How much does your school support your FIRST Team?

[onecoolc]

Our team doesn't really get school recognition. We've used our 'bot a couple times during school assemblies, but the school is quite frankly more interested in sports. The administration doesn't quite understand the joys of robotics, except a few choice teacher's who support us and think we're a "cool idea". We get no monetary support what so ever.

What we DO have, and what we are INSANELY LUCKY to have, is an amazing mentor/coach who also happens to be be the robotics teacher at the school.

Sal puts in countless hours of his own, and during build season his class room and metal shop basically become our headquarters. This is to the point that at the end of the day he has to remind us, "Hey, I teach a class in here, too! Clean up after yourselves a bit." But because Sal puts so much time into FRC, we can usually stay at the shop until late hours of the night (being nine, ten, my-wife-just-called-you-have-to-leave), and we would never be able to do this without his commitment.

Sal does everything he can to get us school recognition. The school doesn't really like it, but after a year and a half of rallying for it Sal got it so we can get a Varsity Letter in Robotics! It's awesome.