Secret FIRST team

[Wolfe]

This year we worked closely with team 863, St. Clement's School (all girls school). They built thier robot in our school's workshop and we spent many hours teaching them about manufacturing the robot. When they started, they didn't know anything about building. One of the girls had seen someone drill a hole once, and her friend had heard her talk about it.

In the end, they built a working robot with very little help from us and virtually no mentoring.

Next year their school says they aren't allowed to have a team. The thing is, their school gave them no support. No money, no facilities, only two teaches volunteered. None of the school administration came and looked at the robot or anything. THey have no right to cancel the team that they have no owership of. The girls really don't need the school to have a small team.

Does FIRST require a team to have the permission and consent of their school for a team? We could easily get a teacher from our school to help with the administative stuff.

What I am asking is, would it be possible for the students at St. Clement's to make a team, work at our school with our help, and essentially say " screw you" to thier school?

Has this ever been done? Will FIRST allow it to be done? Does the school have any right to stop them from doing this? Does anyone forsee any problems with this?

[Digo]

I think that a high school, university or even a middle school (ie. team 400) is needed, but I'm not sure.
I'm very curious and hope someone answer this!!

[Wolfe]

ok. correction about the money. the school did sponsor thier team. the question still stands however, as it would take only about 12 000$ CDN to run the team for a year

[Dan 550]

FIRST has no written requirement that I've seen that requires any school to be involved with a team, hence teams that draw from multiple schools and community teams. These teams may get support from the schools, but more often than not, they are entirely sponsor and participant based. Personally, I feel that a school actually hampers a team, being that my team, and many others, is severely hampered with travel and time rerstrictions. Also, FIRST hates to see teams go, and they will most certainly help you in your effort to keep this team alive. Well, good luck to you and the girls of 863 in your effort to keep 863 alive for seasons to come.

[Alfred Thompson]

Actually the school does have the right to shut down any school supported activity. They also have the right to allow or refuse to allow the use of their name in an activity. The school is acting completely withing their right unless you have left something out.

What you should really be doing is trying to find out why the school is pulling the team and see if you can politely change their mind. That is the easiest and best way to proceed.

[ChrisH]

Mr Thompson is correct in saying that the first thing would be to try and get the school to change thier minds about ending the team.

If that is not possible, the students who want to could go on their own and become some sort of independent association. This is basically what some multi-school teams are. They would probably not be able to use their school name. Instead they could become the Crescent City Robotics Association or something like that. I belive there are teams that have done something like this in the past, at least for a year or two.

I met a team at Nationals a few years ago with four or five students that was completely self funded. They wanted to participate and the school wouldn't sponsor them. So they got permission from their parents, raised the funds they needed through odd jobs and built a robot in one kid's basement. They even drove themselves down to Florida from New England.

But since as a I recall they were all seniors, the team didn't have much longevity.

So it is possible, though it takes a lot of work to make it sustainable.

[kane]

If worst comes to worst just invite them to join your team, many teams have multipul schools including mine. Although i do not know of any rule that requires any school to participate for there to be a team

[Jon K.]

I don't know the full story on my team since i am a freshman but i do know that we have three schools working together on one team. there are students from Coventry, East Hartford and Rockville High Schools on our team. Also I know that we have 2 teachers One from East Hartford and another from Rockville. Also as far as I know we had no funding from any of the schools until possibly now since we won nationals they are trying to be all buddy buddy with us whereas if we hadn't we would just be another one of those annoying little clubs. so they could possibly try to join another veteran team. But what they should really try doing first is going through the proper people at FIRST and see what they have to say on the issue if nothing else works.

[Amy Beth]

I see no reason the students should be forced to stop participating in FIRST just because their school won't sponsor it. Legally, however, if there were any problems, the teacher who helps them could get into trouble. Wouldn't stop me, tho. I wouldn't see why FIRST would care if the school participates or not, unless of course they are worried about a legal battle.

[gniticxe]

This season, our team has kids from 8 highschools and one home school (team joke) and to the best of my knowledge, we don't get any funding from any of them. I was denied sponsorship when I asked my school - which was disappointing, however they are allowing us (the kids on my team who go to my school) to host an assembly during school hours about FIRST and the team. In past years, math and science teachers have been encouraged to bring their classes down to watch. That usually gets a good amount of interest built for the next season.
Anyway, most of our sponsorship comes in the way of company donations/discounts. We have a full list up on our site here.

[Wolfe]

Getting the school to tell us why they cancelled it has been a bit of a problem. noone has really been given a reason. in fact we have been told on occasion that they aren't allowed to tell us. they are a real bunch of Nazis when it comes to giving away information. it seems to be that "becasue i said so" is a good enough reason.

[Kyle Hill]

Since it's a private school (right?), they are under no obligation to support, sponsor, or even outright allow any activity they don't like. Nor do they have to give any reason to not support the activity if they don't feel like giving one, which by the looks of their reply to you is the case. In essence, it's "if you don't like our school's policy, you don't have to go here."

That said, Robotics can definitely be a non-supported extracurricular activity for these girls. The school can say that it's name can't be used in the team's name, which is fair, but at the same time they can be invited onto your team or any other in the area who's willing to take on some extra help.

Nobody at FIRST will give you a hard time about this.. they want them to have as good an experience with the program as everyone else does.

[usagi1483]

Just let the girls join your schools team. That is what happened with our team this year. MAST Academy which used to be team 37 decided they did want to have a robo team this 2002 year, so our team 168 invited them to join our team. They had no support from thier school no teachers or anything. However the students from MAST were a great help and we enjoyed working with them. So just consider letting the girls or anyone from another school who is interested join your team, as long as their parents consent.

[John Larock]

Joe is correct, no school affiliation is required to start and maintain a FIRST team. Team #365 is comprised of STUDENTS from a number of schools, but is run as a DuPont FIRST Robotics group. We have no teachers involved with our team. It is basically an afterschool interest group that is run by DuPont professionals and others.

If the team in question wants to use school property or resources for the team, then they need to get permission. A school-sanctioned group has certain permissions. It comes down to the school guidelines and policies on how a non-school sanctioned group can operate on school grounds.

We would be happy to discuss how our team handles these issues. Feel free to e-mail one of the Miracle Workerz on Team #365 for more info.

Good luck!

-J-

[The Lucas]

You don't need a high school's support to have a team, we don't (as gnitcixe said). We used to be an Explorer Post (Boy Scout related) but now we use "MOE Robotics Group" instead of a school. You don't need to go that far. FIRST only requires that the students on the team attend a high school. Our high schools provide nothing for the team and are completly unassociated with the team. The only thing the schools do for us is let us out of school for competition, not like they could stop us if our parents just wrote a note instead.
However, what you need to do is change your team's info when you re-register to remove the school and put your sponsor in its place. You may or may not be able to do this, so if all esle fails create a new team with the sponsor (it will be four digits) and the students from St. Clemments or any other school or home school can join. It is an out-of-school activity so the school does control its students or teachers out-of-school. Unless, of course this is a boarding school, where the students would need permission to leave for meetings.