[Phyrxes]

I want to build on the items Don mentioned. Assuming this will be the first FRC team in this school division decide on a base school to meet at, if you line up a faculty sponsor and get the school administration on board it will make all other dealings with the other schools and school board much easier.

Its been my experience that "Central Office" has two major concerns, liability insurance and money handling, assuming PA handles student insurance much like VA then all students in the division should be under the same division policy and this should be a non-issue.

If you are thinking a community based team instead of a school division based team you need to look at the specific laws allowing participation in "school activities." Now these are commonly referred to as "Tebow" laws, in VA we can't accept out of division or home schooled students onto our school based team.

I am also assuming the intent is to use the school divisions tax exempt status which means dealing with the school's finance department. If the school division has a "Education foundation" they can very quickly be your best ally in dealing with the school when its comes to funding and business connections.

One last piece of advice is use your "local" FIRST resources, Patty Cook from VA FIRST helped us with starting Team 4472 last year I imagine you will find the people in PA just as helpful.