Do Non-School Teams Have An Advantage?

[ollien]

Originally Posted by WinterPoet

I really think it depends on how helpful your school and district is, because without that support, it's awful to be a school team.

+1

I've heard some horror stories of schools making it impossible to order things in time. In our case, we just order things and the school reimburses us using the funds we've deposited with them.

[sanddrag]

We are 100% integrated with our school, to the point of it now being a daily class for up to 90 minutes every school day, all year long. (whoo!). And aside from that, it lets us tap a ton of facilities, equipment, resources, and funding streams. Those teams who believe that schools are evil and you'll never accomplish anything inside of one, well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you're looking at the wrong school, and you're really limiting yourselves in big ways by not associating with a school.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Meet, build, and storage are not necessarily easier for school based teams.

Most people here seems to be under the impression that there are just two types of teams - school based and community based. They assume that in these areas their team is exactly like every other team of their type. That just isn't true. Every team is different, and poses different challenges. They key is in the relationships. The advantage is going to go to whichever teams form the best relationships with their school(s) and community. It's as simple as that.

I am going to echo Jon on much of this. Just because a team is school-affiliated does not clear up the storage issues. My shop is packed full of Robotics stuff throughout the year - and during the build season the space (and the students) run like a carousel of school projects and team projects.

Communication is key. For those that struggle with their school, I strongly suggest that regular/annual meetings with the school admins as well as presentations in front of the school board are great opportunities to build bridges.

FRC 4607 started as a club team that has retained our own budget. We raise our own funds (school pays for nothing) and we actually bring in more tools to the shop than I can purchase from my school budget to stock my shop. We spend around $2500 each season purchasing power tools, machines, consumables, etc. We look at is as 'rent' for the use of the space.

Each year Becker School District has continued to grow the partnership with our club. We straddle the line of self-funded and school sanctioned. In other words we pay our way, the school admin gets to tout a strong STEM activity.

For the teams that struggle with scheduling, I suggest that you meet with the Community Ed department (in MN CommEd is a BIG part of schools) and see if you can work out a schedule long before the build season begins.

We even host The GreenHorns Ri3d in our shop for 4+ days at the beginning of each season. COR Robotics also runs their summer camps in our space as well. All of this is scheduled through Community Ed.

Communications is key - and going in to each season with a great plan/schedule plus a lot of patience pays dividends.