Texas Registration 2015

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by lynca

As teams from all around the country complain about not having enough regionals.

Texas definitely has enough regionals this year. We welcome all teams to the Lone Star State.
We are up to 115 Texas teams registered.

This year we have lost many notable teams.

Both 1429 & 2936 are chairman's award winning teams, so this news is tough on the Texas community.
Hopefully Texas can recover back to at least 132 teams, but lets keep our fingers crossed.

Andy,

I know the Gatorzillas lost technical mentors as well as as the teacher mentor. At least they continue to be involved in STEM activities and contests.

In regards to 1429, I am sure that Paul struggled with this decision and in the end I have no doubt he did what as best for his students.

Most definitely I hate to see past successful teams such as these two team not participate but I also know that each program has to do what is best for them. My nephew has looked forward to participating on the Gatorzilla team for years. He was on the pit team last year as a ninth grader. He is most definitely; disappointed in the fact that they are not going to compete in FRC this year but they are participating in STEM contests.

I hope to see these teams return to FRC but I also support the decisions of the leaders in charge of the direction of these programs.

ItJustMrB, I admire you guys for what you accomplish with your circumstances you are dealt. It is obvious that you and your mentors continue to raise the bar for you students and team. I do believe that teams who lose a mentor or two(teacher) with your motivation and commitment will struggle to be successful.

I for one like the fact that we have open spots in our Texas Regionals allowing out of state teams to come and compete with us here in Texas. I like competing with new folks and teams. We continue to enjoy our relationship with several out of state teams we have competed with over the past few year. Some of these teams we competed with here in Texas as well as at out of state tournaments we were in, including Champs. I believe it opens relations between teams and allows teams that stay close to home to be exposed to different styles, strategies, practices and students. It is a great growth opportunity for the teams that chose to stay close to home (whatever that reason is).

I think it is great to see so many teams from out of Texas competing at our 4 regionals here in Texas.

[lynca]

Texas registration numbers have slowly inched up to 117 teams total.

All of the Texas events are on waitlists except for the Hub City Regional.

Judging from previous years, Lone Star & Alamo have at least 14 team waitlists with each event reaching a max of around 64 teams.
Dallas has the smallest capacity of around 46 teams limited by Venue size.

Hub City will probably not fill to the 50 team capacity with plenty of open spots available now.

[TheRamAlakazaam]

One team I've spoken to from Yes Prep Southeast that participated in the 2012-2013 season and probably before that season told me that they stopped the program because they didn't have enough funds, they also didn't have engineers or mentors experienced enough with FRC (didn't have any at all actually). So all of those reasons might contribute to the decrease of teams and most likely it's the lack of funds, that was their main reason.

[lynca]

We are now at 137 registered teams in Texas. 5 more teams than last year.

It seems that a few of the Texas regionals have not cleared their waitlists.
For example Lone Star without 118, 624 and 1477 would be quite odd !

[Michael Blake]

WHAT'S up with Lone Star?! 118, 624, 1477, and 3847 missing from the roster seems really odd at this point in time.

Are they not, in fact, competing at Lone Star?

Also... does anyone know the FRC net-loss numbers for Alamo Region in 2014 and 2015?

I've heard net-loss for Alamo in 2014 was 10; and for 2015 net-loss is an additional 10-15... but I can't get anything verified...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

WHAT'S up with Lone Star?! 118, 624, 1477, and 3847 missing from the roster seems really odd at this point in time.

Are they not, in fact, competing at Lone Star?

Also... does anyone know the FRC net-loss numbers for Alamo Region in 2014 and 2015?

I've heard net-loss for Alamo in 2014 was 10; and for 2015 net-loss is an additional 10-15... but I can't get anything verified...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake

I know some of those teams are still on the Lone Star waitlist and I assume it will clear eventually and a few of the them will be getting in.

As for us, we will only be spectators at Lone Star this year (and volunteers, and anything else we can do). Lone Star is Easter weekend and our schools weren't thrilled with the idea of competing over the holiday. We'll be heading out of state to visit Arkansas and Bayou this year.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

WHAT'S up with Lone Star?! 118, 624, 1477, and 3847 missing from the roster seems really odd at this point in time.

Are they not, in fact, competing at Lone Star?

Also... does anyone know the FRC net-loss numbers for Alamo Region in 2014 and 2015?

I've heard net-loss for Alamo in 2014 was 10; and for 2015 net-loss is an additional 10-15... but I can't get anything verified...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake

Alamo loss is probably due to Dallas being week 1. Same thing happened in 2013 right?

[pilum40]

Rant button on:

We're just a bottom feeding, small team that relies totally upon several gracious corporate patrons, FIRST in Texas and the Texas Workforce Commission for the majority of our funding. I appreciate the support simply because the parent community in my school will/cannot support the financial costs involved in FRC. My school leadership has just this year had their "TEA funding light" turned on by our program. We are not supported by our school budget. We construct and compete out of partial robotics/weight room. We do not charge team fees as do the athletic/extracurricular folks. We'll continue to sell lots of spaghetti supper tickets, sell Vex "insect-bots" for Christmas and hoard ALL of the last four years' parts that can be re-used (screws/nuts/ bar stock and the like do add up when one is in charge of counting half pennies). I'd love to see TEA walk the talk and make Robotics a UIL sport. We could then justify an injection of STEM funds into robotics that are currently going into A/V graphics programs. Schools like mine have to make really tough choices when building/not building STEM programs. The choices historically have not been for robotics.

I ask my team each year to give me three companies/names of family and friends that have mechanical, CNC shops, or have a way to help us get our robot painted, our t-shirts printed, premiums for competition made (yeah...we're one of THOSE teams that hand make stuff at competition). It seems to work out each year. We make the hard "cold calls", do the presentations to the Chamber of Commerce to increase our networking "web", we present at all the schools in our network to build an awareness of what we do. We've exhibited at minor league baseball games, at the mall (that was unique-folks thought we were geeky panhandlers). We may not be going to nationals and frankly you won't see our record below in a signature. It's not about robots; we send kids to college on FIRST scholarships, we move kids to build "stuff" they had no idea about in the first place and we build a tight knit family for kids that go home to absolutely nothing on a daily basis. THAT'S why I coach at 3355 and teach at Summit Prep HS. I don't do it for money, stipend, shorter teaching hours, or any tidbits of recognition (we don't get any so that's moot anyway).

Instead of boo-hooin' about the decline in teams; ask the teams that are very fortunate and have consistently winning teams to mentor those that may be weaker. My hat's off to Team 704 for taking us under their wing in 2010. We'd be one of the statistics if that didn't happen. Physically supplying student mentors, sharing teaching resources such as CAD to teams that don't use it (we use Mark 2 eyeballs. measure 3 times and hold our breaths still) and working together to increase the number of corporate and small business patrons will help both teams.

Can't cry over the decline...let's fix the issue! If the issue is money-driven; find new ways to raise money, reduce some of the registration costs by moving to a less costly venue, changing the game so it's not so danged expensive to be competitive. Sure, it's only 4K...that's 4K that has to be raised, begged for, etc. It's not going to come from the state. I relish the idea that I do NOT hit my school's budget. It's a good feeling to be quasi-independent and not hear "we don't have the money for more pneumatic tubing". I challenge all to grab a rookie , 2nd or 3rd year team and build a graciously professional relationship. It may not help the funding crunch; it will build our community and will motivate kids to go to college because of your interest in THEM! Your build expertise will build confidence in others that don't know which way to tighten a screw and to we teachers (yeah...I was an AP Human Geography teacher before FIRST) to manage and contribute via their own field of experience/expertise. Who knows, you might even see 3355 in the quarters this year....we were there 2 years ago! It can happen!!! Look and fear the Purple....Purple Vipers!

Rant button off now

[AllenGregoryIV]

Steve, thank you for the post. You are on the right track but I don't think anyone in this thread is crying over the issue. This isn't the first time this has been talked about and I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread has their boots on the ground working on the problem. The issue is it's a larger problem then any one person, or one team can fix.

Every year, we hold boot camp builds, bumper builds, scrimmages, my email and phone number is given to every rookie team. A lot of people try very hard to keep teams around and we still aren't able to sustain them and I promise it's not from a lack of effort on the veteran team's parts. We had two Texas teams win Engineering Inspiration at Championship last year and neither of them won the Chairman's award at their first event last year. The field of veteran teams that are leading the way for rookie teams and supporting robotics in the state is huge but none of us have been able to really crack this problem on a wide scale.

Your post shows your passion for the program but not every team has someone like you and that's a piece of the puzzle. There are things we can do and have done at large levels to make it easier for teams to stay around.

[rsegrest]

*jumping up and down on your rant button in complete agreement*

Well said and truthful. Unfortunately many of the costs are out of even FIRST's control though. Moving to smaller venues will only work if Texas moves to a district system which needs much work to implement correctly and efficiently.

As far as the mentoring I agree and it is encouraged by FIRST and as you know based on your experiences with 704 does happen. Unfortunately some of us aren't near any other teams (distance of 90+ miles) until you can get a fellow district to form a sister team (which is what happened with us, we were first but a very close by district formed a team three years ago).

You are probably aware that TEA,UIL, and FIRST are currently in talks to make FIRST/Robotics a UIL event. Just remember that it will bring with it the other side of the coin in terms of rules about how long the students can work etc.

Overall I feel your pain (I am also one of those coaches of a small-town mid-sized team that has benefitted from the graciousness of other successful teams but we still seem to fly by the seat of our pants rather often) and agree with your sentiments regarding why we are all here.

Good for you and even better for your team that you are still so passionate after all the years you have put in!

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

"Also... does anyone know the FRC net-loss numbers for Alamo Region in 2014 and 2015?

I've heard net-loss for Alamo in 2014 was 10; and for 2015 net-loss is an additional 10-15... but I can't get anything verified...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake"


John Schneider --> Alamo loss is probably due to Dallas being week 1. Same thing happened in 2013 right?

John... I was referring to the overall region numbers--total number of FRC teams _residing_ in Alamo Region, not Alamo Regional-competition registration numbers which sold out both 2014 and 2015.

Regards,

--Michael Blake

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by pilum40

Rant button on:

We're just a bottom feeding, small team that relies totally upon several gracious corporate patrons, FIRST in Texas and the Texas Workforce Commission for the majority of our funding. I appreciate the support simply because the parent community in my school will/cannot support the financial costs involved in FRC. My school leadership has just this year had their "TEA funding light" turned on by our program. We are not supported by our school budget. We construct and compete out of partial robotics/weight room. We do not charge team fees as do the athletic/extracurricular folks. We'll continue to sell lots of spaghetti supper tickets, sell Vex "insect-bots" for Christmas and hoard ALL of the last four years' parts that can be re-used (screws/nuts/ bar stock and the like do add up when one is in charge of counting half pennies). I'd love to see TEA walk the talk and make Robotics a UIL sport. We could then justify an injection of STEM funds into robotics that are currently going into A/V graphics programs. Schools like mine have to make really tough choices when building/not building STEM programs. The choices historically have not been for robotics.

I ask my team each year to give me three companies/names of family and friends that have mechanical, CNC shops, or have a way to help us get our robot painted, our t-shirts printed, premiums for competition made (yeah...we're one of THOSE teams that hand make stuff at competition). It seems to work out each year. We make the hard "cold calls", do the presentations to the Chamber of Commerce to increase our networking "web", we present at all the schools in our network to build an awareness of what we do. We've exhibited at minor league baseball games, at the mall (that was unique-folks thought we were geeky panhandlers). We may not be going to nationals and frankly you won't see our record below in a signature. It's not about robots; we send kids to college on FIRST scholarships, we move kids to build "stuff" they had no idea about in the first place and we build a tight knit family for kids that go home to absolutely nothing on a daily basis. THAT'S why I coach at 3355 and teach at Summit Prep HS. I don't do it for money, stipend, shorter teaching hours, or any tidbits of recognition (we don't get any so that's moot anyway).

Instead of boo-hooin' about the decline in teams; ask the teams that are very fortunate and have consistently winning teams to mentor those that may be weaker. My hat's off to Team 704 for taking us under their wing in 2010. We'd be one of the statistics if that didn't happen. Physically supplying student mentors, sharing teaching resources such as CAD to teams that don't use it (we use Mark 2 eyeballs. measure 3 times and hold our breaths still) and working together to increase the number of corporate and small business patrons will help both teams.

Can't cry over the decline...let's fix the issue! If the issue is money-driven; find new ways to raise money, reduce some of the registration costs by moving to a less costly venue, changing the game so it's not so danged expensive to be competitive. Sure, it's only 4K...that's 4K that has to be raised, begged for, etc. It's not going to come from the state. I relish the idea that I do NOT hit my school's budget. It's a good feeling to be quasi-independent and not hear "we don't have the money for more pneumatic tubing". I challenge all to grab a rookie , 2nd or 3rd year team and build a graciously professional relationship. It may not help the funding crunch; it will build our community and will motivate kids to go to college because of your interest in THEM! Your build expertise will build confidence in others that don't know which way to tighten a screw and to we teachers (yeah...I was an AP Human Geography teacher before FIRST) to manage and contribute via their own field of experience/expertise. Who knows, you might even see 3355 in the quarters this year....we were there 2 years ago! It can happen!!! Look and fear the Purple....Purple Vipers!

Rant button off now

Steve... I hear you and can feel your passion and frustration...

The last season things started to come into focus for me as to what is and what works in FIRST FRC and I've concluded that there are only 3 types of teams:

A - Teams that are a _program_ with reliable and continual support and funding. Same as football and marching band.

B - Teams that exist because at least one adult _wills it_ to exist.

C - Rookie teams that may become either A or B or die pretty quickly.

The key thing, I believe, for teams to achieve at least B status is some early support and guidance from Tier-1 and Tier-2 teams that can lead to them playing Saturday afternoon Elims _instead_ of sitting in the stands after early-packing their pit.

I believe that even making it to the Quarters changes a team's "chemistry" and leads to create passion and anticipation in the returning students and energizes the adult mentor(s) who have to _will it_ to exist.

I think getting to State District model is a BIG priority--because it means more competitions for the same current single-regional $$ and provides more opportunities for these teams to play Saturday afternoon and have that positively affect the team's trajectory...

I'm interested to know anyone else's opinion on this...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake

[philso]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

Steve... I hear you and can feel your passion and frustration...

The last season things started to come into focus for me as to what is and what works in FIRST FRC and I've concluded that there are only 3 types of teams:

A - Teams that are a _program_ with reliable and continual support and funding. Same as football and marching band.

B - Teams that exist because at least one adult _wills it_ to exist.

C - Rookie teams that may become either A or B or die pretty quickly.

The key thing, I believe, for teams to achieve at least B status is some early support and guidance from Tier-1 and Tier-2 teams that can lead to them playing Saturday afternoon Elims _instead_ of sitting in the stands after early-packing their pit.

I believe that even making it to the Quarters changes a team's "chemistry" and leads to create passion and anticipation in the returning students and energizes the adult mentor(s) who have to _will it_ to exist.

I think getting to State District model is a BIG priority--because it means more competitions for the same current single-regional $$ and provides more opportunities for these teams to play Saturday afternoon and have that positively affect the team's trajectory...

I'm interested to know anyone else's opinion on this...

Thanks!

--Michael Blake

I have worked with several teams that span A through C. The "chemistry" is definitely different. In the type A team (not yet a power house team), there is hope of doing well rather than resignation to doing poorly. I feel that the hope reinforces the passion leading to better quality results and it becomes a virtuous circle.

I have not been involved in fundraising much but it felt good to write to a prospective sponsor that the team was able to make it to at least the Quarter Finals in every tournament they entered last year. Even if the sponsor does not understand the game, they are probably more likely to think that the team knows what they are doing and are teaching the students more effectively than the teams that "makes the top 70% possible". I would imagine that every sponsor would like to see the money they donate be used to the greatest effect.

The B and C teams I have worked with got most of their driving practice at the tournament(s) so being able to play at a second tournament would likely improve their chances of being picked.

[Michael Blake]

Originally Posted by philso

I have worked with several teams that span A through C. The "chemistry" is definitely different. In the type A team (not yet a power house team), there is hope of doing well rather than resignation to doing poorly. I feel that the hope reinforces the passion leading to better quality results and it becomes a virtuous circle.

"a virtuous circle"... EXACTLY!!

Wish I had used that in my post... ;-)

--Michael Blake

[philso]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

"a virtuous circle"... EXACTLY!!

Wish I had used that in my post... ;-)

--Michael Blake

We have seen the virtuous circle thing happen with the swim team that my sons participate on. It is a very happy thing.

I think it is human nature to want to join and/or support a winning team (or at least one on an upward trajectory). This is one more reason why it is very important to quickly get a rookie team to a basic level of competence in all areas; robot, management, mentorship, fundraising. This is where the established teams can help, as Michael indicated. Unfortunately, this will not help all rookie teams. I am sure we all have seen teams where they already think they know everything and refuse offers for help.