How much does your school support your FIRST Team?

[YonZ]

I just wanted to know how much your school actually supports your FRC, FLL, and FVC teams
Its pretty difficult for us to gain much notice in our school as we're one of hundreds of clubs/teams.
Still, our FRC team is gaining more and more notice every year, we're invited to every alum/ incoming student event, and we had a presentation go on in our school's library earlier this year.
Has FIRST become a big/the biggest thing in your schools? I'd love to hear about it!

Yon

[Josh Murphy]

We are very low recognized in our school. but we are in a bad school. The students always have nasty comments to say about our members like we are going to the Detroit regional tomorrow and the teache was giving us our work and it took him about 10 minutes to give us our assignment because the class didn't think it was fair. there were alot of rude comments and there are very few people here that actually care about ChiefDelphi but we are better recognized worl wide than locally and that is bad. There is just a black cloud and the only thing that really gets out of here is all of the negativity. We are one of maybe 5 groups/teams that are even a shining example. we get in the local paper once in a while but that is good. but if you were to ask the students about chiefdelphi here they will say i don't know and they really don't care

[rachakate]

www.cccsd.org

There is a picture of the team leader with the President of RIT and the CEO of Bausch & Lomb on the front page of the district website and a picture of the team with the chairmans award on the senior high website.

Considering the school built a robotics room in the new tech wing and is creating a robotics class, I'd say Churchville Chili does an outstanding job supporting Team 340.

[ForgottenSalad]

As far as I can see, the school's support of us has declined over the years. This year the robotics class was cut, and we've gotten even less funding and support than last year. We lost the ability to use the shop over weekends, had to leave earlier at nights, and could only go to one regional... They did however give us a classroom to use 100% for FIRST until the end of the build season, but we didn't receive that until the last two weeks. (Not to say we didn't appreciate that - Allowed us to work right up until when we had to leave instead of cleaning up for classes the next day.) Hopefully next year will be better...

[tbush503]

Our team is really a combination of a number of schools. At most the schools provide a few hundred dollars, a place to build our robot, and a couple of handy machining tools. Our team is, from what i can see at my school, somewhat recognized by the teachers. We are not at all recognized by the students, though. The fact that our team is made up of many schools probally limits the amount of intrest they show. I have also noticed a decline in technology education classes at my school. This might be the result of increased focus in the standard academic classes to meet the par and get on the "good list" of schools. This could also be a contributing factor to any lack of intrest.

[Richard Wallace]

931 gets an aviation bay (think small hangar) to build the practice field in, support from several very enthusiastic teachers, use of the engineering classroom after hours, use of hand tools, band saws, drill presses, arbor presses, a lathe, and a Principal who has, on more than one occasion, personally transported our robot in the back of his own truck!

I'd say our school support is pretty strong.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

well, we got a robotics class last year and we still get funding and support by the district, but when we won nationals in 2003, our basketball team also won state championships, ..so we werent as recognized that year, but id have to say, the support is rising

[Adama]

Ours is a collection of schools though we do all our work at the career and tech center. In the schools its pretty much unknown because none of the mentors or teachers are involved and we don't meet at any of the schools. On the other hand, the tech center has been very supportive letting us use the PLTW room and shop and the machine tech teacher will make parts for us if we give him a drawing and notice ahead of time. The team (Carroll county career and tech center robotics team) is slightly misnamed (there are only three or four students that actually go to the tech center) but its OK because they have given us the best support, a teacher to run the club and a shop to build in.

[LPaton716]

Our school pays for our initial entry fee...and our teachers have generally been very understanding about getting in late work. Also our assistant principle, a math teacher, and a secretary and her family all came to our regional. They are great. Actually I feel as though we've had more support this year from our school than any other year I've been on the team. We had 52 fans (from families and the administration) at Hartford.

And our custodians lend us one bay of the heated (very important) garage for our build season.

There are plans for renovating our old agricultural building, turning into a technology center that would also host our team. But initial funding and the budget have been a problem...so we'll see how that goes.

Actually on another note, our former principle let us stay at her house when we went to the NJ regional last year. We had 20 people and it so we slept on the couches, porch, and in the dining room but it was great fun. And it worked well for meetings.

[colin340]

Originally Posted by rachakate

www.cccsd.org

There is a picture of the team leader with the President of RIT and the CEO of Bausch & Lomb on the front page of the district website and a picture of the team with the chairmans award on the senior high website.

Considering the school built a robotics room in the new tech wing and is creating a robotics class, I'd say Churchville Chili does an outstanding job supporting Team 340.

your right on Kate last night we went to a Churchville Chili school board meeting and gave a presentation they love it and most had some positive experience with are team or Rees. cccsd is very good to us

[irishninja]

Yon most kids don't even know that there is a robotics lab in the school. We also have a robotics class, but there is usually no people who do both FIRST and the class.

[EricH]

We are the only team at our school, unless you count two Lego League teams. We get a lot of support (our vice principal comes to competitions with us).

[TubaMorg]

I would say our school gives us very minimal support. There is some politics going on behind the scenes at the administration level or something. It was sort of iffy whether we were even going to get to have a team this year. Our teacher mentor (Paloma Garner) applied for and received a grant to help fund the robotics team to be administered by the school. The catch was that we had to fill out requisition forms for required parts/materials, then when the guy felt like it he would take it to some committee for approval, THEN when he felt like it he would go and get our stuff. This guy had absolutely no involvement with the robot. We made a request for some basic (but essential) tools 1 week prior to the kickoff. We did not get a single tool until 2 weeks before the end of the build. He would not except receipts for reimbursement. If it wasn't for the fact that our sponsor, MAES, came through with some valiant fund raising, we would still be staring at a bunch of bins full of kit parts.

Second thing. As the build season progressed, our available work hours kept getting reduced. Strangely each reduction came soon after a visit by the principal...hmmm. The whole thing reminds me of the movie "Major League". She would come in and see we were making progress then throw another hurdle in our way. During the week we were allowed to work from 4pm-7pm. Sounds pretty good except the first and last half hours are spent setting up the classroom and cleaning up. We COULD have worked more hours, but we had to pay the janitors over time to stay later.

This is a mostly low income student school. It's almost as if the school administration wants to say "LOOK! We gave them this great opportunity and they screwed it up!" Some of the students were disheartened by all of this and left the team. I let the rest of them know that they were being used as pawns. It made me so proud to see them work doubly hard with what we had.

Our team motto? "If we're going down, we're going down swinging!"

[JennyB314]

Although we are 2 schools, the school i attended has never even recognized the team's existence. On our school website it use to say "Robotics Club" and then had the description of the photography club. Now they have omitted that as well. This year is the first year we have gotten any acknowledgment and it is because i have been so annoying about it.

[Billfred]

1293's lucky to have a pretty supportive district in general, plus a pretty helpful staff at Irmo High School, where we build. School District Five pays for the entry fee for Palmetto--any shirts, additional events, parts, or sexy use of aluminum comes from sponsors, parents, or from our own pockets. Our coach has keys to the places where we work, so access generally isn't an issue so long as we clean up after ourselves.

All told, it works out pretty well.