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Unread 20-01-2015, 13:43
pilum40 pilum40 is offline
Steve Miller-Coach-Team 3355
AKA: Steve Miller
FRC #3355 (Bigg Redd)
Team Role: Coach
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Rookie Year: 2010
Location: Arlington, Texas
Posts: 145
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Cool Re: Texas Registration 2015

Rant button on:

We're just a bottom feeding, small team that relies totally upon several gracious corporate patrons, FIRST in Texas and the Texas Workforce Commission for the majority of our funding. I appreciate the support simply because the parent community in my school will/cannot support the financial costs involved in FRC. My school leadership has just this year had their "TEA funding light" turned on by our program. We are not supported by our school budget. We construct and compete out of partial robotics/weight room. We do not charge team fees as do the athletic/extracurricular folks. We'll continue to sell lots of spaghetti supper tickets, sell Vex "insect-bots" for Christmas and hoard ALL of the last four years' parts that can be re-used (screws/nuts/ bar stock and the like do add up when one is in charge of counting half pennies). I'd love to see TEA walk the talk and make Robotics a UIL sport. We could then justify an injection of STEM funds into robotics that are currently going into A/V graphics programs. Schools like mine have to make really tough choices when building/not building STEM programs. The choices historically have not been for robotics.

I ask my team each year to give me three companies/names of family and friends that have mechanical, CNC shops, or have a way to help us get our robot painted, our t-shirts printed, premiums for competition made (yeah...we're one of THOSE teams that hand make stuff at competition). It seems to work out each year. We make the hard "cold calls", do the presentations to the Chamber of Commerce to increase our networking "web", we present at all the schools in our network to build an awareness of what we do. We've exhibited at minor league baseball games, at the mall (that was unique-folks thought we were geeky panhandlers). We may not be going to nationals and frankly you won't see our record below in a signature. It's not about robots; we send kids to college on FIRST scholarships, we move kids to build "stuff" they had no idea about in the first place and we build a tight knit family for kids that go home to absolutely nothing on a daily basis. THAT'S why I coach at 3355 and teach at Summit Prep HS. I don't do it for money, stipend, shorter teaching hours, or any tidbits of recognition (we don't get any so that's moot anyway).

Instead of boo-hooin' about the decline in teams; ask the teams that are very fortunate and have consistently winning teams to mentor those that may be weaker. My hat's off to Team 704 for taking us under their wing in 2010. We'd be one of the statistics if that didn't happen. Physically supplying student mentors, sharing teaching resources such as CAD to teams that don't use it (we use Mark 2 eyeballs. measure 3 times and hold our breaths still) and working together to increase the number of corporate and small business patrons will help both teams.

Can't cry over the decline...let's fix the issue! If the issue is money-driven; find new ways to raise money, reduce some of the registration costs by moving to a less costly venue, changing the game so it's not so danged expensive to be competitive. Sure, it's only 4K...that's 4K that has to be raised, begged for, etc. It's not going to come from the state. I relish the idea that I do NOT hit my school's budget. It's a good feeling to be quasi-independent and not hear "we don't have the money for more pneumatic tubing". I challenge all to grab a rookie , 2nd or 3rd year team and build a graciously professional relationship. It may not help the funding crunch; it will build our community and will motivate kids to go to college because of your interest in THEM! Your build expertise will build confidence in others that don't know which way to tighten a screw and to we teachers (yeah...I was an AP Human Geography teacher before FIRST) to manage and contribute via their own field of experience/expertise. Who knows, you might even see 3355 in the quarters this year....we were there 2 years ago! It can happen!!! Look and fear the Purple....Purple Vipers!

Rant button off now