Greetings Teams:
In recent years there have been a few occasions where multiple FRC teams ended up working with the same sponsor, fabricator, school and/or mentors. We have received indications that several more teams may be considering similar arrangements for this upcoming competition season. So, before registration opens on Monday, we would like to share the policy regarding such arrangements with you.
We are going to conduct an experiment for 2008. In an intentional effort to minimize the number of regulations governing team operations, we are not going to impose any requirements on the structure or organization of a team, or how multiple teams may interact, collaborate, or coordinate during the build season. Specifically:
* We are not specifying a limit to the number of teams that may be hosted by a school or organization
* Multiple teams supported by the same school or organization may share mentors, facilities, resources and designs, if they so choose
* Students cannot be a member of more than one (1) FRC team
* Teams (whether co-located or not) may collaborate and coordinate their activities to the extent that they choose
* There is no restriction against teams sharing designs and creating identical robots
* There is no restriction against collaborating teams participating at the same event
* Note that the “Rookie Team Criteria” (found here -
http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...t.aspx?id=6632 ) will still apply to all new teams – so any new team starting up at a school with an existing FRC team will be considered a non-rookie (under Rule #1)
We believe that this flexibility in team organization will enable teams to maximize student participation in the FRC program while sharing scarce mentor resources. We hope this will create an environment in which the mentors may have even more success inspiring students on the teams.
At the same time, we are conscious of the concerns that such arrangements may have on the competitions. We will be watching closely during the 2008 competition season to determine the affect, if any, that these arrangements may have on the competitions.
As we said, this is an experiment. There is no guarantee that this policy will remain for future years. We will be soliciting your feedback during and after the season regarding how this policy may improve the FRC experience.
We also want to take this opportunity to thank you, our team mentors. Without your commitment we could not put the FRC program within reach of the students who so strongly want to participate. You are the reason this program is so successful and continues to make the extraordinary impact in the lives of our youth.
Go Teams!