The School

[Brant Bowen]

I have a speech do on Wednesday for my speech class and i would appreciate as much feedback i could get from other teams about how well they are supported and recognized by their school.

What all does your school do for your team. Not just as in like giving you money, but providing facilities, stuff having to do with your mentors, the whole nine yards.


How well are you recognized at your school compared to other activities, like sports teams? Do common students at your school know your team exists?

[sanddrag]

I'd say about 2/3 of the school knows that we have a robotics team. Our school provided us with about $3000 last year but it won't be as much this year. The school also provides us with a workroom, all our tools and equipment, display case, and a math teacher. Since our school has no sports teams, we kind of take the place of that. However, the big bucks just aren't rollin' in. You can check out 360 degree views of the school if you like at www.clarkmag.net

[Yan Wang]

Our robotics team isn't even officially part of the school clubs. The school board gave us $3000 when we asked last year, but the other $30000 or so came from Cornell and Borg Warner. Our school doesn't provide us with anything, but a lot of the teachers are interested. They stay after school so we can use the labs. There are about 2-3 teachers who are often with us. Otherwise, the school lets us make announcements on the PA system. That just about tells you how much the school helps us.

[fast frank]

no one knows we have a robotics team even though we are in the top 1% in the country. they don't give us much at all. we decided to go out and rent a warehouse as team and do our work there instead of at the school.

[Gope]

Our school dosent do much for us. I don't think they give us any money( it all comes from our incredible sponsor, Baxter Health Care, and fundraising). We do have a husband and wife team of teachers/mentors that are very dedicated to us, but the school in general dosen't do much....Although they have allowed us to use the gym on occasion for Off-Season tournaments

[Kristina]

I think that our school is pretty supportive of our team. We've gotten $5000 from the school district and the school also donates some money for car rentals, hotel rooms, and our ASB offered to pay for some of the meals when we were traveling. It may not be that much, but they do what they can with the small budget of Cali public schools and its nice to know they care.

Whenever we needed to work afterschool or use the cafeteria for fundraising dinners, etc, our school's been quite accomadating. We also have a lot of suppport from our the "academic assist. principal." She and our physics teacher advisor always travel with our team (even if its Easter Weekend), comes to parent meetings, etc. The faculty's cool too, for our fundraising dinner a lot of them bought tickets even if they couldn't go.

I think a big part of our school support comes from the fact that our robotics team members span diverse crowds with different connections. My friend and I were both on the robotics team and the school newspaper so we had lots of big articles and pictures published front page, go publicity, I think that everyone knows us now! Another guy also does a lot of print shop stuff so he and the print shop helped make all our team shirts free of charge. I was also in ASB so I got some school attire donated to us so we could wear them at competitions and some money donations too.

A lot of people complain that sports took precedence at our school and I guess that's a fair assertation. But I think our robotics team was very fortunate too.

[rbayer]

Our school does almost nothing for us. They don't give us any money, and we don't even do our work there. They won't even give the one Tech-Ed teacher that helps run the team any money! As for being known, most of the school knows we exist, solely because we always have our robot in the entrance-way during Open House, Conferences, etc and are shooting balls at people! It's hard, though, because our Cross-Country, Nordic Skiing, and Basketball teams were all first in state last year, so we don't draw that much attention.

[Ian W.]

my school gives us some money (not too much) and teachers. they also let us do bakesales and such. last year we had a workroom in the school, but these year i've heard that we can't use it cause it's used for two periods of the day by one teacher, and that somehow makes it off limits to us :/. stupid school.

[Mike Schroeder]

Our shool gives the money for the 3 teachers to travel to fla and anywhere we go other than that the school says they cant help the students cause they cannot help individual students

[ChrisH]

We are part of a church-based private school. Our two regional championship banners are hanging in the church foyer. You walk right past them to get from the main entrance to the sanctuary. They are mounted over the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and are the first thing you see when you walk out of the Children's Church. I can't think of a more central location to display them. Virtually everybody passes by them every time they come to the building.

Most of our mentors are also teachers in the school. Of course, they are also parents of our students. The school is very supportive and families enthusiastically support team fundraisers, etc. Our rooting section includes grandparents and little brothers and sisters, sometimes younger than one year old.

The school itself provides no money, but through church or school connections we have always had a place provided to build the robot at no charge to the team. This year we are returning to the power plant work room we used last year. A man in the congregation whose only child (so far) is around a year old, helped us find it last year. I guess he's really thinking ahead. The school also provides vital accounting and administrative services at no charge. We have access to the church's video editing suite, and if we asked we could probably get the recording studio as well.

We only compete as a school in one sport, robotics. Everybody knows about the team and most of our students are on it at some point in their school career, though some are only on for a year. During build season I spend alot of my time at church giving status reports to people who are interested in the team. Most of whom have no other connection to the team.

With support like that, who needs $$$?

ChrisH

[Jeff Waegelin]

Our school acknowledges our existence, but not much else. We can use the building, but if it's outside of school hours and noone else is using the building, we have to pay for it. We use the gym for an OCCRA competition each year, but again, we have to pay for it. We only get about $200 from the school, and we have to beg and/or harass the principal to get it. As for recognition, most students know we have a team, but don't know anything about us. It's a step, but not much.

[sanddrag]

You have to pay to use the school's facilities? That's outragous.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Yep. Something like $20/hour to use the school. We used to have access at all times, but due to our renovations, the shop no longer has a separate alarm system, and our teacher no longer has an exterior door key. Now, we have to pay the exorbitant fee to have a janitor come unlock the door for us and then go watch TV for 8 hours. Some improvements, eh?

[Chris Nowak]

yeah, our school gives us exactly 0. They don't even pay the mentor/teachers extra (unlike sports coaches). Almost none of the school recognizes us at all. And after all this they are forcing us to change our team colors to match the school colors.

[Ian W.]

i just heard that my school doesn't even pay the teachers, and that's why no one wants to do it. sounds like i'm going to the next school board meeting...