What does your school do for FIRST?

[insomniac4747]

Our school, Nonnewaug High School, decided years ago to cut all funding to us. We currently have no staff members from our school working with us. They do no provide a space for us to work on the robot. We have students from other high schools and from middle schools in town and out of town. Our town and school seem to hate us, but we somehow come out strong, hence the fact that this is our 8th season. Now, THAT is called stickin' it to the MAN! heh, had to say it

[Joshua May]

My team is inbetween the two. As far as funding, we are all privately sponsored, and as far as getting the word out, we're mostly on our own. However, we do get the support of some of the administration, the pricipal's daughter was even on a local FIRST team a few years ago. Also, we get the support of some of the maintenence staff and the industrial tech teacher gives us the woodshop afterschool for work, and the auto shop teacher lends tools. Not really one extreme or the other, though. Our first year there was virtually no support that I saw, we didn't have a teacher, we worked out of a student's garage, and the school administration didn't even have any idea where we worked, but this have changed, thankfully.

[Hokie4Life]

After reading all of the replies, it makes me feel lucky that our team recieves much suport from our school.

The schoolboard built a new middle school 4 years ago, and basicly gave us a building that we can work in. We have 2 classroms and a dedicated shop for our robot, as well as a break room. We recieve much support from our schoolboard, as they gave around $6000 to us to go to regionals and nationals. Our schoolboard has a certain fund of money that comes from vending machines, lunches, etc. to give to groups that go to national competitions, which basicly paid for the regestration.

Also, we get alot of funding from Virginia Tech. We are funded by the Virginia Tech School of Education for $1000+ dollars a year, as well as many other sponsors. Virginia Tech also offers a mentoring program, where Engineers can recieve collage credit for helping our team out. Our team has greatly benifited from these ties.

The schools also do their fair share in helping us out. We draw from four high school in our area, with the robotics class being offered as a vocational, mathmatics, or science credit at each school. This provides a boost to membership in our program.

After reading these posts, I see that our situation is more of the exeption than the norm. But our school is very suportive of our team, startig with our superintendant, who was hevily involved with first, and recognized the good that can come out of cooperation between the school and team.

Thats my $0.02.

[Drake]

Wow, some schools really have it bad.

The first year our school participated, several other high schools(about 5, it was before I started High School) in our district were completely funded for the competition. That was the first year the schools in our district had vending machines, so all of the high schools in our school district were funded, at the very least to one regional and a couple thousand dollars for funding.

Our school district is the area around the Silicon Valley Regional. Every year since, we started in the 2000-2001 school year. Three years later, as our district was phased with budget problems we received less and less, until we received no funding in 2003. We have had Compaq, San Jose State University, and United Defense as our sponsors. Only United Defense has stuck with us. But, a couple of parents provide funding for food, and our mentor digs into his pocket for drinks and food as well. Years before students would provide their own food and drink, but our main mentor got really organized better this year, and we have lots of things to thank for that now

We have two mentors that help us from school. Our main mentor is the technology, and computer science teacher. He has a huge room, with lots of tools and spends so much time with us during build time that he almost becomes estranged from his wife and family. He does most of our fund raising. He is always looking to get support from the school and the district(He is heavily involved in the Teachers union for our school district). Our other mentor from school is our Physics teacher who invest as much time as he can. Although they enjoy helping us, they would both be happy with a stipend for helping us, or at the very least get more attention at school.

Our other mentor this year is an engineer that works for United Defense. He's a great guy that has really helped us out this year. He's really thought us a lot of things, and I can actually say, truthfully, that I learned many new facts and skills this year.

Our original principal a few years ago would acknowledge us, and would encourage people to show up. A few would, and thats what counted, especially considering it was a ten member team up until last year. However, our district has an unfortunate policy that does not allow a principal to remain at the same school for more than 5 years I believe, and he had 8 at ours. So our new principal last year didn't really acknowledge us until she showed up for an hour at the regional. She was appalled that we did not have universal team shirts for everyone, so she really looked around for funding and got us money for shirts, and safety glasses, for everyone on our team from construction company that is putting in new windows throughout the school. She's letting us borrow the school mascot suit as well this year, so watch out for a bulldog at the Silicon Valley regional this year.

I know the district has even tried putting together a FIRST LEGO robotics team at most of the middle schools in our district, but only one actually participates.

We really don't have problems with transportation since the city bus goes from our school to San Jose State University, where the regional is held.

[Kyle Love]

My school does not really support our team much at all. They clear us for regionals and nationals but that's about it. The principal didn't even bother to come to our open house, although a vice principal did. We get more "recognition" from the Kokomo Area Career Center. They help with some of the fabrication and the head of the KACC came to the open house and he is also very much for PLTW (Project Lead The Way). Hopefully, if we win nationals again, the school will finally give us some backing...

[Carll Pallokat]

Since our inception our school has virtually done nothing for us. Oh but how they love the reward of seeing us bring a banner or trophy home. For the last four years we have had to pay to use the school for building the robot. From a high of $1,300 to $716. All of this comes from students hard earned money. The custodians sit in their room and do nothing most of the time while we work. No other organization in our school has to pay. I would like to know if any other teams need to pay to use the school facilities during build time.... Maybe we can straighten it out when we talk to the board the first week in May.

[KTorak]

We have some support, but not a lot (We did get school program of the year from our PTSA). We don't recieive very much money, if any (I don't remember for sure)...We don't even have our own space to work, we use our school auto shop..which means CLEANING every night before we leave and having to keep our poor auto shop teacher there into the wee hours, both of which suck. But as we showed today by finishing Second at GLR, we can still be strong. Hopefully this will get us a few more sponsors and more support for funding. (we unfortudently can't afford a second regional...and i don't even know about our backup parts for nationals.)

[Donut]

Our school gets us buses to and from our regional (30-minutes away) and a van for moving the robot. They let us use a closet and two classrooms, with maybe a few tools that we didn't get ourselves (no workshop or anything like that). Otherwise we get no funding and rarely get recognition from our school, we managed to get one article in the school newspaper about a month ago. Our team just talks to every person we can about robotics and hopes people get interested. We got one of our big school board members to come to our regional though, so maybe things will change.

[smurfgirl]

NOTHING.
No money, no teachers... not even any recognition.
Although they did notice we existed after we won the UTC New England Regional last year (alliance partners 176 and 177). Coincidence? I think not.

[EHaskins]

We haven't gotten much before, but this year we're getting the $6000 to register the team. The school principal does not support the team. We get no recognition from the school. We have been able to get a room and storage at the school.

[Koko Ed]

We don't get any funding from the school and we don't work on the school grounds. We get a bulletin board and their blessing (we get to recruit openly in the auditorium. The supply us teachers and students and they come to the regional). So i guess it's decent support.

[KTorak]

This year, we've gotten more open support than before. We were asked to do a demo at our freshmen orientation (for recruiting purposes) and our administrators were just amazed at it...lol. They also provide us work space/let us use the shops and such. We also have 2 teachers as coaches who get their subs payed for to come with us to competition. However, we get no financial backing.

[AndyB]

-One of our top sponsors
-Kept the old metal shop around for the robotics team after they removed the classes
-Our main advisor allowed us to convert a sub-room of his classroom into the robotics room, where all of that year's parts are kept.
-Gave us a storage space in the basement of the school for past robots and spare parts.
-Kept an emphasis on PLTW courses and recently recieved an award for being a top recognized STEM school by SME of Milwaukee.
-Were very cooperative in allowing us to stay late
-Supplied very awesome janitors who would constantly drop everything to let us in to a classroom, or the robotics room.
-Allowed us to use the library for driver training and practices.

Personally, I think our school has done a great job in keeping our team going.

[JaneYoung]

I've been reading this thread as it has developed and I have a couple of thoughts I'd like to share.
Realizing that we are working with schools, systems, administrations, and cultures from many different places, I would like to think that one way to begin receiving from the schools is to give to the schools. To develop a relationship with the school, the district, the system. Develop it as we would a relationship with our communities and our sponsors. Working at it. Find ways to help, pitch in, contribute, participate as a team and representing the team. If the school is not doing anything to support the team, offer a way to support the school. Not all systems are run smoothly or to our liking, that is true, but it does not diminish in any way, that FIRST robotics teams can and often do find success even in the most difficult of circumstances and situations. An opportunity is always there waiting to be discovered, we just have to look and then see what we can do to help create change.

[Dylan Gramlich]

There is a similar disscussion here http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=45472 which also could be looked into for more information on this subject