[Fusion_Clint]

First, thank you for giving your time to the students, it is a tremendous undertaking.

I am a second year teacher after spending almost 22 years in the USAF. I was blessed to find employment as an engineering teacher and FRC coach with TEAM Fusion 364. While Fusion 364 has been around for 15 years, we are always needing mentors and additional funding. Last year I saw students that took the team for granted and didn't respect our resources, I'm trying to help the students gain team ownership by giving each of them fundraising goals.

BTW, money is not your main obstacle to keeping the team going, it is energy. As long as your team has the energy to keep going, you will find the money.

As an educator, you should be the grant writing expert. If not, I guarantee your school district has people that can help you. I usually submit a new grant request every 2-4 weeks. The time in between is spent researching new grants. It is a lot of work, but it is what I signed up for.

I'm now going to give you two life lessons that have taken root over the course of my life.

1. "If your not early, then you are late." We called this Lombardi Time in the USAF, you have to plan for the unexpected. If you wait until the last minute and things go wrong you are out of luck. Be early!

2. "Follow-up, is the key to success." You can't think that because you did your part, that everything is done. You have to follow-up to ensure the completion of the task, to the point of doing others jobs for them.

It reads to me that your KOP problem could have been prevented by following these two simple rules.

Many of the resources you requested in your post currently exist, but you (or your team) have to take the time to find them and use them. The spirit of FIRST is represented to me best in the old proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." We are about teaching, not giving. The "how to" is everywhere, you just have to teach and manage the "doing"; the key is motivating the kids to do it.

You need to shed the "academic" label and become a leader, if you are going to lead a FRC team.