Contacting a FIRST Team

[Rosiebotboss]

Great idea. Send it up to frcteams at usfirst.org

One downside I see right away, capacity on the email servers. I'm no expert, but I would think that the servers have only so many email accounts, it's a bandwidth issue?? Am I right? Experts....chime in here.

Originally Posted by Foster

Not sure why they couldn't do a

FRC1640@usfirst.org -> Primary Contact for FRC team 1640
FLL3401@usfirst.org -> Primary Contact for the FLL team.

Granted more spam for the easy to use name, but the delete key is easy to use.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Great idea. Send it up to frcteams at usfirst.org

One downside I see right away, capacity on the email servers. I'm no expert, but I would think that the servers have only so many email accounts, it's a bandwidth issue?? Am I right? Experts....chime in here.

If they are all just setup as forwarding addresses it should be fine. The same way colleges have alumni addresses.

[artK]

Originally Posted by Foster

Not sure why they couldn't do a

FRC1640@usfirst.org -> Primary Contact for FRC team 1640
FLL3401@usfirst.org -> Primary Contact for the FLL team.

Granted more spam for the easy to use name, but the delete key is easy to use.

Sorry for playing a little bit of the devil's advocate, but what aboat the Canadians?

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by artK

Sorry for playing a little bit of the devil's advocate, but what aboat the Canadians?

I'm not sure what you are getting at. usfirst.org is the domain name still used by the usfirst organization. Why wouldn't that be the email address they would give out?

[artK]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I'm not sure what you are getting at. usfirst.org is the domain name still used by the usfirst organization. Why wouldn't that be the email address they would give out?

Which domain would Canadian teams use? usfirst or firstroboticscanada?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by artK

Which domain would Canadian teams use? usfirst or firstroboticscanada?

usfirst.org I don't see a reason to make things more confusing than it needs to be.

[artK]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

usfirst.org I don't see a reason to make things more confusing than it needs to be.

While I think that it would be helpful to have one email address per team on the US FIRST site, it could also be useful to have the regional websites (like Canada, California, etc. ) as an easy way for communication within regions.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by artK

While I think that it would be helpful to have one email address per team on the US FIRST site, it could also be useful to have the regional websites (like Canada, California, etc. ) as an easy way for communication within regions.

This still makes it more difficult for the people that are not in the know to get in contact with teams in their area. A contact link accessible from the "What teams are in my area" search results is what is really needed.

[Rosiebotboss]

artk--don't get hung up on the US part of usfirst.org. The official name of FIRST is United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. In the beginning, in the latter part of the last century, it was promoted and branded as USFIRST and all the official filings were made using US FIRST. Today, we all know it is multi national and hence US was dropped from the branding.

Originally Posted by artK

While I think that it would be helpful to have one email address per team on the US FIRST site, it could also be useful to have the regional websites (like Canada, California, etc. ) as an easy way for communication within regions.

[treffk]

Originally Posted by artK

While I think that it would be helpful to have one email address per team on the US FIRST site, it could also be useful to have the regional websites (like Canada, California, etc. ) as an easy way for communication within regions.

Most regions I've encountered do have specific websites with information for main contacts in that area. I'll like a few I know off the top of my head plus a few other's I quickly pulled from a google search of the state/region + FIRST robotics

Kansas City Metro

VA, MD and DC

Saint Louis, MO

Colorado

California

[Foster]

Originally Posted by artK

Which domain would Canadian teams use? usfirst or firstroboticscanada?

Do both, it's only mail forward records. I'd automate it so it follows the main contact person.

So there would be two entries, one FRCnnnn@usfirst.org and the same FRCnnnn@firstroboticscanada.org

Not a big deal and easy for us to say Oh you want 1640 and their cool swerve, they are at FRC1640@

And you could get carried away and do all the other countries, it's just entries in a mail forwarder. Bytes in a lookup table are cheap.

Plus it would kill off the 200 messages a year "Need to find a contact for team 1234. FRC1234@

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

However, very recently I went through this process with someone who is new to FIRST. Someone who is looking to get involved and simply wasn't sure how to reach a team...

Not sure if you were working with someone who wanted to be a mentor or not but I'll assume you were...
Like Dana said, please become familiar with who your Regional Directors (RDs) and FIRST Senior Mentors (FSMs) are. We have greatly expanded the FSM program this year and most areas of the US (and some parts of Canada) are covered. It's the FSM's role to recruit event volunteers and mentors for all four FIRST programs in their area. I will not give out contact info per FIRST's privacy policies, but I will get some background info on the interested party and forward that to the team. I leave it up to the team to make the initial contact, based on their needs.

[Larry Lewis]

Certainly you could talk to your FIRST lead mentor for the area or your regional director for more information on what teams are in the area.

I know that some teams will put contact submission forms on their webpages. That has worked well for us over the years. Just make sure you put on a question to filter out spam.

Also we provide links to other teams in our area to help connect people to the team they want to contact.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by KathieK

Not sure if you were working with someone who wanted to be a mentor or not but I'll assume you were...
Like Dana said, please become familiar with who your Regional Directors (RDs) and FIRST Senior Mentors (FSMs) are. We have greatly expanded the FSM program this year and most areas of the US (and some parts of Canada) are covered. It's the FSM's role to recruit event volunteers and mentors for all four FIRST programs in their area. I will not give out contact info per FIRST's privacy policies, but I will get some background info on the interested party and forward that to the team. I leave it up to the team to make the initial contact, based on their needs.

So, from what you're saying, if someone new wishes to mentor a team in their area, the FSM is the perfect person to contact.

However, this isn't really noted in an easy-to-find place on the FIRST website. Heck, even I didn't know that connecting new mentors to teams falls under the FSM's purview.

- Sunny G.

[KathieK]

http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...mentor-program. Because we are volunteers working for FIRST our webpage falls under the Volunteer section of the website. They are working on getting the page updated with all the new FSMs.
"Through outreach events, expositions and demonstrations they are able to attract new Volunteers, Mentors and Coaches to sustain and support both rookie and veteran teams."