New Team to be (Possibly) Started at Cal Poly Pomona

[A. Leese]

Originally Posted by Travis Covington

Currently I-Poly is going through some hard times, and it would probably be a bad time to try to get a team going with them in connection with Cal Poly. I am not sure if you know the history of I-Poly, but there are very few students and the actual 'school' itself is nothing more than a handful of portables at the edge of campus. The other problem is shop access and the limited resources that Cal Poly is willing to share. This is my fourth year at Cal Poly, and every year we wind up at the local adult education school enrolled in the machine shop class, simply because we cannot get access for long enough, or at the random times we need to make stuff. (random being past 3-5pm most of the time) Even still, the tooling that the school has is very limited.

Angela, I would recommend pursuing those other 3 high schools I mentioned. I do recall vaguely that they showed some interest in FIRST in the past and might be a good place to start. But again, like Bill mentioned, and to add to what Chris said, there are alot of 'untapped' resources, but the problems isn't always what is out there, but having the people to get it for you. I know personally, 968 struggles every year to stay afloat with money and leadership/mentor help. My point is you really need a dedicated group of people making sure that the team will succeed long before you register for the competition. I would suggest a minimum of 2 teachers, and 5 mentors of some sort, be it college students, engineers, or parents. Anything less and it will be difficult to make successful.

I'll take all of this into consideration. I also know of teams who survive with only three or four total adults working with the students. I'm in the process of writing a letter to send to the math and science team leaders in the next week or so. I know it's rather early, but it can't hurt. In terms of engineers, I'm going to talk to people from my work who have expressed interest in the past.

- Angela

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by Angela H.

I'll take all of this into consideration. I also know of teams who survive with only three or four total adults working with the students. I'm in the process of writing a letter to send to the math and science team leaders in the next week or so. I know it's rather early, but it can't hurt. In terms of engineers, I'm going to talk to people from my work who have expressed interest in the past.

- Angela

I wasn't really concerned with the number of mentors. I know you can run a team on one or two adults, I've been on teams like that. What I was concerned about was the funding situation of the area. But on that note, wouldn't it be a better learning experience for the kids on a hypothetical team with one or two mentors to merge with a team with a handful of mentors? It's also more cost effective to introduce new students to an established team, and then eventually spin off the new school as a new team later on. Surviving is much different than being comfortably self sufficient... and surviving is not a fun place to be. Please, take it from me... I was leading a "surviving" team for 3 seasons, and it's not as much fun as you'd think. Have fun in SoCal whatever you decide to do, though.