Why choose FRC instead of FTC?

[linuxboy]

Hi all,

For 5 years, my school had an FTC team with only a few kids on it. For the 2011 season we started an FRC team and attracted a lot more students to the team: we will have approx. 15 students or more for the 2012 season. I enjoyed FRC this year and learned a lot that I would not have if we had still been doing FTC. We were fairly successful as well: the entire team was excited to win the Rookie All-Star award at the WPI Regional.

The school, however, was not quite as thrilled with the program; FRC was more expensive and took up a lot more extracurricular time than FTC. Administrators seem to be leaning heavily towards going back to the FTC model and not sponsoring an FRC team next year.

I am hoping that the CD community could share their thoughts on how to convince my school that despite the challenges we faced in our rookie year FRC is a program worth pursuing. Basically: why should the school want to choose FRC instead of FTC? Outside opinions may help us convince administrators that FRC is worth it.

Thanks everyone,
Oliver