Michigan vs New Hampshire

[Summmergrl2298]

There was an ambassadors meeting at Nat's and Dean talked about this. The way his eyes lit up when he started talking about it was amazing. I am SO pumped that this is something that could actually happen...I mean, imagine every high school in America having a FIRST team, just like every high school has a football/basketball/soccer team. Isn't that wild???

[GaryVoshol]

There were 100 FIRST teams from Michigan this year. Since some teams have members from multiple schools, perhaps as many as 150 schools may have been involved.

The MHSAA (Sports) website lists 763 high schools in the state. So probably slightly less 20% of the the schools have a FIRST team. There's a few schools don't have any sports teams, but not enough to significantly alter the calculations.

$2M divided by 763 schools comes up to about $2600 per school. Not a sum to sneeze at, but not enough to fund FIRST teams popping up all over the place.

If the appropriation goes through, I suspect that the funds won't be divvied up to individual teams. Rather it will go in grants to special projects - some may be for individual teams, others may be to offset other costs, or to promote FIRST and technology in general. That's not to say it won't help - it will. It's just not the windfall that $2,000,000.00 seems to be.

[Summmergrl2298]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

There were 100 FIRST teams from Michigan this year. Since some teams have members from multiple schools, perhaps as many as 150 schools may have been involved.

The MHSAA (Sports) website lists 763 high schools in the state. So probably slightly less 20% of the the schools have a FIRST team. There's a few schools don't have any sports teams, but not enough to significantly alter the calculations.

$2M divided by 763 schools comes up to about $2600 per school. Not a sum to sneeze at, but not enough to fund FIRST teams popping up all over the place.

If the appropriation goes through, I suspect that the funds won't be divvied up to individual teams. Rather it will go in grants to special projects - some may be for individual teams, others may be to offset other costs, or to promote FIRST and technology in general. That's not to say it won't help - it will. It's just not the windfall that $2,000,000.00 seems to be.

From what I heard when Dean spoke, there were 555 teams splitting the money and each would get enough to pay for their regional enterance fee. Hmm...who knows. It's something we'll have to wait on I think for accurate information.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Just a note on sponsorship -

Whether or not the amount a team gets from the state is $2600 or $5000, it's a hefty sum of money, and it's 2600 - 5000 less to raise. However, say team A goes to a city council meeting and says "Look, we already have a grant. Here's what we want to do with it, and we'd like to ask for your help with making up the difference."

Even if that money from the state isn't everything, it's a start, and it might make the difference for quite a few teams.

[Tomasz Bania]

OK, I probably totally misunderstood the bill.
Is this strictly for schools or does any school get it, because i'm pretty sure all 700 or so schools will just jump on and if all schools get it, they'll just spend it on their sports. What I found interesting is that it would have to be matched by schools (funding wise) as far as I heard.

Link to proposal:
http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,%...2006_3,00.html

Tomasz Bania