Help starting a team. Unusual situation

[ErvinI]

In my university freshman year, I looked into the possibility of starting a team affiliated with my university, however I ended up abandoning the idea. It would have been a heavy undertaking that I would have needed to juggle with school work, and I wasn't quite certain that I could pull it off. I ended up joining 865 to help them out in my free time in my second year instead.

While I definitely recommend that you try to make the current team work, if you are dead-set on this then talk to your regional director to see if there is any interest in your area for a new FRC team. Also, FIRST has some information that you can look over to make sure that you understand what needs to be done here.

[mentos54]

Sometimes a sponsor will be willing to offer an extra room they have. It may not be large, but any room is enough to get a robot built with the right people. Another option is to start off in someone's garage until you get a better location, I've heard of teams doing this.

[Mordo2000]

Originally Posted by mentos54

Sometimes a sponsor will be willing to offer an extra room they have. It may not be large, but any room is enough to get a robot built with the right people. Another option is to start off in someone's garage until you get a better location, I've heard of teams doing this.

Thank you will look into this.

[Type]

Originally Posted by mentos54

Sometimes a sponsor will be willing to offer an extra room they have. It may not be large, but any room is enough to get a robot built with the right people. Another option is to start off in someone's garage until you get a better location, I've heard of teams doing this.

Our team is like that. We have a decent size area to work at one of our sponsor locations which is a tool and die. We have a small portion we use which allows us to build, and then there is a slightly more open area that we can use and setup a half field (but has to be packed up when we are done).

[gblake]

Assuming a community is able to put a good foundation under its FRC teams, I think it's good whenever FRC spreads past the boundaries of schools and into the rest of the community. In the right circumstances that equals successfully changing the community.

You have a business plan. I assume that means that you have a low risk way to pay for registering, buying up to $6000 in parts (robot plus driver station plus plus waste/spares), building practice field elements, traveling to (and registering for) one or more competitions, and buying a modest collection of tools.

I'm not sure how you would get your tools to your robot construction location, but locations that come to mind are

• Temporarily empty chunks/suites of strip malls or small-business buildings
• Locations your state/local 4H folks know about (sometimes laws give 4H free use of many taxpayer-funded facilities)
• Home garages (especially if someone is will to park a boat or car (or airplane?) elsewhere for a while)
• Local machine shops / building material suppliers / etc.
• Temporarily empty city/county/state floorspace
• Fairgrounds or seasonal businesses
• "Maker" spaces
• Boy/Girl Scout facilities
• Any business with a warehouse

I do applaud your desire to stand up a team, so long as it's done to create an exemplar of both graciousness and professionalism, that adds to your community, and that reduces rather than exacerbates any current problems.

But ... unless you feel like you simply have to throw cash into a fireplace (some folks do), or you will be satisfied to just build, program and control a very simple machine for each of the next few years; think really, really hard about whether registering as 2 or 3, FTC or VEX teams wouldn't be the better thing to do.

I have occasionally been tempted to "build a simple machine once every 2 or 3 years", so I can understand that sort of motivation. If that is what you are doing, please do remember the many differences between a team that will stick around for the next decade, and one that is a flash in the pan for you and a few buddies; then plan accordingly (including planning what will happen at the end of those few years to everything the team has accumulated).

Blake

[Mordo2000]

Originally Posted by ErvinI

In my university freshman year, I looked into the possibility of starting a team affiliated with my university, however I ended up abandoning the idea. It would have been a heavy undertaking that I would have needed to juggle with school work, and I wasn't quite certain that I could pull it off. I ended up joining 865 to help them out in my free time in my second year instead.

While I definitely recommend that you try to make the current team work, if you are dead-set on this then talk to your regional director to see if there is any interest in your area for a new FRC team. Also, FIRST has some information that you can look over to make sure that you understand what needs to be done here.

I am definitely thinking about making my own team so I am going to contact regional director

[philso]

To the OP.

Are you sure you have exhausted all possibilities with the existing team? As one of the people posting on your other thread stated, we are only getting your side of the story.

Will the situation "take care of itself" next year when the current bunch of Seniors graduate and leave the team?

What are you going to do when, later in life, you go to work for a company that is not run the way you think it should be run?

The greatest growth I have seen in the students participating in the FIRST programs is not in the technical areas.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by philso

What are you going to do when, later in life, you go to work for a company that is not run the way you think it should be run?

Phil, In some cases your advice is dead on.

Working from within to salvage a salvageable situation is sometimes the right thing to do.

Other times, staying hitched to a failure is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Each case is different.

Sometimes life is too short, and throwing good money after bad is just foolish.

Sometimes being part of a turnaround is the most satisfying and rewarding thing a person will do in their life.

Etc (Every reader can insert their own favorite motivational slogan here).

Blake

[Spen-curr]

Considering the costs involved in running a FRC team, costs which most schools cannot pay, I would encourage you to join the existing team or another team in you're area. An FRC team is a fascinating social microcosm, and it can be interesting to use a poorly functioning team a s a case study.

Also, the team may appear to be run poorly only to you. Perhaps if you give it a try, you will see that the governance is functional.

[BeardyMentor]

You say it can't be changed, but you are a freshman, you can not have been at it long. It takes years of effort to change a team. For our team, it took the mentors and motivated students more than three years of very hard work to change the team culture into something we could be proud of. Trying to create a new team culture can be just as hard. What happens when you create a new team with a few friends and new people join and feel left out because of how tight knit the existing group is? It is easy to say "we won't let that happen" but I know from experience that it is far easier to let it happen than not. Please consider that it is probably harder to start and build a lasting team than change one that already exists in your 4 year tenure. At some point you will be the upper classmen and can change things to be more like how you wished they were.

[gblake]

Folks - Until the OP says something different, it's a mistake to assume that the OP and his/her colleagues want the team to exist for more than the next three (or fewer) seasons - Blake

[mrnoble]

As a 12 year veteran coach, I've had several students come through who believe that the only solution to how poorly our organization is run is to leave and start their own organization, or to attempt to lead a literal mutiny. I am quite happy to let those students leave and do as they please elsewhere. The students who remain, if there are any, provide the culture of the team and are testament to the success or failure of the program. So far, it seems to work out. Students who dislike what we do don't have to be around us, and we don't have to try to please them. We've got only this (anonymous) student's side of the situation, but I'm not finding a lot in her/his two threads that make me want to encourage her/him to try to work it out with the existing team.