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Unread 22-05-2005, 23:40
KenWittlief KenWittlief is offline
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Location: Rochester, NY
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Re: The Ideals of FIRST have Changed...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisCook
I mainly wrote this because I;m graduating and my team is being left with nothing ...

plus another blow our mentor that started the team will be retiring from our school next year and we will have no program.

What i really need is some serious inspiration ...
Ok, if Im understanding this correctly, you had a team in 2001, nothing for 3 years, you put together a team for this year

and now you have 3 seniors graduating and your (only?) adult mentor is retiring?

Is that the situation?

The intention of FIRST is for corporations to team up with highschools and form teams. If your team was able to attend events with no corporate sponsors, no engineers? no professionals other than a HS teacher, then yes - you had a very minimal seat-of-the-pants sort of team this year

and it will be very difficult to sustain a team like that from year to year.

If this is the case, then your school needs to find a corporate sponsor. That is the idea behind FIRST, for HS students to work with engineers and scientist to see what a career in those fields would be like. If you dont have a sponsor, and no engineers, and no technicians..... then I dont know how that is suppose to work, except for the things you can pick up working with other teams in your area.

The burden does not fall on FIRST to find sponsors for each team - they do help match up sponsors looking for schools, and verse visa - but the primary responsibily of matching up sponsors and schools falls on the sponsors and the schools.

The best advice I can give (if Im not off the track and in the woods by now) is:

1. Set up a parent / student group at your school to look for a corporate sponsor.

2. contact FIRST and see if there are corporations in your area looking to start a 'new' team.

If you managed to have a team this year with no sponsorship, my hat is off to you - that is an incredible accomplishment. I think you will find it incredibly difficult to continue in that mode year after year.

You need to connect with a company that can supply funds, facilities, equipment and engineers and scientists - the experience your students will have will be totally different.

EDITED TO ADD: you need to do this now if you want your school to have a team in 2006. Most companys appropriate their community service funds in january, so you are already 5 months behind in that respect. But it is possible to find corporate sponsorship over the summer, and start up again in the fall.

Our team lost its corporate sponsor after the nationals in 1998. One of the parents rallied several other parents, two teachers and a bunch of students to work together to find a new sponsor. We pulled it off, but it was a lot of work. We talked to over 300 potential sponsors, and ended up with two companys, one of which (Gleason) is not only still our primary sponsor (7 years later) but they are also one of the sponsors of the new Rochester (fingerlakes) regional.

maybe something better than you can imagine will come of this - you never know!

Last edited by KenWittlief : 22-05-2005 at 23:56.
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