No teams in the UK?

[Muktar Ali]

As one of the lead mentors for 1884, I can give you some background into FIRST in the UK.

As you can see from Mark's post, there are a few teams that are now defunct. The reason why these teams had to fold was unfortunately their funding was cut and they could no longer participate in FRC. I'm sure all in the community know that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is fundraising annually to compete. The philanthropy culture in the UK is completely different to the US and it's one of the points I spoke about when I had to opportunity to speak to Don Bossi when he was at NYC Regional this year.

Over the past few years, the FLL program in the UK has grown significantly. When we started our FLL program back in 2008, there were around 150 teams competing in 10 regionals around the country. There are now over 450 teams and 30 odd regionals around the country. We have the privilege of hosting the London Regional, which is the largest in the country and attracts teams from the local area as well as from mainland Europe. When the IET (UK FLL Program Partner) took over the running of the program, we worked with them for the first year as there wasn't much of a handover from the previous organization. We wanted all the regionals to have the same quality and atmosphere as an FRC event and new guidelines were developed so all the regionals in the UK could be enhanced and provide an authentic FIRST experience.

I would like to address some of the points RonnyV mentioned:

Eventually they/we got in touch and their reaction was pretty harsh, a short summary: FTC is to expensive for European teams, go do VEX because it's a lot cheaper or start a FRC team.

The rookie FTC team didn't had the resources at their school to participate in FRC and already bought parts for FTC. So they asked 1884 if they could help out them with brainstorming etc and just the basic robotics things. But sadly we've never heard anything else anymore after that...

We were contacted by a teacher from the rookie FTC team after we returned from Championship last year. She was interested in starting a robotics club and was looking for advice into the best way to get things set up. We replied to her with the three options along with the pros and cons of VEX, FTC and FRC and were happy to provide any advice and assistance if needed. We actually recommended that they contact Team Rembrandt as they host an FTC event in the Netherlands.

We have explored all three avenues when looking at expanding our own program. From the research that we have done, VEX was the most suitable program as the suppliers have a UK distributor, there are multiple competitions spread out across the UK and there are a large number of VEX teams already established here. FTC on the other hand has very few teams in the UK, the closest competition is in the Netherlands and suppliers are harder to source. From our experience, this makes FTC an expensive program and more in line with the problems we face as an FRC team. FTC and VEX are similar programs but VEX is more accessible in the UK which is why we recommended it before she started the FTC team.

As it was close to summer break, we didn't hear back from the teacher until the week of Thanksgiving when she informed us that RonnyV and a colleague would be visiting to help over Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the visit, our team members along with a majority of our student body flew back to the US to spend time with their families over the Thanksgiving break.

So eventually the FTC team made an appointment for around 5 o'clock or so. After waiting outside for 20 minutes where we should meet, walking inside multiple times nobody knew who we had an appointment with.. And their reply on the name we talked to was: He already left, he's not in the building anymore.

With regards to this meeting, I had mentioned to the FTC mentor that I had a meeting with our team sponsor and mentors from what is now Team 5781. I was assisting them in forming their team and discussing all the different aspects of running an international FRC team. This meeting overran and ended an hour later than scheduled. I emailed during the meeting to inform the mentor that my meeting was going to overrun and I wouldn't be able to see you as I would be back too late. I apologize if this caused you any inconvenience and greatly appreciate the effort you put in to meet with me.

As George mentioned, we'll be in St Louis and are always happy to discuss ways of spreading FIRST in Europe.