Is there too much focus on starting new teams, and not enough on maintianing the old?

[TimCraig]

Originally Posted by Matt Leese

FIRST was particularly guilty of trying to rapidly start lots of new teams a few years ago with the NASA grants and the KPCB grants. These managed to start some teams that were barely hanging on financially and ended up with little or no technical support.

The team I mentor was part of that flurry of team creations. We've managed to develop a strong program in every area EXCEPT fund raising. It would be helpful if FIRST provided more support in this area.

As an aside, it's interesting to read what support the mentor team thinks they supplied to us versus the support we think we actually received.

[sweet-chan]

New teams that get help are really lucky. Even when we were a new team, we didn't have much help. We're still struggling as a 4th year team.
There was a team that helped us out a bit when we were rookies. But after that, pretty much no help from adults or other teams. We've always been running on a budget of about $7000-8000 each year. After paying competition fee, we don't have much to work with, usually about $1500 for building our robot. We have no power tools other than power drills. Students design and build the entire robot, but we pay a machine shop to weld when we have to. I don't think the judges believed us when we said the students did everything except welding and only had hacksaws for cutting metal and no drill press.
We applied for the NASA grant both 1st and 2nd years, but never got it.
There really isn't much support from our school and community. Still never had any corporate sponsors before.
We're still pretty optimistic though. We count ourselves lucky that we are able to go to 1 regional a year.
Anyone know if FIRST is offering the $1000 assistance grants for teams attending only 1 regional that they offered last year? Doesn't seem like they are offering them this year.

[asher]

The older teams also get stuck with having to mentor the new teams, after 2 teams we started told other teams we didn’t do enough for them, didn’t support them, ect. We were just done with it. The new teams we started because "that was the right thing to do" ended up tearing our team apart, I kept up with them my first 2 years in college but it just wasn’t worth it anymore, what we had was gone.

You would think team 31 would have their act together, but after the new teams we started it’s been continually downhill. It makes me sad really…

[KORN_lover_2007]

Originally Posted by sweet-chan

There really isn't much support from our school and community. Still never had any corporate sponsors before.
We're still pretty optimistic though. We count ourselves lucky that we are able to go to 1 regional a year.

That is very sad that there isn't much support from your school or community. I suggest doing a lot of fundraising that involves people from your community, like having a booth at a fair, being in a parade, or selling things at football games. Our team has had wonderful success selling things that glow at football games. Put simply, just go out at community things and advertise your team, talk to whoever you can and tell them to tell others, use business cards, all that good stuff. This all goes out to rookie teams too. Hopefully all these new teams and all the old teams can get a lot of school and community support, because I think that is very important for them to stay alive. But it's good that you guys are optimistic, that will help you a lot.

[Jack Jones]

On the one hand, FIRST is doing an excellent job at recruiting new teams. The NASA grants into the NASA events works to entice prospective schools into joining the program. Local volunteers, such as Gail Alpert team #469, work tirelessly digging up sponsors. Veteran teams help the rookies cope with the arduous task of building a team and putting a robot on the floor. ChiefDelphi is there to answer their newbe concerns.

On the other hand, FIRST isn’t doing as well in keeping the teams it worked so hard to start in the first place. The system in place that of seeding the field and expecting it to flourish thereafter may have reached the point of diminishing return. Last year at this time there were 888 teams (source). This year there are 873. Of the 873 registered teams this year 113 are rookies. We can project that over 128 more teams will no longer be with us in 2006. The rate of growth shrank from 38.1 percent in 2001 to just 8.6 percent in 2005. The projected growth for this year is –1.5 percent, not growth at all, but decline.

So what is the reason we have over 1800 team numbers but less than 1000 teams? No offense kids, but it’s not because of team politics. There’s a new bunch of kids every year, and any slackers are gone for sure within four. True there are cases where the teacher’s union or the administration won’t buy in – or a dedicated teacher is nowhere to be found - but those situations are rare. The reason boils down to economics. When a mentor is given a jumpstart from NASA and/or found money, then has it vanish, he/she either goes out and finds an amount that’s almost as much as his salary, or he says; “Oh well. I was great while it lasted.”

The fact of the matter is that it is not FIRST’s fault. It is a national problem. In the last 25 years the U. S. has slipped from third to fourteenth place in the proportion of young adults holding degrees in engineering and science. The number of baccalaureate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math fell by 18.6 percent in the last 15. Meanwhile, Congress thru NASA kicks in a few million dollars toward FIRST. Meanwhile, Congress kicks in $223million, as a start, to build the Bridge to Nowhere.

Apparently our government believes that Inspiration can/should be achieved by a Faith Based Initiative. That is, the parishioners of FIRST (corporations) will find it in their own best interest to take up the cause. As long as the congregation exists, then Inspiration will flourish. What they ignore is the fact a portfolio that starts out weak, then attempts to grow by keying to the Dow, is doomed to go basically nowhere – just like that bridge.

[FIRST JerseyKid]

The way my team maintains members and progress is by always having goals and projects to work on. If you find that everything is becoming old try something new. My team is learning so many new things. We have started to teach more members Inventor and 3ds Max. We have the programmers working on new sensors and writing a simulator. Our Spirit committee is working on revamping the image of our team.

There are so many things you can learn and try out that I don't understand how teams can become bored.

[sciencenerd]

Originally Posted by TimCraig

We've managed to develop a strong program in every area EXCEPT fund raising. It would be helpful if FIRST provided more support in this area.

I can definitely relate to this. Team 1318 is lucky to have a couple of great mentors who know how to fund-raise, but even with their help explaining sometimes the hoops you have to jump through to get money from a company can be bewildering to the uninitiated like me! I pick up the technical side in a jiffy, but the letter-writing and all that takes some more time.

It would be awfully nice of FIRST to provide materials to teams to help with sponsor gaining, such as form letters or even examples for us to base it off of. Our team wouldn't need it personally because of the awesome aforementioned mentors, but I'm sure there are plenty of teams struggling financially who would appreciate the help. I am sure this would increase team retention rates, because there are some teams who fall out simply because they don't know how to raise money and don't know who to ask for help. This may not be directly related to FIRST's mission, but it would enable people to continue in the programs that are, which is necessary for this program to be a success.