Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
How many FIRST Senior Mentors would you want in order to call it sufficient support? This past season, I think there were enough to average one for about every 65 teams.
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1/regional, plus an additional 1 per 50 teams in a district, would be the bare minimum, I'd think, if it was just FRC. And I do mean bare minimum (it's not uncommon to find 3 FSMs at a single SoCal regional of 40-60 teams--and at least two of the same three at a different SoCal regional a week later).
The problem is that when you add FTC, FLL, and JrFLL, a 1:50 ratio rapidly turns into more like 1:200+. Not all teams will need the FSM's help (and the "smaller" teams are more likely to be able to get 3-4 teams helped at once, courtesy of often having 3-4 teams per school), but even so, the poor FSM is trying to coordinate help to way too many teams. If you were to call it a 1:100 ratio across the board, you might be able to get there... but that's a LOT of FSMs, something like 300 for FRC alone.
My thought would be to, in addition to adding FSMs, have various "instructional" videos on various ways to find funding, mentors, facilities, and other things that teams need.
I also like the idea of an early simple robot. Concept: Teams who opt for the kitbot in their KOP have it shipped to them and are allowed to build it immediately, and
use it in competition that season as their drivebase. Teams that don't opt for the kitbot would have to wait for Kickoff to build stuff for competition. Basically, you got drivetrain going right away, you got 6 weeks to build the superstructure and make it work. (Or...not. BLT robots work too, now you got 16 weeks of driver practice!)