[mathking]

1) what would be the best ways to recruit students for next year?

As a previous poster said, demonstrations at lunch can help a lot. Students will be interested when they see the robot. Going to a middle school or junior high feeder for your high school can also be beneficial. We also had success here going to classes to recruit. If you have any business or marketing classes that can be a great place to look for help and to reinforce the idea that FIRST is not just about building a robot. Same thing with web design or programming classes. I am certainly making it a point next year to try to recruit a couple of excellent writers to our team. If you have any idustrial arts classes obviously visit them. In many states, there are Joint Vocational Schools which are associated with multiple high schools. These can also be an excellent source of team members.

1a) what would be the best ways to ensure participation from each student so that no student feels neglected or discouraged?

Create a team organizational structure which includes component design teams for various robot systems, a web design team, a marketing team, an animation team, a Chairman's Award team, a fundraising team, etc. People may well be on multiple teams. If you do this, everyone will have an idea of where they fit in the team structure. Even something as simple as putting someone in charge of posting their sub-team's progress reports can make people feel their contribution is valued.

2) How do we create an awareness with in the school that the competition is not just for techy kids but something for everyone?

As was said before, visiting classes is a good way to do this. This year I recruited in our accounting class to get help with business aspects of the program. When you present in classes or at lunch, point out all of the non or less technical stuff involved. Point out that running a FIRST team is sort of like running a business. (More like running a non-profit organization.)

3)How do we get more mentors involved? (especially for the business team)

This is trickier. It depends on who is mentoring you now. If you are simply in need of engineers, try contacting companies in your area who have engineers. There is a good chance that seeing a robot will be enough to convince a few that mentoring would be fun. I would also enlist the help of your teachers and administrators here. They will have contacts in the community. In fact, if your school district has a Communications or Public Relations office, they may be able to help you here.

4)How do we approach the big companies?

What I said above about the Communications/PR office for your district is crucial. I would also enlist the aid of parents. What we have found to be successful is to create a brochure and a cover letter. Spend time with multiple people's input to make this look good. If there are parents or community member's with consulting skills, enlist their help. Get a marketing teacher to help. The point is to come up with a good brochure and good cover letter. Then do some mock interviews with the team members who will do the approaching of businesses. When all is ready...

You still need to know who and how to make contact. Parents are a vital first step. They can have contacts through work. Check with the school administration too. A probably underutilized resource are your state legislator's and other elected officials. Legislator's (state and local) in particular are very tied to the community. Approach one or more of them and ask for help in making business contacts. Politicians have to raise money if they want to get elected. So they know who has money and who is willing to give. This can be a big help. Furthermore, if a group of students with a project like this asks for help, someone is at least going to listen to you. They may not help, but they will listen. If your school has a state rep, state senator and city council members, there is a good chance someone will be able to offer advice and perhaps contacts.

5)What other significant post season activities can be done to make things simpler for next years team?

Set up your team structure during the off-season. It is also a good idea to have some activities during the summer or fall. Last year we graduated half our team and then doubled in size, so we had a lot of new people. We did a couple of simple engineering projects as team builders and to get an idea of which new people might be good on which teams.

As was said by another poster, fundraise during the off season as much as possible. Have team members search for grants for which you would be eligible to apply. Make your contacts with local businesses. Come up with a marketing plan. Work on your team web site. Try to get together for some fun activities just to build camaraderie.

6)any other suggestions, concerns or ideas that you might have for our fairly fresh team with not a lot of tech interested school students?

Try to find one or two students who are coming back and who are willing to take on a leadership role. Build an email and/or phone contact list. Try to get every returning team member to find one or two new people for the team.