Starting a college team

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck

Shannon Schnepp of The Purdue University Team #461 put together this very good white paper about starting a college FIRST team....check it out.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...er&paperid=210

I also reccomend contacting people from 461, Eric O of 229, Anne Bergeron of 1002, Amanda Morrison of 1020, or Erin Rapacki of 125. These people helped start up teams or helped get a team back in line (and they also spoke at the success in college with FIRST confrence at the championships).

What I think is probably one of the better routes, or at least what I am trying now to do, is to get a high school teacher interested in the project. It wouldn't be bad to get like purdue calls them champions. I see myself as needing at least one champion but my goal would be like at least one from 4 areas. It would be good to get a high school teacher, a college professor or dean, and a high school administrator behind the program. The last for me would be important for me because of the distance and out of state travel. Other champion regions would be a parent or group of parents. My original teams parents have done so much for the team and I see them as important to get on board to build a successful program.

But I would start with the high school and then work with the college. But then again all you need is three high school students and 5000 dollars. So it can work a lot of different ways. Definitely take some time to talk with some of the college FIRST conference people. I got a lot of good comments from Amanda, Erin, Anne, Eric, and the rest.

Last of all, don't start a team if you don't have time. You change a lot, learn a lot, grow up a lot, and are busy doing all this a lot your first year. What I did this year was go home to mentor on the weekends. You can find a nearby team and go help whenever your schedule allow. Especially with a triple major starting a team might not be great for you unless you've got the organization and time management skills to keep yourself somewhat sane. You have to sleep occasionally. At least that is what they tell me.

[Anne Shade]

Ok,

This question pops up about this time each year. Each one of us college teams runs things differently since each of our situations is just a little bit different. The first thing I would recommend is to not do this on your own. Look to established student organizations on campus for student support and possible working space. The best would probably be to spend the first year helping out a local already established team while you work on getting things established on the college level.

Getting the college involved and supportive is not easy. It should be a little easier for you since you can play on the fact that VT has a team and UVA does not. At GT we have support from the Mechanical Engineering department and the development office which helps us raise money. It takes a lot of talking to a lot of people to find at least one established faculty member who will support the program. Getting working space is often the hardest part since a lot of people want very limited space on all college campuses. Start with a club or organization that already has some working space and see if you can have access. Sometimes it's more convenient to work at the high school.

The next part is getting the high school. Believe it or not, finding an interested high school who will work well with you to start a team is not easy. Look to schools that are close (makes it easier to deal with transportation back and forth) and find a teacher who is really excited about the program. That makes all the difference. Start looking for a team when you get there, get the kids and teachers organized and have them go to a competition this year. Let them experience it and see it before they go in. It'll make it much easier for you in the end.

This is becoming a really long post. There is just so much information that I can give you and suggestions for this since I have helped start and run 3 teams as well as the 27 other GA teams. Feel free to IM me or PM me if you have any questions. As mentioned above Eric, Amanda, Erin, and many others have also done this and have other suggestions for you. Just don't do it alone. Good Luck!!!