Looking to Start an FRC Team

[sanddrag]

Try to get a NASA grant. That's my advice.

[Hiteak]

As a Sophomore who started up my team during part of my freshman year and this past year, it is defiantly possible for a Junior to start a team. During this past year, our team had several mentors who were from the local college. Once you have 1 or 2 mentors, they can see if they can get any of their friends to join. Parents are really helpful though out the season and can help in all prospects in FIRST. Our team had a similar problem with storage. The way we solved it was taking up a window cabinet in the school to hold everything. Its also a great way to show the school what FIRST does and what your team is doing. It helps raise the awareness of FIRST and gets the interests of students. Hopes this helps

[Mark Pierce]

I applaud you for what you are trying to do. I've got a regional this week but I'll take a few minutes to add my two cents:

The best way to get support from the School, teachers, or students is to show them something. It's probably a little late to get anyone to drive or fly to a regional this weekend, but it would undoubtedly be a good time and you'd learn a lot. Likewise with a trip to Atlanta. The next best thing is to put a presentation together including videos and approach anyone in the school who you think will help you support the team. My son got up in front of all the teachers in the school at one of their in-service meetings to explain what we were doing his junior year on 288. We got some help for that year at least.

Once you've got some school admin or teacher support, then arrange for one of the nearby teams to bring their robot and do a demonstration. That is a great way to show what can be done and for your new team to hear what being in FIRST is like. It's also a great experience for the team doing the demo. I know because we've done demos many times for new teams and many other groups.

It looks like you've already got a connection with 1816. If they don't have a contact with 1623, call the school. FIRST may also have a way to contact them as well, but you might have better luck with that after regionals are done. Things are hectic now.

Good Luck and please keep us posted!