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Unread 28-06-2016, 09:50
GreyingJay GreyingJay is offline
Robonut
AKA: Mr. Lam
FRC #2706 (Merge Robotics)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Rookie Year: 2015
Location: Ottawa, Canada
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Re: Ontario Moving to District Model in 2017

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleiman View Post
My difficulties in raising more funding stem largely from an issue I have avoided bring up here due to the Pandora's box of backlash I expect it will open, but here goes... Like many of my fellow Canadians, a core value I hold as an educator is that I don't believe that private sponsorship belongs in public schools.
Kleiman, thank you for your thoughtful responses and for elaborating on this position. I admit that I have been a little bit perplexed by your particular scenario. The thinking was "So they need to raise another $2500... big deal, they could do that in a week or two of phone calling and emailing". Now I understand why that is a tougher problem than it sounded to me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleiman View Post
Developing private partnerships within my own school program is where I draw a firm line. I will continue to work myself to the bone for this team so I can run a STEM project funded with no-strings-attached and I will also continue to lobby public education to recognize the educational return on investment in FIRST. Perhaps rather than you asking me to STOP complaining about added cost, I should ask you to START complaining about lack of public funds if a dedicated team requires heavy private sponsorship to exist. "Greying Jay" implies that his wish for Ottawa's program to expand like Toronto's will come as a result of a higher cost to participate and an increased time commitment.
I admit to being more than a little envious of your previous situation. I always assumed that it was because of your program density - every school wants one because the school next door has one too - and I figured that when you approach a sponsor they must say "oh yes, I've heard of FRC" rather than "huh? robots? you mean like LEGO?". And I already figured competitions were cheaper for you guys since you didn't need to travel and book hotels.

I'm still hoping for a district event to be held closer to us, such as Ottawa or Kingston. Having a local event would greatly reduce logistics and cost for teams in my region, and would also kick start the "hey, I want one too!" sentiment in our schools.

Of course I think it would be absolutely fantastic if our school boards would kick in like TDSB has done. However, truth be told, such a decision wouldn't even help my team, as 2706 is a community driven with no school backing. Our lead mentors aren't teachers or educators, we are engineers and scientists and other professionals.

And I guess that leads to my other point, which is that although I totally understand your point of view on partnerships, I think your team is missing out on a whole other aspect of FRC because of it. One of the biggest differences between FRC and something like FLL or IEEE or any of the smaller scale LEGO competitions is, apart from sheer size, students are participating in an experience that looks and feels like the real engineering workforce. They think about things like strategy and competition, marketing, branding, and communication. They deal with real issues like project management, splitting the workload, supply chain issues (witness the Great Pneumatic Tire Shortage of 2016), version control (which is of course where my team name derives from!) and, yes, they learn to communicate, present, and sell themselves to others. It's the real thing - they talk to real companies, real suppliers, real engineers.

I understand your point about "no strings attached" but I'll just observe that the only "string" we have ever been asked for is a demo: We'll give you money to build a robot, and we want you to come in and show the robot to our employees! That is a fun experience which draws excitement, encourages new students and mentors to join, and encourages students to network and interact with other people. At sponsor demos I step back and watch the students as they talk to curious onlookers. I marvel at the students' ease at answering "so... what does it do?" for the umpteenth time. I watch a student who was super-shy in September comfortably launch into an elevator pitch about FIRST and STEM.

When I was that age, I was a complete wreck when it came to talking to anybody in public, let alone strangers! Not to mention all the other stuff like writing grant applications or sponsor request letters or planning fundraising events. This is a huge skill development opportunity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleiman View Post
I think we have more than enough fuel to easily sell this program's worth to private sponsors, so why not sell it with equal vigor to our municipal, provincial and federal governments here in Canada. (...) Why not imagine a model like ours of FRC where more teams can run strong, sustainable teams on less than ~$2500 CAD per year.
I do absolutely agree with you here. That would be a dream come true. I wasn't kidding about approaching the Ottawa school boards. We're going to do our darndest.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kleiman View Post
My sense from the discussion on this forum is that more people are concerned about making more WINNING teams rather than making more WORKING teams. (...) I wish for this program to reach as many schools as possible for as little money as possible even if it means some degree of dilution to the level of competition.
I do not think these are mutually exclusive. The focus should be on building long-term, sustainable, working teams, and the more of them there are, the better it is for everyone. "Winning" (and I don't necessarily refer to blue banners and trophies here) will come as a natural progression as teams develop and improve themselves.
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"If I'm going to mentor someone, I'm going to be involved in their life as a positive force." -Mechvet

Last edited by GreyingJay : 28-06-2016 at 16:23.
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