teams. In addition we will have a Student Coach for Summer Camp. Louie is currently a cardboard robot, in which eventually will have FTC parts replacing the cardboard. Here is an e-mail from the teacher (coach): The team had a great meeting Tuesday! Special Thank you goes to the Girl Scouts, Amber, Dave and Kevin who really came through for us! It was like Christmas. Our floor tiles are down, the router and hub worked beautifully to connect the Samantha module and now we can use Louie without the USB cord! Thanks to Kerry who worked with H. to get Louie configured with the Samantha Module. C., J., T., and A. did some great brainstorming on the arm and the team have a great plan. |
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As far as a kids' interest/inspiring those not predisposed, but concern is not just that they'll have different interest levels in different programs, but that the change itself is unnecessarily difficult. However, I had no idea that the groups were so small and operable on an individual basis. If you're not losing the edge-case kids, then I guess there's no worry. I'd envisioned you like rotating the entire state of Delaware (re: FIRST State) through a different program every year, so my head was spinning. How well does it work to limit FRC teams to 10 students (2 per area)? That seems like it would actually skyrocket the cost density (geographically), not to mention really pressure the small teams. Do you still reach outlier students with the potentially lower word-of-mouth traffic? |
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Hah....hah....there could be a 5th year.
Well I am just giving you examples, some teams continue on to college.... I know of a group of FIRST Robotics Seniors that go to same college and now work on Quad-copters and participate on Quad-copter competitions, while other go to do the summer camp as I mentioned or others go on to mentor their old FIRST Robotic teams. Are the seniors on your team involved, or does it stop at the 4th year of High School ?. I think 12 is a good number, 30 is too big but that's my personal opinion. I usually don't get involved with "changing teams" I usually work with new teams, or teams that are facing some kind of challenge and ask me to get involved. You bring a good point in the cost density, and that's one of the things we look comparing the total cost of the program compared with total volunteers hours the team do for a season. Example : Let's say I have robotics program that total cost is $10,000 a year and I have 10 volunteers and each volunteer do 40 hrs a season, then we have 400 hrs for one season, if we say that the volunteer hour is valued at $20, we have $8,000 So the Return on investment (ROI) is $8,000/$10,000 = 0.8 Compared to a program that is $1,200 for 6 volunteers at 10 hrs a season. We have 60 hrs * $20 = $1,200, giving us an ROI = 1.0. So in this case the lower cost program is more efficient. There is a lot analysis that can be done, but mostly I help new teams and usually the teams are small and the mentors are able to get everyone engaged. I see on your bio, you are in PA. If you are interested in starting a virtual learning community in PA for FRC, let me know. We would meet on a telecom at 8PM Central time on Mondays, starting in January and go until Championship. The telecom is for mentors/coaches, and I would require 3 to 5 mentors committed to attend the telecom, I prefer they be from different teams in PA, but it is not a requirement. I currently hold one for SoCal at 9PM Central time on Mondays. And another telecom for Arizona mentors on as needed basis. Cheers, Mark. ::rtm:: Quote:
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What does a virtual learning community actually do? EDIT: we appear to have hijacked this thread...:o |
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Would it be possible to create a new thread for discussion of these systems? The conversation has moved away from its original topic and I don't want people to keep thinking the article linked by the OP is current(it took me a while to realize it was a year old). Thanks!!
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I have posted the initial thread about "rotating robotics competition" on "Mark Chew Academy" Facebook, check us out and like us !.
In regards to the original question in which we hijacked: Team 1073 seems to be doing great (http://theforceteam.com/) They are integrated with the other robotics competition and organizations such as Boys Scouts and Girls Scouts which sponsor robotics teams. Their learning community is comprised of FRC,FLL,Junior FLL, Girls Scouts and Boys Scouts. |
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