College Team Help!

[Shannon Schnepp]

I am the Director of the Westside Boiler Invasion (#461) which I, with the help of many people at Purdue University, started 2 years ago. Our team is completely run by the college students and 2 integral high school teachers, with occasional help from 1 ME prof. and some parents. It is definitely not an easy task and it requires people who love the program enough that they will make sure it will work...especially when those exams come rolling around. We have been pretty successful in the last couple of years and it is all due to the people involved.
The best advice I can give is to be persistent in making sure the professors, deans, companies, and communities are involved. Talk to the Dean's...they will be one of your best resources. You probably won't be able to get all of the money from the university due to the large budget (and if you can...let me know how you did it). We have had luck getting support from the individual schools within the Schools of Engineering, and the Dean supports us, just not financially. Overall, we only get about $5000 from Purdue which means major fundraising from the community. We send out proposals every year (which I can share if anyone is interested), but the thing that works best is getting into a company and giving presentations to the top management. In order to get money, especially from people who've never heard of the program, takes extreme persistence or you'll never get through the red tape. It helps a lot if you know someone at the company such as a friend or parent of one of the high school kids. Also, the Dean's office has a huge list of companies that normally donate to the university and are looking for certain organizations to donate to, this is a great list to get a hold of.
As far as a high school goes, talk to the technology, science, and math teachers. It helps if you have letters from teachers who are in FIRST (from your old team perhaps) so they can understand how this can impact thier students. Also make it clear how much time this will take, you don't want someone to make a commitment and not be able to go through with it. As far as getting the students involved, give an all school presentation to get them interested. If you have a robot from one of your schools use it, that will grab thier attention (we were able to use the TechnoKats'...thanks Andy!) And the best way to get them is to share your own personal experience with them. (FIRST has a great company recruiting video that shows FIRST at it's finest)
The best way to get people from companies, the university, and students excited and involved? Take them to a competition!!!! Even if it's one of the small ones being held this summer and fall!!! They will get hooked!
Overall, you just need to make sure you have committed people. It's hard to balance college and FIRST, which you will learn all too soon, and to tell you the truth most of the main people involve are taking more than 4 years because of it...but it's all worth it. Make sure you can move to the other side of the fence, in order to get respect from the high school students you have to act like you're a college student. It's a really awesome experience and a wonderful way to give back. And when the students thank you, all your effort and time is well worth it. And Matt is definitely right, you need a leader who will do everything that's needed to make the team successful. Remember, you're going to make mistakes, but you just need to learn from them and move on. I'm sure I've forgotten something but I think I've taken up enough space. I have a lot of info about starting a team so if anyone wants some more info you can email at schnepsm@purdue.edu. Good luck!!!

Shannon Schnepp
Purdue University
Westside Boiler Invasion, Director