Big Plans for 09-10?

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Boydean

Just the other day I was thinking, "What would it take to get a FLL team in every elementary/middle school in area by the 2010 season." I then became extremely motivated that I started a spreed sheet to cover all what it would take.

I'm going to break off a little bit and go back to the collaboration part.
How about teams start collaborating more. You hear about stories of teams going to competitions with non-functional robots or the such and basically every team at the regional lends a helping hand. But what about the bigger picture? We all know that we want FIRST to grow in a steady manner without losing any teams in the process, what about joining together to make this happen.

Just an idea, what if every team in each state contact one another and make one big goal to work on together. Whether it be present more to state government, or gaining larger sponsorships to start new teams. Something that just one or two teams couldn't do alone, but with the help of 6 or more teams would be able to make a huge dent in their state, if they work together. 1 goal that when accomplished would greatly benefit FIRST in that state.

Since we started NEOFRA (Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance) in 2007, member teams have helped start 3 new FRC teams (including one this year), 1 FTC, and 4 FLL teams. The teams have learned a lot about the best practices of other area teams, many of which they've been able to apply to their own programs.

Through our partnership, we have also been able to facilitate outreach to another outside our region. Since 48 does not build backup robots, we would not have had a robot to loan to an up and coming Dayton FRC team at the IRI Pre Rookie Challenge had 379 not offered theirs and one of their mentors to go with us and help out.

In the past, we'd all remain on our little team islands, scattered across the local landscape, where the horrid economy, local backwards politics, and other "real world" predators would have been more easily able to consume and destroy us. Now we stick together, work harder, and help each other out whenever possible, and we have more confidence that we can survive in the middle of these difficult times.

Collaboration works. DO IT.