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Re: Virginia Teams: Action requested
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Please remember, teams only need pay a $75 fee to enjoy the 12-month VRC season (The last I knew, FTC's entry fee was a little higher, but sort-of in the same ballpark). I definitely support the FRC program, and I understand why some hastily written posts might seem to focus only on FRC, but ... A $10K grant to a school in a disadvantaged community can easily create four fully-funded and well-equipped VRC teams that easily give all sorts of hands-on experimentation & inspiration to a total of about 30 students. If that same location gets another $10K grant in the next year, they would have the cash to spin up two more teams (a total of six), and add 10-15 more students (all getting lots of hands-on experience and experimentation) to their roster. And, classrooms, or other programs can easily use VRC (or FTC) equipment & software. I'm not advocating only VRC (between FTC and VRC, VRC is the program I know the best). Obviously, FTC and VRC are very similar. Each has pluses and minuses. My belief is that FTC is a bit more expensive, and is purposefully moving in the direction of being a tougher row to hoe. Regardless, if after hearing a balanced description of both programs, a school wants to dive into FTC instead of VRC, or into both FTC and VRC, I'll applaud. Bottom Line: Assuming the bill becomes law, let's initially encourage schools to use these grants on low-risk, high-payoff investments that give us all the most bang for our tax bucks! FRC is high-cost, high-risk, requires much from adult mentors, and doesn't scale up well as the number of interested students at a single location grows. If walking, then jogging, then running makes sense, FRC shouldn't be the first thought we have. Blake PS: Goodness! There was a different bill (SB17) asking for $50K per school grants? $50K could put hands-on VRC inspiration into the lives of 20 teams of 6-8 students in a first season. That would be roughly 140 students at a single school all able to participate directly in mechanical design and CAD, strategizing and requirements/design definition, software development, integration and testing (and design iterations), and in the various softer-skill activities of each team. Making that direct involvement possible for 140 students at each school receiving a full $50K grant would definitely be a big bang. Last edited by gblake : 03-03-2016 at 21:21. |
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