College FIRST Programs

[Nica F.]

Hi Everyone!
I was wondering what colleges/universities have FIRST programs.

If you are a student at this University, does your school mentor FLL, FTC, FRC or all of them? If there are websites for the program that would be highly appreciated as well!

(I searched the forums all day and couldn't exactly find what I wanted hence the new thread.)

Thanks in advance!

[Graham Donaldson]

Nica,

I'm a freshman at Drexel so I don't know completely what we have, but we do host the Philly regional and we're starting a college Vex team. Not sure what we do with mentoring, but I know I want to sometime in the future (i.e. not freshman year). Hope this helps - if anyone has questions feel free to contact me. (And if I'm wrong, correct me).

Graham

[RaMoore]

Texas Tech University is the primary sponsor for FRC1817, we also provide the technical support for WT BEST as well as GEAR and various other LEGO based programs and summer camps.

There is currently no substantial FLL or FTC presence in West Texas (and this isn't likely to change).

Along with our studies and research this keeps us pretty darn busy... so no time for VEX, though it looks like it'd be a ton of fun!

We don't have a website for this part of our program, however it sounds like it would be a good idea to make one now that you bring it up.

[EricLeifermann]

Michigan Technological University, way up in the UP of Michigan mentors 3 local FRC teams and many FLL teams in the area as well.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Kettering sponsors and houses 1506. It also hosts a Michigan District, Regional Kickoff, and an off season event. They sponsor at least one FLL team. In addition to this they have students mentoring several other teams, 27,33,397, 862, and 2337 (just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head) I think that 494/70 is also sponsored by Kettering. (could a Martian confirm this?)

Additionally the FIRST Ambassador program is aimed at recruiting students specifically from FRC teams by having them talk to FRC Alumni who are at Kettering. This program played a part in the fact that our 20% of our 2009 incoming class had been involved in FIRST.

[James Dowd]

At the University of Michigan there is an ever-improving program presently run by Lisa Perez that works with a local high school, and they have continued to build a financial relationship with various parts of the University and a local community college as well...

[jwfoss]

Here at Clarkson University we are involved in highly involved with FIRST.

This year we started a Learning Living Community (LLC) of freshman and sophomores. They have their own floor on campus and do service hours for mentoring and upperclassman hold office hours to help them with FIRST related, personal, and class issues.

Fall Semester
- Work on off season projects with FRC229
- On site/Remote Mentor +15 Regional FLL Teams
- On site/Remote Mentor +15 Regional FTC Teams
- We hold an Official FLL and FTC Competition on Campus

Spring Semester
- We Mentor FRC229 Division by Zero

If you have any other questions just contact someone on the team and we will be more than happy to share information.

[Chris is me]

Renssalear Polytechnic (RPI) sponsors several FIRST teams, and apparently if you're in the right classes and programs, students are encouraged to mentor several of them. It's not the easiest thing in the world to find out how to do but it can be done at RPI, though they (rightfully) encourage you to wait until sophomore year to do so.

Marquette University sponsors a few robotics teams, including 1714 and 1732.

[Chuck Glick]

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

Nica,

I'm a freshman at Drexel so I don't know completely what we have, but we do host the Philly regional and we're starting a college Vex team. Not sure what we do with mentoring, but I know I want to sometime in the future (i.e. not freshman year). Hope this helps - if anyone has questions feel free to contact me. (And if I'm wrong, correct me).

Graham

Graham is correct that we do host the Philly Regional as well as a new college VRC team here at Drexel. Also, new this year is the FIRST Alumni @ Drexel group. This group is currently in the beta stage and we are trying to figure out ways we can use it. We are currently working with FIRST so in the not too distant future Drexel will be a main sponsor of a inner city school here in Philadelphia.

[qnetjoe]

The Colorado School of Mines has a FIRST Program - they mentor Team 2859 and host both FLL and FTC tournements. You can even get class credit for mentoring an FRC team.

[DavidGitz]

Southern Illinois University - Carbondale mentors FRC Team #2219, The MegaHurts.

[Jonathan Norris]

Almost two years ago I got together a group of about 10 my friends who were all FIRST alumni (mostly from teams 610, 771, 1114) with the idea of starting a FIRST team through our university, Queen's University. Queen's is one of the top Engineering schools in Canada and has always attracted a large contingent of FIRST students every year, this year I would estimate probably 10-15 new FIRST alumni.

We approached the department and received support for starting a FRC team with a local high school that is actually right on campus (really convenient). We formed K-Botics team 2809 with K.C.V.I. the high school on campus last year and had a very sucessful rookie season, winning rookie all star in Toronto, and Rookie High Seed on Curie. Its been a great collaboration so far, we are quickly becoming the Applied Science (engineering) department main outreach program, being featured in many publications.

For our Applied Science department it makes economic sense to support us, our team is an advertising tool to entice some of the most inspired engineering undergraduates to study at Queen's. Last year alone 6 of our 7 graduates went on to study science or engineering, and 5 are studying Engineering at Queen's. That doesn't account for students from other teams that are now going to be part of our mentoring program this year. For the Department they can directly link the funds they support the team with the funds they receive from incoming FIRST alumni as student tuition.

It will be interesting to see if the cycle of new FIRST alumni coming to Queen's will sustain the team. We have other mentors, like teachers from the high school, executives from our partner company Transformix, and other local mentors to try and keep the team running at a high level every year. But for us there will be a new group of young mentors every year just like there is a new group of young students every year, its an interesting challenge that will see our team evolve over the years.

We have been working on growing FLL in the area, helping to double FLL in the area to about 10 teams. This has came from our collaboration with the powerhouse FLL team the W.A.F.F.L.E.S who are an amazing group of local home schooled students, a couple of whom have already joined our FRC team. A couple weeks ago we ran a practice FLL tournament for local teams and should be able to run a full FLL tournament next year.

I personally think a University can be a great partner in an FIRST program, especially when its powered by a passionate group of University students who understand FIRST. For us it has worked out great because most of the FIRST teams in Canada are based in southern Ontario, and most of those students end up attending a handful of engineering schools in Ontario. Hopefully there are more situations like ours where a group of FIRST Alumni can start FIRST teams with the support of Universities.

If anyone ever needs advice on how to start a FIRST team at a University or College shoot me an email and I would be willing to help out.

[CHapstack]

One of 281's sponsors is Greenville Technical College. Greenville Tech provides us with shop space and a few mentors as well. The only way a Greenville Tech student can actually help out with the FRC team is by taking a senior project class in the engineering technology department.

Each year, Greenville Tech sponsors a pre-ship date scrimmage for all FRC teams in South Carolina. They build a full-size field and everything.

[mathking]

The Ohio State University has a FIRST Program (www.osufirst.org) and they mentor 677, 1014 and 1317. This year they are helping a new venture, the Central Ohio Robotics Initiative and have offered mentors to some new and young teams in central Ohio. OSU has been mentoring FIRST for quite a while (they began with team 128) now and it has been a great benefit to our team members over the years. Quite a few of our team members have gone on to mentor FRC and/or FLL teams while in college, and many cite the example set by their mentors from OSU.

[Vikesrock]

Thanks to some initiative from 1675 alum Renee Becker we are getting a FIRST group going here at the University of Minnesota.

Currently we only have a handful of members and have been focusing on FRC, but I believe the plan is to work with FLL also. If FTC starts to sprout enough teams in the area, or if we have enough resources to help start the teams ourselves that may happen somewhere down the line as well.

The University also hosts a number of FRC events such as kickoff, 2 regionals, and Minnesota Splash (FRC workshop day), and has previously hosted various FLL events.