getting your team involved with your school

[northendchopper]

Dose any one have any ideas toward getting your team more involved with your school. I come from a school where the F.I.R.S.T. team is little known. Any ideas would be great.

[jonathan lall]

If I understand correctly, you are in need of members and support from the school (you said "getting your team more involved with your school"). Or if you mean, 'what can my team do to help the school,' disregard what I'm about to note. Here are a few ideas, most of which we've done:

• If you have a website, make it known
• Put up posters
• Get the team on the air (i.e. morning announcements) for membership and results of competitions, etc.
• Make it known what you're doing when fundraising at your school
• Have everyone wear uniforms one day to raise awareness
• Hold a demonstration at an assembly or in a public area at lunch or after school with your robot and some screens to show animations, etc.
• Get your principal involved
  
  
  
  

Some of these may seem obvious, but you might be surprised how many teams don't do this.

[northendchopper]

yeah you got it right...we thought of these but wernt sure how well they would work. they work well at your school?

[RoteAugen]

northend-

I can't speak for other NH schools, but I know that Souhegan High School and its' robotics team have a very disjointed relationship. through broken funding promises and only small if nonexistent interest in the team, team 138 Entropy has learned that the school is not the place to go for support or attention.

this year marks the first time the principal of our school and some students watched a couple matches... our program has been around since 1994.

that's right, 10 years and this is the first time ever that the school wanted anything to do with the FIRST team.

...and we managed to be the runner-up team in the championship (BAE regional)

this is why it is important for NH teams to do well in the future because otherwise, I can garuntee that this will not change unless we start bringing home some trophies

...we may want to work out some independent meet for NH teams to generate interest locally...

[northendchopper]

i can relate to your teams troubles. i like your idea of "we may want to work out some independent meet for NH teams to generate interest locally". I think that would be benificial. I cannot say however that bringing home trophies will increas involvment, at least it has not at central.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by jonathan lall

• Get your principal involved

Thats probably one of the best things you can do.

Also, if your school has a close circuit TV show/announcements try geeting movies of the competition on it. Words cannot do any FIRST robotics competiton justice.

ie. Telling a normal person about your robot going over some ramp and knocking over plastic boxes. Now, that same person seeing it happen is total different.

[northendchopper]

that would be a good idea if people actually watched what was put on the t.v. Its nice to know that other teams have a rough time involving thier school as well. At least were not alone.

[RoteAugen]

only verbal announcements at SHS I'm afraid.

also, northend-

every year the town of Amherst allows the robotics team to take part in the 4th of july parade... maybe we should hold an outdoors event (just practice and such) with a plywood practice field at Vista Foods or see if we can do something at the food court in the MNH... something that will grab people's attention where they least expect it. that may not help the school involvement directly, but it will generate questions for the school. if they see people outside of our schools are interested in our programs, our schools will be forced to at least inform themselves about us in order to answer the deluge of questions.

...joint PR ventures are goooood...

anyways, let me know what you think. ill pass this idea off to marketing team, and have your people talk to my people lol. see you guys in atlanta!

[northendchopper]

see you guys in atlanta...wish we were going but we will not be. Our mentor Mr. Kelso will be going but as for the rest of the team (as far as i know) we will not be attending. i think your idea of a public "demo" would be good. it would really help our problem out. we will have to get in touch to discuss this.

[FadyS.]

We are having the same problem. We started off with a team of 80+ people, 1 teacher and 1 mentor. Now, we're like 6 to 8 people depending on the day. All our public relations people quit. All our finance people quit. All our webdesign and animation people quit. In the end we were left with a very very small core team who had to do the entire project. So we found ourselves spending some 60hrs/wk (or more) during the 6 week period. With school and homework and robotics, I didn't get very much sleep at all during the six weeks. I would've loved to have a website or animation. Our core members are capable but there's just so much to do for 6 students and 2 adults.

People signed up to the team thinking they could come in play around with the stuff and leave at 4pm or eariler (less than an hour after class). Now, we're having a hard time finding people interested in the team next year. 5 of the 6 people on the core team are graduating. Due to lack of PR, our finances are down to nearly 0. Anybody else ever experience a similar problem? All our grads are really commited though, we're all willing to come back to mentor next year.

[northendchopper]

we have a team of roughly 20-25 kids. we do have alot of trouble getting kids to join the team. i know what you are talking about when kids want to leave early. it just make everone that stays work harder. i personally think that having a smaller team is better. (no offence to thoes bigger teams out there) with a smaller team everone knows everone extreamly well. also everone has someting to do. you do not need to split the work of one person so that 5 people have somting to do. all i can tell you is to try to get people comming to your school next year intrested. your team is in a rough spot man. good luck

[RoteAugen]

Originally Posted by northendchopper

see you guys in atlanta...wish we were going but we will not be.

oh man... now how are we going to take back the top from West high?!

you know what, we should really get the Aztechs and St. Thomas in on this too

the more teams we have, the more of a spectacle it will create... especially if we are able to put 4 bots on the practice field at once. and who knows- maybe we'll pick up a company sponsor or two! I don't know about you guys, but one of the biggest problems amherst has had is the drastic underfunding... in one way its good because the students do 100% of the fabrication (that they can legally do... you need a certificate to operate the bridgeport)

but it gets really annoying to have to cut corners to save time and money that we don't have


fad- if you guys need anything we can help you out with, do not hesitate to ask us. The beauty of FIRST is that we can, and do help each other often. we know what its like to be in your situation, so we can commiserate. We won't think twice about helping you if you ask

its just the way we are, eh?
good luck

[northendchopper]

somehow i believe that we will be able to get that position back from west, eventually. yeah the more teams in nh getting together the better. i dont know if we would get a sponcer out of it, but it couldent hurt at all to try. are you guys going to river rage. (that might be the oppurtunity to take back the top, lol)

[FadyS.]

Yea, it seems like dedicated motivated students are a rare breed these days. I'm thinking of going around the undergrad math and science classes and show them pictures and discuss robotics. We have a lot of people from our school going to see us at the Canadian Regional this year.

Fundraising in the school is very hard. With so many things competing for their money at the school, people are unwilling to support something they're not involved in anymore.

EDIT: I'd like to add that we wouldn't have a bot done this year if it wasn't for team 188. These guys are great. They helped us out with our gearbox design, and they gave us a lot of parts at the last minute. Team 188 is gracious professionalism at its finest.

[RoteAugen]

Originally Posted by northendchopper

somehow i believe that we will be able to get that position back from west, eventually. yeah the more teams in nh getting together the better. i dont know if we would get a sponcer out of it, but it couldent hurt at all to try. are you guys going to river rage. (that might be the oppurtunity to take back the top, lol)

138 is gunning for them at nats though they did win fair and square, what kept our bot from beating them in the finals was one stripped gear...

we're getting spares this time lol.

we don't know about river rage yet, though i will be pushing hard for it in our team meetings. those independent meets look oh-so-fun