sponsors dictating design??

[Andrew Dahl]

has anyone had instances where sponsors of your team have dictated what your bot will do or what it will look like

just a hypothetical situation???


dahl
team497

[Jeff Waegelin]

We've never had that problem. Unless you count one of our advisors that works for our sponsor, Visteon, they really don't have much involvement with our robot design.

[Ed Sparks]

We had a similar problem recently when we were awarded a NASA grant. NASA seemed to want to control how we managed our team. There were many conditions that went with the money.

Our solution ........

We gave the grant back and found funding elseware. NASA is doing great things for FIRST and I don't want to NASA bash but I was a little suprised at the level of control they seemed to want in our program.

[Kit Gerhart]

In our case, the design of the robot is up to the team members. There are always differences of opinion among team members on some things, but these issues have generally been resolved without difficulty the last few years.

There was one concern that a few of us had when the 'alliance' thing started in '99, but it turned out that we had no reason to be concerned. When the '99 game was revealed, we were a little worried that the 'powers that be' within Delphi might expect Delphi teams that qualified in the competitions to pick other Delphi teams as partners, even if there were better non-Delphi teams to pick from. We have had no such pressure, and hopefully that is the case with other multiple-team sponsors.

[ChrisH]

Ed,

We had a similar problem recently when we were awarded a NASA grant. NASA seemed to want to control how we managed our team. There were many conditions that went with the money.

I think your problem is an isolated incident. Has Huntsville ever sponsored teams before?

We are sponsored by JPL and other than having to meet certain deliverable requirements they have little say in how the team is run. That may be because we compete against other teams by writing proposals before the grants are awarded. The proposal includes a management section. So you describe how the team is going to be run before you get the money. If they don't like it you don't get the award.

The deliverables I know about are:

1) Show up with a robot and compete in FL.
2) Submit a Chairman's Award entry.
3) Submit an essay from each student (adults are optional) on how the FIRST experience influenced them.

Nothing unreasonable here. They may be some other administrivial requirements like cost accounting or something that I don't get involved with. Again nothing we consider unreasonable, and for various reasons we are more sensitive than most teams about "unwarranted government intrusion".

We have one member of JPL technical staff on the team. But his voice carries no more weight than any other technical guy.

Just our experience,

[Ed Sparks]

Hi ChrisH

I have no problem with the requirements that you pointed out and I suppose our problem may be isolated. I'm not exactly sure how NASA structures staff to handle teams. I also know of other teams in our area that get funding through NASA that don't seem to be held to the same rules as those who are getting grants. These teams are the ones that actually have NASA engineers within the team. I'm not sure what guidelines they are held to.

We are located in Huntsville, Al. near NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and started getting demands along the line of who is to build the actual robot (Students not Engineers) and where "NASA" appears in the title of our team. We choose to work together on the design and assembly but Engineers and Machine shop folks do most of the cutting. This is our choice for a variety of safety and lagistical reasons. As for the title thing, Daimlerchrysler gives us around $30K each year along with employee time vs. the 2K grant. It's clear to us who should get top billing. The teacher that actually applied for the grant had other issues but I'm not 100% sure what the problem was.

This may sound a little trivial to teams that are really scrounging for funds but it just wasn't a comfortable fit for us so we went to plan "B". I understand NASA wants to hold on to the title of having the most teams but we're really a DaimlerChrysler team. I hope you get the point ......

I wish we could have accepted the money but everything worked out without it and besides, I'm sure some other team appreciated getting the grant. All is well.

[Kit Gerhart]

I remember Team 34 as being around for most of the seven years that I have been involved with FIRST. They were a Chrysler team at a time when there were very few, if any other Chrysler teams.

[Ed Sparks]

Team 34 is the second Chrysler team following team 33 "The Killer Bees". They are going into their 7th season. We are 1 year behind (6th season). Our company changed names a few years ago when Daimler-Benz and Chrysler merged.