Introducing FIRST to other countries

[abualhaijar]

Hi, I'm a new poster on Chief Delphi, but I am by no means new to FIRST. Right now it is summer, I am on vacation, and something hit me the other day... I'm not doing enough for FIRST! The country of my vacation is irrelevant to this topic, so I will just pose a general question: What kind of steps does it take to get some FIRST robotics programs going in another country? (I am writing from the perspective of an American, so by other country, I mean not United States) Where do you start? Who do you talk to? I want to know what it takes. I would appreciate it if people with experience in this field would post some useful information. (it has to have been done before right?) I haven't scoured other threads that thoroughly yet, so I will keep looking, and I will post if I find a duplicate thread that resolves my question, or if someone knows a thread that does so, that would be helpful too. I will also post anything I learn from personal experience here as I plan on pursuing leads here as soon as I can.
Thanks,
-R

[MrTechCenter]

I've actually thought about this exact same thing. And there's a few issues that come to mind:

-It will be difficult for teams in other countries to travel to the U.S. to compete.
-You will need many teams in one particular country to have a regional there, and even if you do have enough teams, I'm not so sure that FIRST would be too keen on having another international regional (currently, the only international regional is the Israel regional, but there has been a regional in Brazil in the past).


Nevertheless, I did some research into this. I started by contacting the Department of Education in whatever country I thought would have interest in having FIRST teams. Many of these told me to contact schools in the country directly. Now, there's TONS of schools. So I started by looking for academies that specialized in STEM-related field (such as school's that have "Engineering" in their title). This is actually very difficult and very tricky. You'd have to find schools and/or organizations that are interested just before or during the FRC season, so that they and FIRST will be ready to join the program immediately following the end of the FRC season.


I have been very interested in this sort of thing for a long time. I'm not sure if FIRST is ready to be on an international scale just yet, but I'd be willing to help if FIRST and the community was willing to try. If we're serious about this, we should start some sort of joint/group project or committee.

[bardd]

As the above poster stated, there's a regional here in Israel. More specifically, there's a local branch of FIRST here, FIRST Israel, and they have sustained FRC in Israel for the past 9 years with 45 or so teams each year, and FLL and Jr.FLL for almost as long with nearly 300 teams each. Since I've not been part of the early years, I started with FIRST three years ago, I can't say how it happened (I know the background story but not even a scrap of the details you'll need), but I think I know how the Israeli regional "survived" so long while other non-US\Canada haven't.

FIRST Israel was an Israeli initiative, where the government became aware of FRC and wanted to take part. For that reason, FIRST Israel has always been supported by the country. The president is a big fan of FIRST, for example. What you need to sustain the program is support from above. Not necessarily the government, a big and central university can take that part. Teams come and go, here 10 teams close every year on average. Big supporters can help spread the program, and can hold the program when there's a lack of teams.

tl;dr+extras:

1. Before approaching highschools, try to get the government\a big academic center\a big company\any other body that is a significant part of local life.
2. Ask about what's been done before. Talk to people who were part of FIRST in it's first couple of years or helped start it, both in US FIRST and FIRST Israel. IIRC Canada regionals only started after there were already many teams there, but checking with the original regional directors in Canada could help too.
3. Check if there's FLL in the country. Many countries have FLL, and you can use the assistance of the local FLL managers to establish FRC in the country. Getting teams will be easier too, since you have hundreds (if not thousands) of students in the right age that have been through FLL and probably want more.
4. If there isn't FLL in the country, try and start with that. FLL is much easier to sustain than FRC, which is why there are FLL competitions all over the world, and only 3 countries with FRC regionals.

[Greg McKaskle]

Also on vacation outside the US and also thinking about this subject. In my case it is FLL for a small fishing village in Roatan. My nascent plan is to work through the local church and organize some after school activities that include FLL and/or WeDo.

We'll see how it goes. I hope to let the pastor take the lead role and deal with local issues.

Greg McKaskle

[Brandon Ha]

The cost would be outstanding to even consider starting their own team up in a different country. It is a blessing that even the Middle East teams can come and compete but no offense to anyone but they be rolling in the oil $ and can afford most the expenses. But take a great country like England. The round trip plane ticket would be $1,174 per person. That would be almost all the funding most teams in America could even get for a 10-man team!

[kiasam111]

We've been in Australia now for 4 seasons, and it's definitely been a challenge. As the above poster said, travel costs are ENOURMOUS! We spent of $100,000 this year to get to Hawaii and St Louis. Luckily, we have amazing sponsors who help us through this.

One of the problems with FRC in Australia is that build season starts in the middle of our 6 week summer break. Our team meets at a University, which is open all year round, but for teams based at schools, they would only have 3 weeks to build a robot if they were to travel to the US to compete. For this reason, we started an off-season event, The Duel Down Under, where teams could get a kit and build their robots for a competition in July. This meant that school teams could start as soon school started in February. This system was quite successful, and we had 13 teams at the tournament this year. An off-season event (if you have enough teams; we ran it with 5 last year) is a great way to show your country what FIRST and FRC are all about, without having to run an actual regional.

Like in Israel, we have FIRST Australia here. FIRST Australia takes care of all the FIRST programs in Australia, and also ran the Asia Pacific Invitational tournament this year. As well as the Duel Down Under, we ran an FTC Invitational and an FLL Open Championship. This gave the FTC teams in Australia the opportunity to see some of the best teams (quite literally, we had 2 world champs there!) in the world. <tangent>We also set a world record for an FTC score, with 1028! It broke the scoreboard!</tangent>

Like in Israel, we also have some great support from the government. When 3132 started, we approached companies for sponsorship that already sponsored American teams. For example, we have Altium, BAE Systems, National Instruments and Google on board, all of whom are big sponsors in the US. That was something that definitely helped us get started.

One of the huge advantages we had when 3132 was started, was that we had a family from 2342 come over and start the team. This meant that we had guidance all through the build season as to how things worked, and was a large factor in ensuring the long term sustainability and growth of the team.

We also used our surplus budget from a couple of years ago to start a microbank. We loaned money to potential teams and they used that to buy a kit to build a robot. They then payed us back, and that money was loaned out to more teams, and so the process continues. 7 of the teams at the Duel Down Under were products of the microbank. This money was also provided by corporate sponsors.

FLL is also quite big in Australia, and we have 2 regionals and the National tournament here in Sydney. FLL was already succesful in Australia before 3132 and FIRST Australia, but it has since grown =)

Hope that helps =)

[abualhaijar]

Thanks everyone, this is all really helpful information. It's good to know that there are different branches of FIRST flourishing in Australia and Israel. Costs it would seem are a big obstacle, but I think they could be dramatically reduced if there are more international regionals started up, that way they would only have to fly out of country for championships, and maybe some day we could even look at holding world championships in another country (maybe not for a while but that would be cool) Or perhaps FIRST will just branch off in to a bunch of individual organizations that is run by countries, or groups of countries so that there will be us first that has its own competition and middle east that runs its own etc. In any case to get to that point we have to start somewhere. MrTechCenter, I like the idea of starting a committee or group project I think that if that could get some traction, that could be exactly the tool that FIRST needs to expand more aggressively to other countries. I'm certain I could get my entire team, (or at least the outreach department) behind this, and hopefully (with enough help from our marketing department) spread it through Oregon teams. However, before we start spreading awareness, we need some kind of feasible goal, and some fleshed out plan of action that can get us there. If you really are very interested in this, I think we should get started on something right away.
-R

[jeser#1772]

In Brazil we have a lot of challenges to turn FIRST in a strong program.

- our school season starts at march and ends at december (we spend all summer vacations on the build season) and the schools are closed at summer.

-Money: $5.000 for registration in U.S is realy not the same even $5.000 in Brazil, and the exchange literally changes it everytime (we can get 5.000 dollar today and tomorrow this can have the half of the value).

-Kit Of Parts: All brazilian teams, or pick they KOP at a local kick off in U.S and bring at the plane (ilegal for brazilians law) or need to wait a month for receive by mail with a big Importation brazilian tax (some times you can buy a car only with the tax) , (for us 1772 we don´t use KOP anymore, we pick it at the first event and use in the next year)

for this and much more the first 2 events in Brazil had problems.


by the same way, we (1772), 383, 1156, 1382 and 1860 still strong in FRC, now we need to use this "know how" for solve this problems and expand for more teams.

We probably will have more 1 to 3 teams with us at orlando regional next year, and 1772 and 383 are working STRONGLY together for have a regional in Brazil next year or 2015

[Kims Robot]

Another good area/set of teams to check out is the UK teams. I heard a rumor that they are trying to start up a regional out there, so that means they have figured out how to make it work there too.

As other posters have alluded, it is much much easier to start up FTC & FLL teams and tournaments in other countries, and perhaps could be a good stepping stone. The cost is a lot less, and the build seasons can be longer.

FRC is in incredibly difficult and expensive beast, so that is best undertaken with good sponsor/government/school participation (and it sounds like its probably easier in the northern hemisphere ).

Another good resource is to contact FIRST directly, and ask if they have started up any support for the country you are thinking of. They may already be looking into expanding into that region and may be able to provide funding, grants, or other types of support to get the area going.

Good luck!

[nuttle]

I've tried to do this and have sent you a private message with some of the details. If you think I might be able to help, please let me know. A lot depends on the specifics and there are different ways to come at this.

Good luck!

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

-You will need many teams in one particular country to have a regional there, and even if you do have enough teams, I'm not so sure that FIRST would be too keen on having another international regional (currently, the only international regional is the Israel regional, but there has been a regional in Brazil in the past).

Um. Hi. Canada here: We have 6 FRC regionals in 2014. Last time I checked, we were not a part of the United States, despite sharing a continental land mass.

Yes, Israel is the only non-North American event. Brazil held a mini-regional back in 2005 I think, but couldn't get the team momentum to keep it going. They're getting closer though, thanks in large part to the efforts of 1772.

There are several teams in Australia and Europe, both areas are working on getting a regional near them.

FIRST HQ is DEFINITELY interested in getting events to happen in these places. FIRST's stated goals are for every high school student the world over to have the opportunity to participate. Its a lofty goal, and there's a LOT of work to do to get there. The growth rate of the program has become quite remarkable in the last couple of years though.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Um. Hi. Canada here: We have 6 FRC regionals in 2014. Last time I checked, we were not a part of the United States, despite sharing a continental land mass.

Yes, Israel is the only non-North American event. Brazil held a mini-regional back in 2005 I think, but couldn't get the team momentum to keep it going. They're getting closer though, thanks in large part to the efforts of 1772.

There are several teams in Australia and Europe, both areas are working on getting a regional near them.

FIRST HQ is DEFINITELY interested in getting events to happen in these places. FIRST's stated goals are for every high school student the world over to have the opportunity to participate. Its a lofty goal, and there's a LOT of work to do to get there. The growth rate of the program has become quite remarkable in the last couple of years though.

Haha. Sorry about that. I meant North America, should have clarified on that. And I know they're interested, but it's going to take some time and probably won't happen (at least not on a large scale) until most of North-American FRC is on the district system. That way, fewer teams will qualify for championships, and we can have several international regionals at which at least 3 teams will qualify for championships.