How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
We usually get a decent amount of money from our school (not liable to say exactly how much) but it is enough for us that, in the past, we have not had to do a whole lot of fundraising. This year will be different though. Not sure why - but I know we need to raise A LOT of money.
Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
As of this fall, we will have an after school class called 'The Basics of FIRST'. I believe it earns you two credits - one first semester (for taking the class) and one second semester (for participating in the Build) You can only take the class once ... but (obviously) can participate in the Build as many times as you want!
Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
We are supposed to have a subteam who handles all of that but basically is comes down to whoever volunteers to do that. Shirts are printed by our team members in the graphic arts room at our school. One of our teachers handles doing the website. Brochures are made by whoever feels like doing them. Fundraising has been pretty much non-existant up to this point (selling candybars are the only form of fundraising we've done up until now).
Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
For the most part, we work in our school's tech center. We have a graphic arts room (for printing shirts, making brochures, etc.), a wood shop (good for building the crate in, or just to use for some extra work space), the machine shop (where we machine our parts), the auto shop (to practice in), and the tech center (two nice big rooms - one with computers and one with tables, where we work). We also have "the back room" which is a tiny room in the tech center where they stick all of us controls people
Then there's the Tech. Sometimes, we have our students go out to FVTC (Fox Valley Technical College) and machine more complicated parts there, that we can't make at school. The neat thing about that is the students still do the machining at the Tech.
What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
... Most people at our school think it's really cool or just don't care at all. When I first joined the team, people in my class (who not on the team) Were kind of like, "why would you put in all that time to build a robot ... ... ?" But noe most of them think FIRST is pretty cool and admire the people in it for being able to put so much time and work into a program like this.
On a more individual note, if your team group can't decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
Depends on what the situation is.
Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
We have two tech ed teachers from our high school, a lot of engineers from Plexus and a few engineers from Kimberly Clark that help out with the team. We also have a former Plexus engineer and a photographer (which happens to be the father of one of our Plexus engineers!)
- Katie