[NotInControl]

1. Get parents involved as early as possible. Invite them to meetings and keep them engaged. They will be the catalyst which keeps students involved.

2. Even if you can't afford to do more than one in-season event, try to do many cheap off-season events. As you build your program, it is important to keep interest alive. Students who have never experienced FIRST will loose interest fast. The way to change that is to keep going to events.
The other reason is, you spend so much time build a robot, at least spend the time to enjoy it. If you can afford to do more in-season events, then do it. Many 1st/2nd/3rd year team do a single event, and that is not enough to get experience in my opinion.

3. Driver practice! - if you want to be competitive, you need your students practicing on how to drive your machine. We typically hold driver practice 3 days a week where they run through basic runs, communications, and what-if scenarios. A rookie team that can drive, will always be on any scouters watch list. Must practice driving before going to your event. Asign or have tryouts for the student positions, and have a mentor as the coach. They should be running drills frequently during the week to build driver confidence and communication between the student and mentor drive coach.

4. Pick out the awards and go after them. Look into Rookie-All star, and Rookie Inspiration awards. Find out what it takes to win them, and focus on getting them. Talk to other teams that have won them in your area or on chief (you can look winners up on FIRST or on thebluealliance). Going after awards is a smart way to spend your first year. Especially since those awards are just for rookies.

5. Take advantage of Rookie Grants for FRC. Look into the FRC website for more info on this.

6. Get experienced FRC mentors to help. They will help your program take off fast. If you can not find experienced mentors in your area, then keep your rookie build season open/public to the FRC community though videos or a build blog and ask questions during build. Many mentors and teams love to help other teams and Chief Delphi is a great place to get such help.

7. Start cadding robots as soon as your program can support the extra work. It is a great teaching tool off-season, and allows better production in-season. If you can find a machine shop or machinist in your area that is willing to help machine parts, that would be even more awesome.

Just my 2 cents.

Good luck,
Kevin