Starting a frc team

[frcguy]

If you are looking for advice or help about starting a team, please PM me. Also, I noticed your location is in California. Have you thought about coming to the Capital City Classic? Another team can loan you a robot to compete with, so it's a great experience and opportunity to try out what FRC is like. Also, I will be presenting a workshop called "Keys to a Successful Rookie Season", where we will be talking about all aspects of starting a team.

[WesleyK]

Since you are starting a team you should try to get in touch with local teams to help you get a running start. This year my team is getting help from 5012 and 399. Last year my team built most of our first robot in team 399's shop since they had way more tools and space then the classroom my team had to work back at my team's school.

With the mentors, you should try to get as many as possible, especially ones with past experiences with FRC. There is no real limit on the number of mentors that can be on a team. The only draw back for having a lot of mentors is some teams may accuse you of having a mentor built robot if your robot is better then theirs. If you end up not being able to find any mentors you could always try to recruiting adult's at your school. My team's head mentor(and only mentor who shows up) is the IT guy at my school.

[Rick]

For a variety of reasons, we have a rule in place that two unrelated adults, with background checks, must oversee each meeting. This is to protect both the students and the adults, while also reducing risk and liability to the organization.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Rick

For a variety of reasons, we have a rule in place that two unrelated adults, with background checks, must oversee each meeting. This is to protect both the students and the adults, while also reducing risk and liability to the organization.

Major key there.

Also, you will want to digest this before you plan adult scheduling: http://www.firstinspires.org/sites/d...ogramGuide.pdf

[EricH]

Originally Posted by frcguy

If you are looking for advice or help about starting a team, please PM me. Also, I noticed your location is in California. Have you thought about coming to the Capital City Classic? Another team can loan you a robot to compete with, so it's a great experience and opportunity to try out what FRC is like. Also, I will be presenting a workshop called "Keys to a Successful Rookie Season", where we will be talking about all aspects of starting a team.

Or one of the other offseason events, if you're in SoCal: Fall Classic is this weekend (near Fullerton), Beach Blitz is in two weeks (Huntington Beach), and as I recall Battle at the Border is a week after that (San Diego area).


Generally speaking, the minimum number of mentors present would be set by the school policy for clubs/teams (depending which they class you as). The team I mentor has a two-adult policy--but we're flexible on exactly which adults are present; parents will work as well as mentors/teachers.

Oh, and you might want to PM rsisk. If he hasn't PM'd you yet...