What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

Having just come off our rookie season, THIS. We get great documentation about the game and the rules, but not a lot about what happens (when and why) at a competition, how much scaffolding (money, mostly) we may get (and how) in our 2nd and later years, and example ideas / timelines on how to recruit sponsors and find funds.

Sadly, If it weren't for CD....

Can you elaborate more on what you'd like to see in such a manual? This might become a project for our team.

[bdaroz]

Originally Posted by marshall

Can you elaborate more on what you'd like to see in such a manual? This might become a project for our team.

Sure.

Speaking from my team's experience, we got into it knowing the goal was "build a bot", and we received copious amounts of grant money to start up and compete - to the point we didn't need to worry about sponsors or funding (to a level). The game manuals gave us a good idea how the game and competition worked at a technical level, but...

At our first event:

* Food - We knew we could order from the venue (expensive) but we weren't prepared for how hard it would be to get food in (and have a place to eat).
* Judging - How to interact with the judges, our first pair of judges looked to us like just another team scouting (what can your robot do?). The second pair asked more questions, but both times were were under the gun coming off the field and due to queue up almost immediately. (Our student that was to be our PR face was in the stands to make room in the pit for an urgent repair.)
* Pit - We had a few folding tables, a tool box, a 3D printer, and some pare COTS stuff. No banners, "tent", and our robot cart was... well.. rookie. Some cheap and basic ideas on what *AND HOW* to bring stuff to the venue would have helped. (Taking a step further - the "basic rookie team pit kit")

* If we qualified for worlds we were terrified. We didn't know if we'd get the rookie award, or if we'd be able to go, what it meant, how many could go, how much it would cost, or when FIRST would need the money. (FIRST Team emails were going into SPAM folders, we found later) In short, if it happened, we were massively unprepared. (Thankfully it was a week 3 event, so there may have been hope.)


After the competition (we did well by our standards, but didn't get any Worlds-qualifying awards)....

* Now what? - Between April - January what do we need to do?
* Financials - Being so financially supported as a rookie team, we have little understanding of what level of support a 2nd year (or later) team could expect. Do we need to chase down local companies now? A lot? A little? What might a 2nd year team budget look like?
* Engagement - Keeping in mind end of year testing (AP / NYS Regents / Finals, etc) what should we do to keep our students engaged, and to what level? And starting in September?
* Goal Ideas - Some rookie teams are happy they got a bot on the field, others had higher starting goals, but what would some 2nd year goals be for a "typical" team?
* Off Season Events - I know about them because of CD, and some interaction with other local teams (not a lot of off-season discussion in week 3, but...)

Beyond the bot:

As a rookie, until we hit competition and started seeing the Chairman's Award presentations and really started interacting with other teams, everything beyond the bot was pretty well lost on us. (And to be honest, rightfully so for our team our first year). As we look to years 2+ even just a bulleted list of "inspiring" ideas that other teams have done, outreach, etc, to give teams something to look to and build off of.

Granted, this was just our experience, but if you decide to take this on and want more info or to discuss, let let me know. Thank you!

[rick.oliver]

After performing some analysis of the data shared earlier by a poster, I think that rather than asking what can FIRST do, we should be talking to the teams which have been able to sustain their participation for the past five years to discover what they are doing.

Looking at the data, it appears that sustainability is improving.

You can download the file and graphs from the media section.

[ArtemusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

What years are FRC teams most likely to fail? I would guess something like years 2 & 5, but I'd love to know the actual answer. Can someone generate those numbers real quick?

I hope my post is not redundant, but there were few graphs posted recently (probably as a result of this thread):
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/43846
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/43845
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/43844
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/43843

[FRC_498]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

Sure.

Speaking from my team's experience, we got into it knowing the goal was "build a bot", and we received copious amounts of grant money to start up and compete - to the point we didn't need to worry about sponsors or funding (to a level). The game manuals gave us a good idea how the game and competition worked at a technical level, but...

At our first event:

* Food - We knew we could order from the venue (expensive) but we weren't prepared for how hard it would be to get food in (and have a place to eat).
* Judging - How to interact with the judges, our first pair of judges looked to us like just another team scouting (what can your robot do?). The second pair asked more questions, but both times were were under the gun coming off the field and due to queue up almost immediately. (Our student that was to be our PR face was in the stands to make room in the pit for an urgent repair.)
* Pit - We had a few folding tables, a tool box, a 3D printer, and some pare COTS stuff. No banners, "tent", and our robot cart was... well.. rookie. Some cheap and basic ideas on what *AND HOW* to bring stuff to the venue would have helped. (Taking a step further - the "basic rookie team pit kit")

* If we qualified for worlds we were terrified. We didn't know if we'd get the rookie award, or if we'd be able to go, what it meant, how many could go, how much it would cost, or when FIRST would need the money. (FIRST Team emails were going into SPAM folders, we found later) In short, if it happened, we were massively unprepared. (Thankfully it was a week 3 event, so there may have been hope.)


After the competition (we did well by our standards, but didn't get any Worlds-qualifying awards)....

* Now what? - Between April - January what do we need to do?
* Financials - Being so financially supported as a rookie team, we have little understanding of what level of support a 2nd year (or later) team could expect. Do we need to chase down local companies now? A lot? A little? What might a 2nd year team budget look like?
* Engagement - Keeping in mind end of year testing (AP / NYS Regents / Finals, etc) what should we do to keep our students engaged, and to what level? And starting in September?
* Goal Ideas - Some rookie teams are happy they got a bot on the field, others had higher starting goals, but what would some 2nd year goals be for a "typical" team?
* Off Season Events - I know about them because of CD, and some interaction with other local teams (not a lot of off-season discussion in week 3, but...)

Beyond the bot:

As a rookie, until we hit competition and started seeing the Chairman's Award presentations and really started interacting with other teams, everything beyond the bot was pretty well lost on us. (And to be honest, rightfully so for our team our first year). As we look to years 2+ even just a bulleted list of "inspiring" ideas that other teams have done, outreach, etc, to give teams something to look to and build off of.

Granted, this was just our experience, but if you decide to take this on and want more info or to discuss, let let me know. Thank you!

A lot of this should be done and discussed by your mentor team. When we started the team back in 2000, our mentor team #60 offered support with students and mentors always willing to help. (they were about 50 miles away)

Can FIRST do more? Yes to what scope that is idk. I think it falls more on the support from surrounding teams, maybe a better local network of teams?

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by FRC_498

A lot of this should be done and discussed by your mentor team. When we started the team back in 2000, our mentor team #60 offered support with students and mentors always willing to help. (they were about 50 miles away)

Can FIRST do more? Yes to what scope that is idk. I think it falls more on the support from surrounding teams, maybe a better local network of teams?

This assumes they even have a mentor team though. I would suspect many rookies do not, and some that do may not comunicate with them much.

I think it's important to remember that many new teams may start out with an us vs them mentality common to high school sports. Before teams get an understanding of FIRST culture, many collaborative aspects of FRC may be ignored by new teams.

[FRC_498]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

This assumes they even have a mentor team though. I would suspect many rookies do not, and some that do may not comunicate with them much.

I think it's important to remember that many new teams may start out with an us vs them mentality common to high school sports. Before teams get an understanding of FIRST culture, many collaborative aspects of FRC may be ignored by new teams.

Yes that is true. Maybe part of the role of the local FIRST level should be to assign a buddy team to rookies?

[Team34Guy]

As far as eliminating Bag day goes....I'm sure there are a few benefits that will allow some teams to perform better. Eliminating a hard deadline that the students/mentors have to adhere to would be extremely detrimental and would outweigh the aforementioned benefits. Part of the lessons we teach these students is that they will have to deal with deadlines and restrictions in the real world, eliminating bag and tag is counterproductive to that lesson. I've been with Team 34 for about six years now and we've had to re-vamp our team because one of our key mentors left to pursue other endeavors. So rookie teams (or teams with just 2-3 years) aren't the only ones vulnerable. Funding and mentor burnout has to be addressed by every team. I'm glad this thread was started, its good to know that others are thinking about the same issues that most of us are dealing with.
I don't know what FRC could do to alleviate some of these issues, but maybe trying to recruit more mentors nationwide... I know CD has helped me so much by being a sounding board for so many FRC issues, maybe if there were more networking possibilities between teams/mentors, help could be given to these struggling teams.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by gblake

The strongest fortress will crumble in short order if it is built on sand.

Putting strong foundations in place *before* building FRC teams will probably increase the FRC teams' survivability.

Advising potential rookies to walk before running, or even making forming an FRC team the *second* step in a formal multi-season process might be an improvement.

We have CSA.
We have Lead Mentors outside of teams.

We should have more training for team mentors.
Perhaps a pool of resources to help specifically support key mentors that are drowning.
It is far too easy to get into something far larger than you think it is.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by FRC_498

Yes that is true. Maybe part of the role of the local FIRST level should be to assign a buddy team to rookies?

We hold a Rookie Kit Build after kickoff and I personally stay in touch with local rookie teams.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to get some of them to communicate. Maybe they are overwhelmed, often they don't even know they need help.

There is a large of amount of data/communication sent to new teams and often they don't know what to listen to.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Team34Guy

Eliminating a hard deadline that the students/mentors have to adhere to would be extremely detrimental and would outweigh the aforementioned benefits. Part of the lessons we teach these students is that they will have to deal with deadlines and restrictions in the real world, eliminating bag and tag is counterproductive to that lesson.

You'd still have a hard deadline - your first regional event. Many teams don't have a functioning robot by that truly important deadline.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

You'd still have a hard deadline - your first regional event. Many teams don't have a functioning robot by that truly important deadline.

Those teams had plenty of calendar time to create a functioning robot.

What do you think was the problem?

• Time management?
• Not having the full range of tech skills needed?
• Not appreciating the number of hours required?
• No adult or student able to focus a core set of students on getting the basics accomplished?
• Being hesitant to get help (for one or more of several possible reasons)?
• Simply needing to start in a less complex program (FTC, VRC, FLL) in order to build up some general-purpose expertise before diving headfirst into FRC (walk before run)?
• Something else?

Does anyone have a long list of anecdotes about this subject that is dominated by examples of teams that were making 5-6 weeks of steady progress toward success, but who didn't get finished before the current build season deadline (They had a complete plan that included some margin for surprises; every week they were making consistent, substantial, progress executing that plan; and something out-of-their-control surprised them, and used up their margin and put them behind schedule)?

Blake

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

You'd still have a hard deadline - your first regional event. Many teams don't have a functioning robot by that truly important deadline.

Originally Posted by gblake

Those teams had plenty of calendar time to create a functioning robot.

What do you think was the problem?

• ...
  
• Something else?

After seeing the game played, it is easy to know how your team shoulda built their robot. It is much harder to figure that out beforehand. Many teams put insufficient time and thought into deciding what robot to build. This is not laziness -- it is failure to recognize soon enough that thinking is the hard part.

Jared said it well earlier in this thread:

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Many/most teams need the handicap of being able to change their robot after experiencing the game for the first time in order to have a rewarding season on the field.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by gblake

Those teams had plenty of calendar time to create a functioning robot.

We're trying to talk about how to keep FRC teams and make them sustainable, correct? How does bag & tag help in that goal? Blaming the teams 100% instead of thinking about maybe how we could make things a little easier on them isn't all that helpful.

After seeing hundreds of teams over the years field robot that struggle to move and don't play the game at all, I'd argue that they didn't have plenty of time.

Of course all of your points are a factor - time management being a huge one. We need to find a way to help teams to manage their time better.

If FIRST could do one thing that wouldn't impact them at all financially or logistically and would help a significant number of teams, it would be to end bag & tag.

From my team's standpoint, suddenly we don't have to meet every single night to field a competitive robot. Now we don't have to build two robots for practice and autonomous mode development. Mentors and students aren't getting burned out because we're able to manage our time better and still build the robot we know we're capable of building.

For teams that only meet a few times a week, now they get a few more meetings. They get more hands on time with their robots. How on Earth is that a bad thing? How would that detract from the mission of FIRST, the inspiration these students receive by working towards a common goal on a team?

I still haven't read one statement on how bag day enhances the FIRST experience. Bag Day is an archaic remnant of Ship Day and it doesn't make sense if we want to truly grow FIRST and make it sustainable for all teams.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

We're trying to talk about how to keep FRC teams and make them sustainable, correct? How does bag & tag help in that goal? Blaming the teams 100% instead of thinking about maybe how we could make things a little easier on them isn't all that helpful.

After seeing hundreds of teams over the years field robot that struggle to move and don't play the game at all, I'd argue that they didn't have plenty of time.

Of course all of your points are a factor - time management being a huge one. We need to find a way to help teams to manage their time better.

If FIRST could do one thing that wouldn't impact them at all financially or logistically and would help a significant number of teams, it would be to end bag & tag.

From my team's standpoint, suddenly we don't have to meet every single night to field a competitive robot. Now we don't have to build two robots for practice and autonomous mode development. Mentors and students aren't getting burned out because we're able to manage our time better and still build the robot we know we're capable of building.

For teams that only meet a few times a week, now they get a few more meetings. They get more hands on time with their robots. How on Earth is that a bad thing? How would that detract from the mission of FIRST, the inspiration these students receive by working towards a common goal on a team?

I still haven't read one statement on how bag day enhances the FIRST experience. Bag Day is an archaic remnant of Ship Day and it doesn't make sense if we want to truly grow FIRST and make it sustainable for all teams.

QFT