How much does your school support your FIRST Team?

[omutton]

Our school supports us in every way except financially. This year, we were able to start 2 FIRST Robotics classes in our school. One was designed to tackle the Fundraising and Administration aspect of robotics where as the other one was a Manufacturing class. These classes allowed our Team to do new things like organize a coin drive for underpriveleged families and organize our trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Regional. The teachers are well aware of our program due to presentations made to them by involved teachers and seminars during PD Days. Our student body is aware of us as we have a display case with our trophies and updates in our newsletter.

In terms of finances, our school gave us $1500 for the first 2 years but then all of a sudden last year, gave us no money. They do however give us supply days so the teachers can take time off for the trips. Our school board gave us $7500 the first year, then nothing the next year and last year, all we got from them was a bill for heating and hydro from when we were in the school on weekends!

It is great to walk down the halls of Port Perry High School and see our banners displayed and our trophies for everyone to see. We have our own room for storage which is in a central location. A lot of people are supportive of us and it is awesome to have our administration, staff and student body behind us!

[Dermot_135]

Here at Mishawaka Indiana, team 135 gets a lot of support from our school "Penn High School." Since the beggining of the 6 weeks, we've been able to work from 3 pm to midnight or sometimes even 1 or 3 in the morning! We have an awesome shop available, and its always available! We've even built a half court playing field for practice! Most of our classmates are very supportive of us, and if they didn't know about robotics, they were always curious to know. Our school board gave us 2,500 dollars " We worked very hard for that money!" through concessions and having "Robotics Night". Our school supoervisor came to the Purdue regional and so did two representatives from the Patrick Metals company. I feel very grateful and fortunate to be supported by our community. We've even extended our outreach program to the South Bend team and we've helped them weld their parts! I do believe that every school should support their robotics teams 100%. Because that's what schools are for right? To educate kids? Things are pretty backwards these days. Best of luck to all of you and see you at nationals



IF YOU NEED ALUMINUM OR PARTS AT NATIONALS, STOP BY TEAM 135'S PIT!