Starting New Teams

[Wayne C.]

Here's a point for consideration:

Last spring our team was asked by our corporate sponsor to look into forming other teams in the towns of their regional facilities. The offer was for major funding, a technical crew- the whole shebang. As the teacher advisor and central person on the educational side of our team it was put to me to find a school to become this new team. I called the administrations of several local HS in the appropriate areas and made the offer expecting that they would jump at the deal. My team made presentations at a local college seminar for starting tech teams which included schools in the area. It would literally mean tens of thousands of dollars of support for their schools.
Imagine my surprise when not one of these districts followed up with a call back.
So my question is- do other FIRST teams out there have such problems with schools and school personnel turning down these offers? Out here it looks like people with the motivation to get involved are few and far between!

I would be interested in hearing your views on how to start new teams or how your team originated. And if anybody in the Trenton, NJ/Lawrenceville area is looking to get started......

WC

[Anthony X.]

I know that this is a bit of shameless self-promotion here but I believe its pertinent to this thread.

Our team has had excellent results at recruiting new teams this year with the help of one of our major sponsors. With the backing of the Toronto District School Board, one of the major sponsors of our team and of the new Canadian Regional, new teams in the Toronto area were basically guaranteed that the majority of their costs for their rookie year would be covered.

The TDSB paid for the registration costs to the Canadian Regional of every rookie team that signed up for FIRST this year and gave each of them additional funding to help build their robots. This has been a very effective incentive in recruiting teams. There are now 6 new FIRST teams in the Greater Toronto Area alone with the strong possibility of more joining in the new couple of months. (Six new teams in one city in one year is a lot!)

Where our team came in in all of this was that our Team Coordinator basically started the ball rolling in the creation of the Canadian Regional. Additionally, he has been, for the past five months, actively trying to recruit new teams by meeting with principals from various schools in the Toronto Area. Lastly, our team has held various 'Open House' events where schools were invited to attend presentations describing what FIRST was about. The cumulative effect of all these initiatives have resulted in very strong results.

Anthony.

[Anne Shade]

I am one of the leaders of the Georgia Tech group starting teams in the Atlanta area. We were able to recruit one team last year and are now adding an additional team for this year. Our recruitment effort was also very difficult. We tried letters, emails, and phone calls to area principals and received no answer. We then tried to contact the head of the science department in several schools and received much better responses. This is how we were able to recruit the schools we are working with now. This was only part of the battle for us to then try to convince these teachers that this program is great and that their students grades will not suffer. I think the best way to convince teachers of the benefits of this program is to bring them to competitions and let them see it first hand. It was also difficult for us to get support from the university. Contacting the right individuals at these institutions is not always easy. Our team has a lot of recruitment materials that we have created over the last two years. If you would like some help contacting universities and colleges, it may help to show them a group that has succeeded. Just let me know and I can help you out. Good luck and I hope my ramblings helped somehow.

[jasoni]

Wayne, I think you might want to try an alternative approach to your hunt.

On your list of people to contact about starting a team at a school, I'd put administrators dead last. By and large, from the experience of the 3 teams I've been involved with, it's been an immensely difficult struggle to show administrators "the light". If it's not a sport, and it's not an art, it might as well be criminal behavior, because that's how you're going to be treated.

My advice, approach the school from the ground up. Get the names of teachers in the science and technology departments, and work them. Send them videotapes, call them, meet with them. I think a team will be far more successful if a teacher is the primary motivator rather than the administration.

You might see if some of your students might know students from that high school. That would be a true grass-roots effort.

One other approach, non-administrator oriented, you might want to try, is through the local chamber of commerce. They often have good contacts within a school, and might point you towards a more open-minded administrator or teacher.

And Wayne, is Team 25 planning on coming to our local competition in Mt. Olive in early November? I haven't seen the attendee list yet, but you guys aren't too far away.

[Tonya Scott 476]

I have found it almost impossible.
we have made many attempts, presentations etc. all across Oklahoma, and I don't know if we will have a new team to mentor this year. There are only 3 teams total here.

I think one of the problems is that BEST is here, as well as BOTBALL. When you compare the price, well--that is where the problem lies

BEST--FREE
BOTBALL--$1200
FIRST--$5000-$13000 (if you take in 2 reg, and 1 national)

very hard to push the program when $$ speaks

[Anne Shade]

Because Georgia Tech has been so great to help us start new teams, we have been able to offer to pay for registration to regionals and Nationals to new team we start in the Atlanta area. We also pay for tools and extra robot building fees. We have room here at Tech to build the robots. This kind of incentive for new teams has been part of our success. This is our second year mentoring teams and we already have two teams and 3 high schools involved. My suggestion to you would be to find potential sponsors in the area that would be able to offer these kinds of benefits to teams. Companies in your state that would be willing to cover registration for a new team as well as engineers. Then try to match these up with schools. You can then offer financial help to the schools right from the start. Another idea, which may very well be easier, would be to contact large universities in your area. They have contacts in these companies and may be able to get a group started at their university. If you would like help in this, please feel free to contact me. We have succeded here at Tech and would love to share our success.

[Mike Rush]

This is the perspective of a corporate sponsor. When we started our tean 4 years ago, we went to the three closest schools to our facility. We had a buget for sponsorship approved along with engineering, fabrication, and facility support. Of the three sets of administrators we approached only two said yes... And we had the money!! I dont believe that money is the only issue. Some administrators can't see the forest for the trees even if the tree is falling on them. Well, our last four years have been an outstanding expierence for the students, teachers, engineers, and other corporate personell. I really wonder sometimes if the administrators who said no ever really understood what they missed out on!

[Carolyn Duncan]

Last year was my old high school's rookie year. I belive the idea was dirst proposed to our computer lab specialist, she wasn't really but they had to give her some sort of fancy title. Anyway, anothere good person to track down, if such a person exists at othere schools, is the head of the technology department. The tech dept. was where we built ou robot, and the head of the dept tried to get an animation team together from the CADD classes. It wasn't a realy successful year, but we were low budget. Oh, well. I was there. And now I've moved on to another team.