New Team in India?

[Alan Anderson]

If you want to form an FRC team, I suggest that you start by finding sponsors. You might try to convince a technology firm to partner with a school in order to make a good mentor base.

[Jimmy Nichols]

We have a former student on 1038 is currently living in India and going to College. PM me your email address and I will forward it to him.

[Akash Rastogi]

Hey man, shoot me an IM later when I'm done with classes. I suggest you talk to your dad and see if his company would want to get involved in sponsorship.

One thing to mention- this kid is a CAD genius!

Good luck man,
Akash

[T.Solanki]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

If you want to form an FRC team, I suggest that you start by finding sponsors. You might try to convince a technology firm to partner with a school in order to make a good mentor base.

I would love to have this inside a school but a problem with that is that the schools here don't usually support non-indian clubs/organizations. Since FIRST is primarily based in America it makes it much harder to convince a school to partner with us. maybe we could try a college or university?

[Phoenix Spud]

Hi,

My family and I helped start team 3132 (the first FIRST team in Australia) last year. We would love to help you out in anyway we can. Just let us know!

Cheers!

[SteveGPage]

A couple of years ago I tried to start one in Delhi through a public school, that was sponsored by a local education company (I was their US employee/consultant). I had even talked to Dean Kamen about this. He was very interested in getting FIRST into India, and had some thoughts about how to go about doing this. He understood the issues with schools and getting mentors. Send me a PM and I will see if I can get some talks started with the company I used to work with, and get you hooked up with them! I am still very interested in making this happen and will help in any way I can!

Steve

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by SteveGPage

A couple of years ago I tried to start one in Delhi through a public school, that was sponsored by a local education company (I was their US employee/consultant). I had even talked to Dean Kamen about this. He was very interested in getting FIRST into India, and had some thoughts about how to go about doing this. He understood the issues with schools and getting mentors. Send me a PM and I will see if I can get some talks started with the company I used to work with, and get you hooked up with them! I am still very interested in making this happen and will help in any way I can!

Steve

Steve the problem with public schools in India (even in the most developed parts) is that they lack a lot of funding themselves. Solanki and I talked about having the team affiliated through IIT (India's top engineering school) which his dad is an alumnus of. Potential sponsors include his dad's company, IIT Delhi, TATA Motors, as well as Microsoft India. Solanki also attends the American Embassy School so hopefully it goes over better there.

A huge issue that Solanki and I discussed is that students in India are largely already overwhelmed with school work (no this is not a stereotype, it is very true) and so far only 5 students have claimed interest in joining in on this opportunity. Hopefully we can think of ways to get more kids involved though. Mentors and resources should not be too big of an issue though.

Akash

.

[flyingcrayons]

dude i think spreading FIRST to india is an awesome idea. ive told my cousins in Bombay plenty about FIRST, and they have all visited the FIRST Website and know whats going on with the different games etc. i know there is interest in this type of a program, but like stogi said, the amount of schoolwork they get there is unbelievable, and mentorship is difficult because most people (especially in a city like New Delhi) work long hours. Work schedules in India are much different, only recently have people begun working 9-5. my uncle used to work until 8 or 9 o'clock every night (which i know some people here do as well, but not as widespread), so finishing work and trying to dedicate yourself to a team is a tough choice for most people. I also think that affiliating yourself with a university or your American embassy school is a better bet than an Indian public school. Anyways, good luck and I really hope you can help spread FIRST to India

[SteveGPage]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Steve the problem with public schools in India (even in the most developed parts) is that they lack a lot of funding themselves. Solanki and I talked about having the team affiliated through IIT (India's top engineering school) which his dad is an alumnus of. Potential sponsors include his dad's company, IIT Delhi, TATA Motors, as well as Microsoft India. Solanki also attends the American Embassy School so hopefully it goes over better there.

A huge issue that Solanki and I discussed is that students in India are largely already overwhelmed with school work (no this is not a stereotype, it is very true) and so far only 5 students have claimed interest in joining in on this opportunity. Hopefully we can think of ways to get more kids involved though. Mentors and resources should not be too big of an issue though.

Akash

.

Akash,

I agree totally with the issues you raised. I am reaching out to some of my contacts over there, Educomp Datamatics, InfoSys, and and Wipro. I see several major issues, many identified already here on this thread: 1. Funding, 2. Lack of desire to be apart of a non-Indian initiative, 3. Student Time constraints, and lastly 4. Getting Mentors. When I attempted this earlier, the mentors that I was talking to, asked me, "How much do we get paid?" I found this to be a common issue.

As to my comment about "Public" schools, I meant that in the definition of what a "Public" school is in India, vs "Government" schools - which is more like what we call public schools. The public schools I worked with, in India, were privately funded and sponsored, and had at least some money, but certainly - even in those cases - were constantly dealing with budget issues.

I do understand about the time contraints that Indian students have. If they aren't in school, they are in an after school tutoring program, or they are working. I would recommend a robotics curriculum, that could be part of the school day, backed by some kind of technology grant/initiative. I think that FTC might be the better initial approach within the schools, then FRC.

We can reach kids, no matter what part of the world they live in, no matter what conditions they live in. I believe that this FIRST community can make it happen!

[blayde5]

Hey guys,

So I too tried starting a robotics program at a middle school in Pune, India and the kids seemed really interested. The big problem is lack of funding and lack of resources. The teachers are notoriously busy and so are the students. In fact, the entire culture there is different but in no way am I discouraging anyone from trying. With enough willpower it can be done.

As for sponsors, my grandfather might be able to help with this endeavor. PM me for more information. I'll be free to help in any way possible as well.

Thanks,
Abhijaat Kelkar

[T.Solanki]

Originally Posted by SteveGPage

Akash,

I agree totally with the issues you raised. I am reaching out to some of my contacts over there, Educomp Datamatics, InfoSys, and and Wipro. I see several major issues, many identified already here on this thread: 1. Funding, 2. Lack of desire to be apart of a non-Indian initiative, 3. Student Time constraints, and lastly 4. Getting Mentors. When I attempted this earlier, the mentors that I was talking to, asked me, "How much do we get paid?" I found this to be a common issue.

As to my comment about "Public" schools, I meant that in the definition of what a "Public" school is in India, vs "Government" schools - which is more like what we call public schools. The public schools I worked with, in India, were privately funded and sponsored, and had at least some money, but certainly - even in those cases - were constantly dealing with budget issues.

I do understand about the time contraints that Indian students have. If they aren't in school, they are in an after school tutoring program, or they are working. I would recommend a robotics curriculum, that could be part of the school day, backed by some kind of technology grant/initiative. I think that FTC might be the better initial approach within the schools, then FRC.

We can reach kids, no matter what part of the world they live in, no matter what conditions they live in. I believe that this FIRST community can make it happen!

Well I go to the American Embassy School here in New Delhi and the teachers here are pretty enthusiastic about creating this team (especially our robotics teacher). I've also reached out to the British School in New Delhi and am trying to get some public school kids as well but the problem is language. The kids here do speak English but the English is much different then what we speak. It combines aspects of Hindi, the local language here, and English. If we are to start a team the kids would all have to know one language and that would probably have to be American English.

As for the mentors, with my father being an IIT Alumni, he can get us resources from inside that college. He might even be able to get us the IIT campus as a workshop for our bot. If this doesn't work I also have an uncle who is Vice Chancellor in a new upcoming university in Delhi, Sharda U. But the problem with that is that they are not a completely developed school yet and it would be harder to get resources there.

I think FRC is still an option as long as we can get some more resources.