Starting 20 new teams this year. Need help.

[Cory]

HQ doesn't particularly seem to care about the return rate of teams, so long as they are seeing net growth.

I've always thought this was stupid, as it doesn't accomplish anything to have a team struggle through a season or two and then quit.

[RaMoore]

nuggetsyl and others,

From my discussions with 1817, it's not that they are trying to start these teams. 1817, as the only successfully established FIRST team for the area, is being asked to help support these new teams that HQ/regional leadership wants to start.

Since the University is one of the major sponsors of 1817 the people are one in the same with the people doing the work to prepare for adding a new regional.

I concur that organic growth is generally best, but sometimes you need a kick in the pants to get things rolling. At the very least the best case would be to only have as many of these seed rookies as you have veteran teams to support them, but like I said 1817 is pretty much all there is in Lubbock and even up to a 200+ mile radius. It's very big and pretty empty out there (no offense to the lubbockites out there).

1817 has students from all the schools in the Lubbock area, so it will be interesting to see what happens to their student base as more teams are added into the local schools.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by RaMoore

1817 is pretty much all there is in Lubbock and even up to a 200+ mile radius. It's very big and pretty empty out there

I'm concerned about the potential number of teams for the Hub City Regional in Lubbock, Texas.
Why not Austin instead of Lubbock ?
I don't see the population density working for a Lubbock regional

[Greg McKaskle]

You have already received some good advice and a few tales of similar challenges. Let me add that my family lives in Lubbock and nearby areas in West Texas. I've had the pleasure of working with team 1817 a number of times over the last few years and have noticed capable teams from Midland, Del Rio, and even Van Horn. I hope that you are able to arrange for one or more kick-off builds, and if so, I'd love to help. I suspect that a number of NI engineers can assist as well. Unfortunately, the eight hour drive each way means we cannot be primary mentors.

Please contact me with details and any other issues you think we may be able to assist with.

As for finding mentors, I"m not sure what you've tried, but there are tons of energy companies, oil and wind, and their engineers are distributed throughout the region. Personally, one of the most inspiring technical people I grew up with was a shade-tree mechanic and responsible for keeping the local cotton gin operating. He certainly wasn't a trained engineer, but with the Chilton manual for any automobile ever made, he could work miracles and simultaneously explain what was wrong and how to keep it from happening again. My point is that technical inspiration doesn't have to come solely from college students or professional engineers, especially when you are looking to start that many teams.

Greg McKaskle

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by lynca

I'm concerned about the potential number of teams for the Hub City Regional in Lubbock, Texas.
Why not Austin instead of Lubbock ?
I don't see the population density working for a Lubbock regional

I belive this has to do with the eventual change over to the district model in the future. They need a good distribution of teams/events to make it work. That being said I wouldn't be suprised to see an austin district when the change is made.


Also 1817 is basically out there all by themselves, and I really doubt that there will be alot of quality teams at that event especally if they have tasked a college supported team to found them. That model does not work, and while you may see 20 new kitbot teams this year, I bet only ~10 survive into year 3 (this due to the assumption for regional earmarked 2 year grants).

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Ed Barker nailed it! That's what we did in DC for 2009 and it worked. Follow up the support with competition-day support and you're golden.

Looking forward to the Hub City Regional, and helping in any way we can. We will have students available at the tournament to help troubleshoot Labview programming, as well as electrical/mechanical issues. If we can help anyone via Skype during the build season we are open to that as well.

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by atlas

Hey guys,
Team 1817 here.

FIRST wants us to start 20 new teams in the west Texas, Lubbock area. Including Amarillo and El Paso. AND they are starting a new Lubbock Regional this year. Everything is pretty much set to do this, we have students ready to go. But no mentors.

We can be reached at:
team1817@gmail.com

Team 2468 is registered for the Hub City Tournament officially. We are looking forward to the event and competing with some veterans we already see registered as well as with the new rookie teams.

We are more than willing to do some online training this Fall as well as during the build season. We will come with students ready to assist teams at the tournament including programming, bumpers, wiring and getting to compete at the tournament.

Let me know how we can help.

Good luck on starting the new teams and finding the sustainable growth out in West Texas. I was raised in the Panhandle and went to college in Plainview. I am very fond of all those memories.

[Jim Zondag]

Mentors are always the toughest part of the equation:
As Greg said, you can often find mentors in places you don't think to look first.
In my experience, many of the best mentors come from similar backgrounds....many of the best FRC mentor I know were once farmers or participated in some sort of motorsports.
I did both, and so did one of my other team leaders.
FRC requires a good combination of using your head and using your hands. It seems like there would be many good candidates in Texas.

[JohnSchneider]

Just keep in mind Texas has one of the lowest rates of return, if not THE lowest. When starting teams make sure to find faculty that care as much about the program as the students do, and give them all a copy of "the new cool" so they know what to expect.

Im excited to see another regional in texas (even if we lost our second dallas one ). How much longer till we go district...hmm...

[PayneTrain]

I will express general concern with the task of just providing minimum, one-year funding to a gaggle of teams. I believe Texas did this exact same thing before and things didn't go as well as hoped.

I believe between 2011 and 2012 Virginia had 5 rookies join the FRC program but netted -1 teams. That is frustrating to me and shows that somewhere along the line, the veteran teams (us), the sponsors, and/or the program failed. Success or failure is not defined on the field, but in the number of kids we can try to inspire. When a team becomes sustainable I call it a success, but when they silently die out that I see it as a colossal failure.

I know when I graduate from college I feel called to work on some watch list for team retention, because gaining rookies but losing team count overall was a bad feeling.

Good luck.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

Looking forward to the Hub City Regional, and helping in any way we can. We will have students available at the tournament to help troubleshoot Labview programming, as well as electrical/mechanical issues. If we can help anyone via Skype during the build season we are open to that as well.

I'm really happy to see many people putting down offers to help. Half of Texas teams are in dire need for help.

Here's my quick count from looking at the thread.

Online Mentor List :
0. Appreciate - 2468
1. Titanium -1986
2. Robovikes - 4206
3. Nu Bots - 3730
4. Greg McKaskle
5. DiscoBots - 2587

Let's help 1817 get up to 20 online mentors to match up with 20 new teams.

Who else is willing to Skype help new Texas Rookies ?

[Alpha Beta]

We still have every intention of signing up for the Hub City regional should a slot remain open November 1st.

17 teams are currently signed up. 4 of these are rookies, and 3 of those from the great state of Texas. Should have no problem getting over 24 teams to fill out the elimination bracket if anywhere near the 20 estimated rookies eventually register.

[Alpha Beta]

We are officially on the wait-list for the Hub City Regional.

EDIT: Never mind on the wait list. We are officially in! Yeah!!! We are looking forward to coming down to Lubbock.

I noticed that 1817 (who started this thread) isn't registered for this event. Are you guys planning on playing, or just volunteering at the event?

[JohnSchneider]

It would appear 16 also decided to join us. Seems to be shaping up pretty well!

[Alpha Beta]

25 teams registered and growing. We will have a full elimination bracket.

We have several teams coming that have won Chairman's and/or Engineering Inspiration Awards in the past and could be good resources for young teams on how to set up a sustainable program that positively impacts their community.

16, 932, 1108, 1986

The following team have won an Engineering Excellence, Industrial Design, Innovation in Control, Quality, or Creativity award within the last 3 seasons and might be a good resource for putting a competitive product on the field.

16, 932, 1986, 2468, 2848, 3310, 3366