REQUEST - Are you a Multi-School Team?

[DougHogg]

Team 980, the ThunderBots
S. California
25 members
4 schools plus students from other schools

* How do you organize your team with multiple schools
We go around to the four schools that sponsor our team and do presentations to recruit new members. Teachers from 3 of the schools support the team, and those are schools with the most members on the team.

Our team leader this year is a parent whose son goes to one of the schools. We recruit mentors from the community and each student works to sell raffle tickets or find sponsors.

* What are pros / cons you have seen given your arrangement

Pros:
The founding school was too small to sustain a team, so having multiple schools has allowed our team to continue and grow.

Cons:
Currently, none of the schools are able to provide a work space, so we use a facility in a sponsors warehouse many miles away. That reduces the exposure of other students to the team and cuts down on new recruits.

* Do you have any advice to other teams who may want to do something similar
We have opened our team up to other students whose schools don't have teams. Sometimes people hear about us from our web site. This is a great way to help spread the word about FIRST as these students can then pass the word on to other students at their own schools.

I would recommend having regular meetings starting right after the current season to recruit new members, locate additional mentors, line up sponsors, find machine shop help, etc.