Quitting FRC for Vex?

[chrisfl]

Team 1991 recently started a VEX team in our school to help get students involved. The FRC team is very time consuming and calls for long nights after school while the VEX team is totally student led and meets during our school's daily activity block. Since we have students from all over the state it is hard to get home from after school activities. Even though the program is young, many students are getting interested because it's easier to manage and most freshman did both to supplement their skills needed for FRC.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by rlance

Are there grants available with the Vex program like there are with FRC? If not, then for our team I'm not sure that VEX wouldn't cost more.

Yes, there are VEX grants. You can get these specifically from VEX's foundation as well as any number external grants and sponsorships. It works much like FRC in that respect (notwithstanding debates of flashiness to sponsors and necessary fundraising amounts).

http://www.roboticseducation.org/for...s/team-grants/

[Foster]

STEMRobotics has grants for Delaware Teams for both IQ and EDR. We have some out of state grants on a on a one off basis. We are happy to look at any proposal.

[Isonine]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

By having several curriculums written and mostly free of charge, VEX has a huge advantage over FTC (which is the real competitor). If FTC teams don't have a really dedicated mentor or students willing to really learn the systems that team is in trouble.

Where any teacher with a little bit of technical ability can teach based on the VEX curriculum and field a successful team.

FTC is missing the boat; they need a legit curriculum asap. From what I have seen a lot of the really successful FTC teams are home schooled. Which is parents and students wanting to learn. If FTC really wants into the public schools they need to help the teachers.

My FTC team (8375) that was just the Finalist Alliance Captain at worlds is a 9 person high school team where all of our members attend public school. We also have 0 mentors and are 100% student run. Not every decent ftc team is a bunch of homeschooled kids with their parents.

[Fusion_Clint]

Originally Posted by Isonine

My FTC team (8375) that was just the Finalist Alliance Captain at worlds is a 9 person high school team where all of our members attend public school. We also have 0 mentors and are 100% student run. Not every decent ftc team is a bunch of homeschooled kids with their parents.

1. I said a lot of the successful FTC teams are home schooled, not all.
2. No public school is going to allow nine students to work without adult supervision or to travel without an adult. FIRST requires at least two adults for every team. You must have mentors/teachers.
3. I said a team must have a dedicated mentor or students willing to really learn, you must have dedicated students.
4. Pointing out one possible exception does not invalidate anything I said.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Alright, sorry for dragging this back in from the depths of the forum, but I am struggling with a number of teams from my local area (Central MN). PLEASE DO NOT let this devolve into another MN Districts vs Regionals, this is not the place; go here instead.

Two teams in particular are looking at dropping FRC altogether and going VRC because they school admins think it is a better option. In reality, it may be so for some schools, but the two schools in particular have had strong FRC teams in the past. One of these teams reached out to me, and the other lost their lead mentor so the school is looking to shut down FRC.

The main concern I am hearing from these local teams is the lack of a regional in the St Cloud area - the cost of travel is hurting these teams. We are working diligently to bring a FRC Regional to SCSU in 2018, but those that have been involved in a Regional Planning Committee know the hurdles and struggles that are involved.

My concern is this: how do I help these teams argue/present information to maintain a FRC team while the schools continue to look deeper into the issue? I am hoping to provide some solid feedback to these teams that they can present to their local school boards, administrators, etc. I am looking for growth data, alumni feedback, mentor feedback, sponsor feedback, alumni tracking data, gaining sponsors, fundraising ideas, etc.

Just to give a little more background on the 'Minnesota Model', in 2012 the State High School League (MSHSL) which handles almost all of the activities and sports in MN created a sanctioned State Tournament. Along with the push for more STEM opportunities for students, this sanctioned State Tournament provided great interest and firepower for FRC in Minnesota. As schools started teams, they forgot a major part of FIRST - community and sponsor involvement. Now many of these solely 'school-sponsored' teams are finding it hard to commit to the cost of FRC.

It feels that Central MN teams are in a perfect storm. Without state funding (like MI has), and the relatively new VRC organization based out of a local Tech College, VRC is the next best option for schools to jump to so that they can still offer STEM without the cost. Please do not take this as a knock to VRC, it is not (I am in the process of starting at least 2 VRC teams from my classes for 2017-18).

However, after attending VRC competitions and teams, I do realize that there are major differences in the two. FRC operates more as a hard-lined engineering program that can act like a Varsity sport, VRC is more a great club competition (like off-season soccer or basketball) that can offer great STEM opportunities in a scaled down model.

If you have constructive information, please post or PM me.

Thanks,
-Coach Jurek

[Donut]

If you want resources on FRC impact, the FIRST website still has great material even if it is harder to find than in the past.
http://www.firstinspires.org/node/2521
http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/impact
http://www.firstinspires.org/about/p...cs_competition

Probably the biggest thing the team that reached out for help can do is get sponsors and mentors. If the school sees they don't have to put in as much effort to run the team they are more likely to support it.

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

...and the other lost their lead mentor so the school is looking to shut down FRC.

I'm going to be honest, if a team loses its lead mentor and is in a position where the school is considering shutting it down, it might be best for them to fold. That may sound harsh, but I will use my current team as an example.

2662 has never been a powerhouse in our region, but they were a decent team that focused more on community involvement than the robot, and were good enough to win a regional in 2011. Their lead coach was a teacher at the school and left after the 2013 season. Most of the team graduated that year as well. What followed was a collapse of the team as they had an awful 2014 season where they were essentially rookies again with a new lead teacher, mostly new students, and minimal mentor carryover. It was bad enough that when I joined in October 2014 they only had 5 students return from the 2014 season and had to get another new lead teacher since the previous lead did not want to go through another season in charge. They were rookies for the second year in a row. I brought enough FIRST experience with me that we were able to keep the team alive for 2015 and in 2016 we stabilized and had a solid year, but this last season is the first real productive season 2662 has had since losing their lead in 2013.

Losing a lead mentor or teacher is hard. If a team has a solid mentor base or student leadership they can step up to fill their shoes and figure out the new leaders to continue on. But if no one can fill that leadership hole and someone is thrown into it who is not prepared, the odds of success are not good. 2662's 2014 season was mostly a waste of our sponsors' money and our lead teacher's sanity, considering how few students were inspired enough to return to FIRST the next year. They would have been much better off doing VRC instead, and likely would have for 2015 if I had not taken over as the lead that year.

It sounds like this team is fairly dependent on their school for financial/mentor support, from your post. It's mid-October already, and if they don't have a solid leader in place now they are probably not going to be successful in FRC this year unless you can air drop in a few experienced mentors that can work with them full time. I'd strongly consider that it may make sense for them to go VRC until they are on solid ground. It is much easier for a student only team or inexperienced teacher led team to have inspiring success in VRC than FRC.

[tjwolter]

Chief Hedgehog..

In terms of your main question, how to pitch this to school administration, you can probably make this argument: "We have a huge inventory of parts and such from past seasons. So we can manage this year with a little less funding. A base kit, a smaller traveling contingent." They might be impressed by short term belt tightening as they have to do it themselves often. Of course this is not a long term strategy and you should be up front with them. Paring the team down to an affordable size denies some students the chance to learn.

Intermediate range, consider inviting some of the admin types to actually attend a FIRST competition. It will be a serious eye opener.

Also, can you wean the Tech School off of Vex and get them on board with FRC? In pseudoretirement I have gone back to school at our local Tech and they are pretty fired up about FRC....

Our teams bumped into each other a little at North Star and I volunteered at Duluth so I know your set up a bit. Our team (Avis Automata 5826) is built on a radically different model. We work off school site. None of our mentors are teachers. We effectively do all of our own fund raising although the school does help with travel costs. We run a leaner budget but figure to be sustainable long term. I won't actually set foot inside the High School this season, but of course we do work collaboratively.

Support for FIRST in our school is sincere but when we ask for anything extra, even zero cost things, it rarely happens. Even asking tech ed and business teachers to suggest a few names for directed recruiting......crickets.

Fortunately we have a long running DIY robotics program in the middle school after school program. It's our farm club. We also run that largely independent of any official help. Works better that way actually...

Tim Wolter

[Chris is me]

It is totally a reasonable option for those teams to do Vex in 2017, and then return to FRC when the local regional pops up again. No harm in a gap year like that. I think I would make some attempt to sell them on the idea of a scaled back FRC season for the year, and if they don't bite, focus on getting them to actively plan to return to FRC in 2018 by fundraising, training, etc. during the Vex year. Maybe they can do just 2017 FRC offseasons this year if MN has enough of those.

There is some danger in burning out teams by having them stick to FRC when they don't really have the money or resources to do so. They can decide it's too much work, or it isn't worth it, if they aren't going into the competition with the right resources and they burn too much of their energy and money into surviving when they could have taken a gap year.

[gblake]

TLDR: In my opinion, without knowing the local motivations and resources, readers can only guess at the right answers to your question. Those answers are roughly as likely to be wrong as they are to be right.

In these situations, I am a fan of trying to ask the right question, before choosing among solutions.

And, to ask the right question(s), you have to know everyone's purpose(s)/goal(s).

Why should an FRC team or VRC team(s) exist at these locations? Why not both? Why either? What do the schools want to accomplish through either program? What do you want to accomplish? What do the existing team members/supporters want to accomplish? Peel the proverbial onions by asking "why?" until you have gotten to the roots of everyone's motivations.

Once the (often diverse) goals/motivations are all well-known and are put into a coherent picture, its *then* time to discuss with the people involved how they can best use the finite student-time, mentor/teacher-time, physical tools, software/computing tools, dollars, parent-time, feeder-programs, floor-space, etc. to accomplish (or consciously de-emphasize) *all* of them.

There are many, many inspiring ways to skin the cat of introducing many students to STEM topics and careers. Find out which seems best for these situations by pulling on the threads, and developing a complete plan/suggestion. Then, your arguments will have some traction and some buy-in.

Blake