Starting a Robotics Club/Team

[Acesonnall]

I need help and advice in how to start a Robotics club. I already have 1 (Not an official school club) organization started so I have the leadership skills, but I don't know how to go about Starting a school Robotics club. The FIRST site tells me I'll need professional engineers, adult mentors, high school aged students, sponsorship, a meeting place, access to tools and free time during the build and competition season. My questions are:
- Where would I find and be able to contact willing professional engineers?
- What do they mean by adult mentors and would those from the ASCE and IEEE qualify?
- Sponsorship would be from my school, right?
- Would I have to meet at my school or would I be able to do it in a large room in a local library or a community center or something like that?
- As for access to tools, how will I know what is needed for the club?

Also if you have any advice as to what we could talk about at meetings that would be great.

I was referred by someone that this site would be the place to ask.

[EricH]

Well, whoever referred you knew what they were talking about. But they forgot something. I'll get back to that later.

Professional engineers and mentors can be lumped together sometimes. Go to your local place that does engineering-type stuff and start asking. (Or find a retired engineer.) ACSE and IEEE (and ASME and SAE and...) would qualify as engineering mentors; Non-Engineering Mentors are also vital (they take care of stuff like finances, marketing, and other things that engineering mentors get too wrapped up in their work to remember).

Sponsorship: School, local place that does engineering-type stuff, local businesses, anywhere that's willing to donate funding, time, or space.

Location: Wherever you can find space. I wouldn't suggest a community center just yet; we're talking taking over a large space for 6 weeks. You will need a secured facility if you can find one; we are dealing with some expensive parts here!

Access to tools: There are a number of threads on CD about tools needed; the main thing is that the mechanicals need to be able to cut and drill, the electricals need to be able to solder and crimp and insulate, and the programmers need to be able to program.

Now, I have a suggestion for you. I see you're in Florida. It might be a bit late for the Orlando Regional (finishing up today)... but the South Florida Regional is March 29-31, at FAU in Boca Raton. Go there and find a team--I suggest 1902, 180, or 190, but most of the teams should be pretty good. Spend as much time with them as possible. Pick their brains.

[FRC BOTMOM]

If you plan on becoming a FRC Team and want to attend a regional you will need to have at least $5.000 for your robot kit of parts and competition fee. You will need a build space that you can use year round and a Teacher or Adult mentor to Sponsor the team. (Not a money sponsor, an adult sponsor to register you with FIRST) The most important thing is a group of dedicated students who are willing to give up 6 weeks to build a robot.

Check out the FIRST web site and see what team are in your area contact them and ask if you could meet with them and see where they build, and what they do. This will help you decide if FIRST is for you. Many Veteran teams will help mentor Rookie teams. You should see if a local team would be willing to do this.

Good luck with starting a team.

[DoronS]

I would also find out who the regional directors for FIRST are in your area. In NY, they are very involved with startup teams, and they may be able to advise or direct resources to you.
Regarding mentors, one of the biggest benefits that they bring is maturity. Because of that, one of our best engineering mentors is a med student, and another is a retired lawyer. That being said, we also have vital mentors who work in the industry, so just be open-minded about who can help. If you are looking for mentors, definitely talk to team parents and to your school's Alumni/Parents Associations.

[DeAnnaC]

Our group started with a local high-school, but the support was dropped after the first year, so the mentors at that time created a non-profit organization and we've been a stand-alone organization since then (2003). The board members and mentors (many are the same) are all volunteer - we have no paid staff.

We have mentors from all kinds of backgrounds, some have (had) children on the team, some of our mentors don't have any kids, they are just professionals in a discipline or have experience that we need. Our students come from 5 different counties, 9 different schools and we have 18 home-schooled students.

We are completely self-sustaining and do our own funding by writing grants and fund-raising projects that we do all year long.

We meet in donated space (basement of a strip mall) and the tools we have were purchased with grants or donated from families tied to the team. Besides the FRC team, we sponsor about 10 Jr FLL and 28 FLL teams each year so we keep students in the program and moving up as they age out of the other teams.

I would contact some local teams and make visits to them during their meetings to find out what they do, how they are organized, how they get their funding and sponsors.

Some teams may have team manuals, certification processes (like the Boy Scout badge program), team outline of job descriptions, etc, that they would be willing to share that may help a new group get organized.

DeAnna

[mom1155]

Also, look for a veteran team in your area to mentor you. If there is a college or university nearby with a physics, programming or engineering major, you may be able to find some professors or FIRST Alumni to help as well.

[SenorZ]

I'm a teacher at my school and am lead mentor/coach. It is almost impossible to do well without a professional or retired engineer helping out. The expertise they can provide in designing and troubleshooting systems is invaluable.

[Rizner]

Just out of curiosity, where are you located in Florida?

Originally Posted by SenorZ

I'm a teacher at my school and am lead mentor/coach. It is almost impossible to do well without a professional or retired engineer helping out. The expertise they can provide in designing and troubleshooting systems is invaluable.

I've also been a mentor with a team that had no engineering mentors (As I was going to school for a degree, myself and a couple other students helped a team that had a teacher mentor and one or two other mentors who weren't engineers helping). This year they got a retired engineering mentor as well, and the process has gone better. It's not impossible to do it without one but it does help.

[krisloz]

I haven't looked at the requirements but if your looking to start a FTC team, then I don't think you need an engineer. Our mentor isn't an engineer, she's about 23 years old and she has had no engineering training and we did fine in our competition.

I know FRC and FTC are big differences so I can't compare, so maybe you will need an engineer, but for a FTC team I suggest $2,000~$1750 including the registration fee.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by krisloz

I know FRC and FTC are big differences so I can't compare, so maybe you will need an engineer, but for a FTC team I suggest $2,000~$1750 including the registration fee.

For FRC, you will want an engineer. You can compete without one, but it's not going to be easy.

You really don't want to try to apply FTC logistics/personnel to FRC. It's an order of magnitude difference. (I suggest that anybody starting an FRC team start with at least $10K and try to raise more. $6500 for rookie registration, the rest for building materials and travel to competitions. In later years, it goes more like $5500 for registration and the rest for materials and travel.)

However, that is something to consider: Maybe FRC isn't the way to go right away. It's resource-intensive and a major time hog. So you're going to want to look into multiple competitions before picking one.

FRC is probably the biggest in terms of scale of the robots and the number of teams. It's also $6K to register.
Battlebots is roughly the same size as FRC in terms of robots, and better known, but not quite as expensive or expansive. (Specifically, you want Battlebots IQ in the comparison.)
FTC, the FIRST Tech Challenge, is the midweight of FIRST's quartet. It uses both LEGO and Tetrix components.
VRC, the VEX Robotics Competition, is a slightly cheaper version of FTC, and is actually a spin-off of FTC (the parts group changed, and the original maker of the parts made a new competition).
FLL (FIRST LEGO League) is probably out of your age range on the low side. (JFLL, the extreme lightweight of the FIRST quartet of competitions, is early elementary; FLL runs from about 8-14, IIRC.)
There is also the BEST competition, but I don't know anything about that personally.