Sustainability In FRC Teams

[J93Wagner]

I have to say this to the CD community, kudos to you for recognizing a strong need that will truly need to be addressed soon.

"And where there is a will, there is a way!" And since we obviously have a will, we WILL come up with a solution to strengthen our collective selves.

[mplanchard]

Hi Jane
Good topic. I have found over the past 5 years the demand for teams to ask for help has been an exponential function. I used to go to every team that asked for a SolidWorks workshop from the Pink Flamingos (FLL) to the FRC teams in New England. Even my colleagues have pitched in. But when the number got too large we had to think of something else that was more sustainable from a company point of view.

That is why we decided to create video tutorials www.SolidWorks.com/robotics
Certainly video is not live - but it is a start and something to do in the off season to get stronger. It also allows us to help out our customers that mentor not only FIRST teams but also a variety of other robot competitions worldwide.

Luckily most people I work with are engineers and many volunteer at events and with teams. Also our user group network has been helpful www.swugn.org. to many FIRST teams. Still demand exceeds the need.

Marie

[RoboMom]

FIRST website has a category titled "Team Sustainability" under FRC resources. http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nt.aspx?id=478

Needs some updating.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by mplanchard

Hi Jane
Good topic. I have found over the past 5 years the demand for teams to ask for help has been an exponential function. I used to go to every team that asked for a SolidWorks workshop from the Pink Flamingos (FLL) to the FRC teams in New England. Even my colleagues have pitched in. But when the number got too large we had to think of something else that was more sustainable from a company point of view.

That is why we decided to create video tutorials www.SolidWorks.com/robotics
Certainly video is not live - but it is a start and something to do in the off season to get stronger. It also allows us to help out our customers that mentor not only FIRST teams but also a variety of other robot competitions worldwide.

Luckily most people I work with are engineers and many volunteer at events and with teams. Also our user group network has been helpful www.swugn.org. to many FIRST teams. Still demand exceeds the need.

Marie

This is a very cool post coming from the viewpoint of one of the companies that 'gets' FIRST. It would be helpful to see more of these viewpoints and to understand them and also, for sponsors and potential sponsors to see and think of ways to help with the sustainability issues. Very cool, Marie. Thank you!

--
Here's some questions regarding alumni. As Ed has pointed out - instability can occur for various reasons that he has mentioned and for other reasons as well. "Who will bear the torch for the students once they graduate?" How are teams and their alumni keeping the alumni involved and interested in the continual growth and development of the team? There are so many areas that alumni can help in just by being a felt presence of support for the current team. How can they help with the sustainability areas for their team and for teams in areas where they now reside? How can they be made or encouraged to understand that they are valuable still?

Jane

[Bertman]

A couple of thoughts. When students graduate from high school they move onto a new segment of their lives. College, career, marriage, family, military service, whatever; which usually leaves little time for things like FIRST. I think it is more realistic to expect to see them reappear 5 or 6 years after college. Which is a good thing in that FIRST has grown to the point that we take it for granted that it will be around in 5 years.

Another under the fund raising flag is the proportional relationship between team growth, number of teams in an area, and the size of the pie that the teams are trying to slice up. Or in other words in a small or medium sized city there is a finite number of business and resources for teams to approach for sponsorship. As the number of teams in a given area increases the slice of the pie for each team can get smaller and some teams will be squeezed out if they do not put the same effort into fund raising as other teams. Like it or not, I believe this to be a truth, and there are lessons to be learned here also.
my $.02

[catsylve]

Jane,

I can't thank you enough for starting this particular post. This issue is so critical to the survivability of FIRST in general. We have been forced over the last year to really look at our team and deterrnine what we need to do to survive from almost all of the aspects I have seen all of you write about.

All of the comments that I have seen point to difficulties that evolve as a team evolves. Sometimes it is funding disappearing, but when the team solves those problems, it may the illness or burnout of a key mentor. While it would be nice if FIRST could present us with solutions to those problems, FIRST is evolving as we do. I don't think that they have the facilities and experience that the teams have at this point.

Some of the programs that our team is working hard on developing include a mentor training program to help the burnout and mentor loss issues, diversification of funding for team financial stability, team administration structure to support the coaches and mentors and school support to keep to keep the team in touch with the community and promote FIRST. I am sure we are just scratching the surface.

Thanks again Jane. It really is nice to know that all the teams deal with many of the same issues. Hopefully we will help each other to some real solutions.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by catsylve

While it would be nice if FIRST could present us with solutions to those problems, FIRST is evolving as we do. I don't think that they have the facilities and experience that the teams have at this point.

Hm, this is a good point. I've read different posts over the years that skirt or touch on this thought but I've never seen it phrased so well, particularly, "I don't think that they have the facilities and experience that the teams have at this point." Perhaps they don't have the stability or ability to maintain the momentum for moving forward with this ever expanding growing program in a manner that helps sustain the ever expanding growth of the teams. Having new folks in key positions may provide opportunities to address the concerns and robust healthiness of the program, overall.

It's good to see you posting.
Jane

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

This is a very cool post coming from the viewpoint of one of the companies that 'gets' FIRST. It would be helpful to see more of these viewpoints and to understand them and also, for sponsors and potential sponsors to see and think of ways to help with the sustainability issues. Very cool, Marie. Thank you!

--
Here's some questions regarding alumni. As Ed has pointed out - instability can occur for various reasons that he has mentioned and for other reasons as well. "Who will bear the torch for the students once they graduate?" How are teams and their alumni keeping the alumni involved and interested in the continual growth and development of the team? There are so many areas that alumni can help in just by being a felt presence of support for the current team. How can they help with the sustainability areas for their team and for teams in areas where they now reside? How can they be made or encouraged to understand that they are valuable still?

Jane

As one of those alumni who has graduated, I'm helping to start a rookie team in my local community along with a coach from another FIRST team. I could have stayed with my current team, but there wasn't a need. They already have several coaches and a few alumni who pop in and out, but they still have a need as no FIRST team is ever perfect or can ever be perfect. I felt the need greater in the rookie team than in my team, which is true as it is currently just me and the coach and 12 students.

I hope we can create a successful team, I already see how people say rookie teams have it hard.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I hope we can create a successful team, I already see how people say rookie teams have it hard.

In my opinion, a key to sustainability and to growing a successful team, is experience. You are bringing that (along with inspiration, enthusiasm, and wisdom) to the new team. That's very cool.

Have fun and enjoy this new experience,
Jane

[JesseK]

I can't speak for other local teams, yet after having more fun at an off-season event than we've ever had during a competition season event (from a holistic perspective) our new strategy seems to be register the $6k for 1 official event and get in the lottery for championships. NOT planning to go to St Louis and then winning a spot means we pay 30-60% more just because we didn't reserve transportation/hoteling far in advance.

If we don't make it to St Louis, then we will gladly attend 2-3 off-season events with the money we would have spent on the Championships. It has become very apparent to us that to spread FIRST's message at any accelerated rate is to do so at our own team's detriment in the form of sponsorship dollars that are spread very thin. So this year we will do more with less, for our own school's students (for once).

What kind of plan can FIRST enact to increase the amount of students without severely increasing the amount of burden upon the current mentors of a team (i.e. fundraising)? We all need to work on finding an answer. We all need to figure out how to keep from spending 25.3 million dollars on FRC every year. Right now FIRST incurs a cost of ~$600 per student (~$15k per team) just for a team to get a KOP and go to one regional (of which the team pays $6k). This is according to FIRST's 2009 annual report.

What can we do in addition to FIRST's current objectives (2-day events, MI model, etc) to increase quality while (at a minimum) maintaining costs? Sell light bulbs? Fund raise by recycling? Reduce the NFL-wannabe-ness of Regional events (i.e. hold higher quantity of smaller events in inexpensive venues culminating in REAL super bowls)? Should we agree to raise the bar of entry to a minimum amount of students per team? Or should we craft and enact programs to give incentives for teams in saturated areas to consolidate?

I do not believe my current FRC team will exist in 5 years unless the over-arching FRC model changes. Of course given that I didn't know Jack 5 years ago, who knows what I know now.

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Schools think nothing of building a track, a soccer field, a baseball field, and a football field. Bleachers, lights, and then maintaining all that year round. In addition they eat a huge chunk of teams expenses (travel, equipment). Schools are the "Angel" investor in terms of sports. That's why so-called "pay to play" is still so inexpensive. Selling this sport to the schools and getting their decision-makers (the union leadership and the administration) to buy-in should be a huge focus.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

One thing I have to ask, why the willingness to be the "Angel" investor for sports but, in many cases, not for robotics? What do sports provide that FIRST doesn't and how do we need to change to provide that.

Money. Sports bring in money. People PAY to watch the football games/basketball games etc. Alumni donate because their high school made it to state. Robotics doesn't bring in money-not to the school, atleast. You can't compare building a new football stadium to spending that 50k on a team because the football stadium, in theory (atleast), brings in money.

Originally Posted by synth3tk

I think what's trying to be said, is that while FIRST wants to have a team in every school (which is an acceptable goal), that will never happen if they don't make at least an effort to help some of the teams that are in need, since there are teams continually dropping while FIRST focuses on starting new teams. Of course, there may never be a year where no teams leave the program, but you should at least try to retain the ones that can be helped.

Originally Posted by Bertman

Another under the fund raising flag is the proportional relationship between team growth, number of teams in an area, and the size of the pie that the teams are trying to slice up. Or in other words in a small or medium sized city there is a finite number of business and resources for teams to approach for sponsorship. As the number of teams in a given area increases the slice of the pie for each team can get smaller and some teams will be squeezed out if they do not put the same effort into fund raising as other teams. Like it or not, I believe this to be a truth, and there are lessons to be learned here also.

Why is everyone so insistant that having a team in every highschool means every highschool has its own team? Having a team in every highschool is totally plausible. Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has atleast 20 high schools. If MPS had five or six FRC teams, we could cover all the highschools. How? By having one team be composed of multiple schools. There are a couple teams I know of that do this: MOE (365), More Robotics (1714), UPS (1675), CORE Robotics (2062), and I'm sure there are more.

The second quote supports my idea of combining schools (and maybe even teams). If two struggling teams with 7 kids and 7k combine, they have 14k and 14 kids (numbers are arbitrary). If you combine the three local schools of smallsville, state; then you have only one group asking the local businesses for money.

Just my thoughts, a little surprised no one else said that yet...

[J93Wagner]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

Why is everyone so insistant that having a team in every highschool means every highschool has its own team? Having a team in every highschool is totally plausible. Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has atleast 20 high schools. If MPS had five or six FRC teams, we could cover all the highschools. How? By having one team be composed of multiple schools. There are a couple teams I know of that do this: MOE (365), More Robotics (1714), UPS (1675), CORE Robotics (2062), and I'm sure there are more.

The second quote supports my idea of combining schools (and maybe even teams). If two struggling teams with 7 kids and 7k combine, they have 14k and 14 kids (numbers are arbitrary). If you combine the three local schools of smallsville, state; then you have only one group asking the local businesses for money.

Personally, I agree with you. It is a very good way to get around the worst things that would really get in the way of an effective and sustainable team. Team 93 also does this and we've had some success over the years.

[DEVIL'S ADVOCATE]However, but there is a problem you may have not noticed. Your effective presence at your main school becomes concentrated there, which has happened to N.A.C. Team 93 (my team). So in reality, you are really only effectively covering one school, not three. Why?

It comes down to word of mouth and logistics. Word of mouth is a problem because, let's face it, the people most likely to find FIRST are the friends of FIRSTer's. To circumvent this, a lot of communications and demos to spread the word around those other schools would have to done.

How does logistics come into play? Well, when most kids are freshmen, the time they are most likely to find out about and join FIRST, they probably don't have reliable transportation to and from your main location unless you figure something out.

Both problems are workable, but it requires a lot of extra work and even then not everyone who would love to will actually be able to participate. [/DEVIL'S ADVOCATE]

Point is, it isn't a perfect solution, although it is good. So a decision about which path would be taken would have to be made in each circumstance that would work the best for that particular school or group of schools.

[Brandon_L]

Id just like to throw this in:

Our team has always been a one event team, which means about $5,000 for entry. All our parts were from our own old abandoned auto shop. That means we paid exactly the minimum every year. We had the NASA grant for 3 years, and no longer do. We are having SO much trouble getting just the 5,000 and whenever I read something like "Oh, our team just fell short of our $30,000 goal " I'm not gonna lie, it somewhat angers me.

I don't blame anyone specifically. I think the cause is being babied by NASA for all three years, then just being dumped on our own. I think the NASA grant is great in the short run, but ruins a team in the long run. I think what should be done is some sort of program from FIRST or anywhere really. Not a program that just gives the teams money, but one that shows them how to. How to get sponsors and host SUCCESSFUL fundraisers (which has eluded us).

Were at about ~$3,500 right now and have to I believe December 3rd to get 1,500. We had $1,000 left over from last years NASA grant and what little we did earn, $2,000 from the township, and the meek 500 we earned from September until now. I have major doubts we'll even be a team this year.

And it doesn't help coming from a school where were looked at as a "club" and no one knows what we really are and refuse to even go to one meeting. We handed out over 700 fliers for a pizza night at a place that donated %20 and we got $100, which we think most of was just donated from the pizza place out of pity.

</rant>

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Id just like to throw this in:

Our team has always been a one event team, which means about $5,000 for entry. All our parts were from our own old abandoned auto shop. That means we paid exactly the minimum every year. We had the NASA grant for 3 years, and no longer do. We are having SO much trouble getting just the 5,000 and whenever I read something like "Oh, our team just fell short of our $30,000 goal " I'm not gonna lie, it somewhat angers me.

What exactly do you mean by the last line?

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

What exactly do you mean by the last line?

Nothing to the other teams, I just get mixed emotions of "HOW?!?!?" and "Why can't we do that? Whats wrong with us?" and 200 other things go through my mind