Current Districts Map. Who is next?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I think this is ridiculous. I'm certainly not a proponent of "expand at all cost" or measuring program health by team quantity, but suggesting to combine existing and sustaining teams for the sake of reducing headcount is absurd.

In certain scenarios it may work out beneficially (especially for teams that are currently floundering), but to use it as a blanket statement is far fetched. The vast majority of teams operate in a school-based system for a reason. While there are plenty of success stories outside of that system, don't interpret that to mean that any team can break away from their school and survive. Once you start merging teams, you're breaking that school-based system. You're forcing teams to haggle with logistics (student transportation/liability/meeting times/recruitment/funding/etc) that they wouldn't have to otherwise. In many cases, interested students may not be able to participate in a function that requires them to be transported off campus or meet outside of traditional afterschool hours.

In other words, what good is creating "sustaining" teams if you reduce the capacity for those teams to positively impact their students and community?

I've never found the One School One Team model to be better than the One Team One Community model. Would it be optimal? Possibly, I don't have anything but anecdotal data on the benefits or drawbacks of that model (and, to my knowledge there's nothing BUT anecdotal knowledge out there, if I'm wrong send me the study)

I proposed this culling partially in jest but mostly because I wanted to get folks talking about the idea of merging teams to increase sustainability, student impact, and community impact.

Let's talk about the hierarchy of needs for teams.

1. Build Robot
2. Build functional Robot
3. Build reliable Robot
4. Build elimination caliber Robot
5. Do other stuff a team should do

If two teams are both sitting at level 1, maybe combining their resources could get them to 2 or 3... which, as someone who has been at level 1 before, is substantially less sucky.

It just seems like a bad situation where we incentivize folks to grow teams but we don't really seem to care if the teams are inspiring students and communities. I've said it before but a failed team is worse than never having had a team there.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I've never found the One School One Team model to be better than the One Team One Community model...

Let's talk about the hierarchy of needs for teams.

1. Build Robot
2. Build functional Robot
3. Build reliable Robot
4. Build elimination caliber Robot
5. Do other stuff a team should do

"Attend a competition" has to be somewhere in there. A school-sponsored team usually has a much easier time getting permission from the school for students to do that.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I've said it before but a failed team is worse than never having had a team there.

That's one opinion. Others might be "a failed team at least raises awareness that the program exists" or "a failed team provides a starting point for doing it again but better".

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I've never found the One School One Team model to be better than the One Team One Community model. Would it be optimal? Possibly, I don't have anything but anecdotal data on the benefits or drawbacks of that model (and, to my knowledge there's nothing BUT anecdotal knowledge out there, if I'm wrong send me the study)

I proposed this culling partially in jest but mostly because I wanted to get folks talking about the idea of merging teams to increase sustainability, student impact, and community impact.

Let's talk about the hierarchy of needs for teams.

1. Build Robot
2. Build functional Robot
3. Build reliable Robot
4. Build elimination caliber Robot
5. Do other stuff a team should do

If two teams are both sitting at level 1, maybe combining their resources could get them to 2 or 3... which, as someone who has been at level 1 before, is substantially less sucky.

It just seems like a bad situation where we incentivize folks to grow teams but we don't really seem to care if the teams are inspiring students and communities. I've said it before but a failed team is worse than never having had a team there.

Combining teams is one solution for individual team sustainability problems, but not the solution. There are certainly situations where two geographically similar teams could benefit from merging... But there are a lot more situations where the benefit simply wouldn't be there.

Every team facing sustainability issues needs to sit down and do an honest assessment of the problem. What would give them the biggest boost? For some teams, it may be financial. Others may need to find more mentors. Some are having difficulty with recruitment, or with getting kids who sign up to be able to show up.

The solution any team finds for their sustainability problem could be radically different from other teams. Maybe one team look through 20 year old yearbooks from their school, finds a successful graduate, and convinced him or her to donate. Another may increase the number of demos they do at local businesses with a tailored sales pitch for new mentors. A third may realize they need to work on changing their public image within the school, or increase awareness of the team among their peers. A fourth may need to change their meeting times to stop conflicting with something else popular at the school, or change their location so more students can get to the meetings.

And yes, some may realize that the support they can get from their student body and community isn't really enough to maintain the team, but could work out great by merging with another nearby team going through similar problems.

Any solution to sustainability issues needs to be tailored to each specific team. There is no "one size fits all" solution.

Also, I personally don't agree with your "hierarchy of needs". Every team is going to develop their own goals and desires. For some, the goal may not be to build a competitive robot... It may simply be to increase graduation rate and scholastic achievement at their school. Or their goal may be more personal, geared towards individual inspiration (winning helps, but it's not required to inspire a kid!). They may have a goal to give every student a year working in a different part of the team so they get a well rounded exposure to different fields of engineering and business. The point behind FIRST is that the competition is not the goal, it's the mechanism used to help you reach your goal. I've seen teams that have never done well on the field reach and inspire their students, and they are still going strong after doing that for 10 years.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

"Attend a competition" has to be somewhere in there. A school-sponsored team usually has a much easier time getting permission from the school for students to do that.



That's one opinion. Others might be "a failed team at least raises awareness that the program exists" or "a failed team provides a starting point for doing it again but better".

I assumed that was included in building the robot, I guess I could replace the word Build with Field but that's just nitpicking. The point is, if two teams are underperforming because they don't have the manpower and are burning their mentors out it's bad. If the teams are close together it might offset the increased logistical issues to merge them.


A failed team reinforces "STEM is too hard" that we're trying to fight.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Let's talk about the hierarchy of needs for teams.

1. Build Robot
2. Build functional Robot
3. Build reliable Robot
4. Build elimination caliber Robot
5. Do other stuff a team should do

That hierarchy is great for you. Glad you shared your experience.
Please don't assume that what works for your team works for all teams (seems like I've seen that on these message boards before...?).

Our current team hierarchy
1. Develop student skill sets
2. Create awareness of opportunities beyond high school
3. Build a Team
4. Create community awareness of team & program
5. Post snarky responses on Chief Delphi

The robot, and any successes from it, are byproducts of these Needs.

Edit: Why is "STEM is too hard" a bad thing?

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

That's one opinion. Others might be "a failed team at least raises awareness that the program exists" or "a failed team provides a starting point for doing it again but better".

In my experience (yay more anecdotal evidence), the schools/communities that resist starting an FRC team the most are schools that already had a team who failed and died out.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I've never found the One School One Team model to be better than the One Team One Community model. Would it be optimal? Possibly, I don't have anything but anecdotal data on the benefits or drawbacks of that model (and, to my knowledge there's nothing BUT anecdotal knowledge out there, if I'm wrong send me the study)

I'm not arguing that a school-based system is the ideal solution, only that is the most practical for the most teams. Sure, as the FIRST community we can work towards other solutions that are more beneficial to FRC teams and FIRST's missions, however that's a larger undertaking. The school-based solution solves a great many issues for many FRC teams, and sticking with it is frequently the path of least resistance. Having to fight upstream to form a multi-school or community team may end up jeopardizing team stability and sustainability in many instances.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The point is, if two teams are underperforming because they don't have the manpower and are burning their mentors out it's bad. If the teams are close together it might offset the increased logistical issues to merge them.

Are you merely forgetting about the option for nearby teams to collaborate without actually merging, or did you consider and reject that possibility?

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

A failed team reinforces "STEM is too hard" that we're trying to fight.

You might be trying to fight the phrase "STEM is too hard", but I don't think I've ever heard anyone else give that as a motivation. To the contrary, FIRST is explicitly advertised as "the hardest fun you'll ever have."

I also don't think a team that "fails" is going to make people think that the problem is how difficult STEM is. I only have more than cursory knowledge of a few lapsed teams, but the overwhelming reasons for their "failure" as a team were a lack of funds or mentoring, not a lack of easy tasks.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

"
That's one opinion. Others might be "a failed team at least raises awareness that the program exists" or "a failed team provides a starting point for doing it again but better".

This is what happened with Team 1257. The team was originally established in 2004, disbanded in 2006 after losing many core members. The team was reinstated with completely new members in the 2008-2009 season. After a tough few years, we've been able to learn from the mistakes of the 2006 team to create the sustainable program we have today.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You might be trying to fight the phrase "STEM is too hard", but I don't think I've ever heard anyone else give that as a motivation. To the contrary, FIRST is explicitly advertised as "the hardest fun you'll ever have."

I also don't think a team that "fails" is going to make people think that the problem is how difficult STEM is. I only have more than cursory knowledge of a few lapsed teams, but the overwhelming reasons for their "failure" as a team were a lack of funds or mentoring, not a lack of easy tasks.

I don't think anyone would disagree that doing STEM in general or robotics specifically is difficult. The issue isn't with people realizing robotics is hard, it's with using the phrase "STEM is too hard (for me)" to never even try the program. One of the biggest benefits a FIRST team has for participants (in my humble opinion) is giving students with technical aptitude an impetus to grow interpersonal skills and giving students with high interpersonal aptitudes a better understanding of STEm fields and why they're important.

Now feel free to ignore this last part, but my first day of courses was today and my algorithms and data structures professor had a fantastic thought that I think is relevant here (I'm slightly paraphrasing). She said: "I used to be of the opinion that education could be fun and exciting. Now I realize that education is hard. Education isn't easy, but it can be engaging and rewarding." Replace education with STEM (or add it to the front) and I think this is highly relevant to robotics. One of the greatest things I learned from this program is that learning technical skills is almost always very difficult, but that that was not a reason not to try.

FIRST is about creating a world where scientists and engineers are as celebrated as athletes and pop stars-- part of this is helping the world realize that while yes, STEM is hard, it is not "too hard" to understand the applications and benefits.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

One of the greatest things I learned from this program is that learning technical skills is almost always very difficult, but that that was not a reason not to try.

As JFK said at Rice University, about 53 years ago, many great things are worth doing because they are hard. Why does Rice play Texas? Why did we choose to go to the moon?

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

As JFK said at Rice University, about 53 years ago, many great things are worth doing because they are hard. Why does Rice play Texas? Why did we choose to go to the moon?

Well...Rice plays Texas because they get paid $3,000,000.(Well, nowadays they think they can actually win)

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

As JFK said at Rice University, about 53 years ago, many great things are worth doing because they are hard. Why does Rice play Texas? Why did we choose to go to the moon?

Most potential FIRST students (i.e. all students) weren't alive 53 years ago, haven't heard that speech, and have never been to the moon. The best way to convince them that joining a FIRST team will be good is not to discourage them, which is exactly what embracing "FIRST/STEM is hard" is doing. It's best to let them discover that it's fun before finding out that it's hard, so that, you know, they actually want to do it.

Virtually the same is true of the teachers tasked with starting and maintaining those teams with minimal resources. The best way to let a teacher know that an FRC team is hard is for them to know a previous team failed, or for them to have been involved in that failed team. "If it didn't work the first time, why will it work this time?" is what they're thinking.

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by Basel A

Most potential FIRST students (i.e. all students) weren't alive 53 years ago, haven't heard that speech, and have never been to the moon. The best way to convince them that joining a FIRST team will be good is not to discourage them, which is exactly what embracing "FIRST/STEM is hard" is doing. It's best to let them discover that it's fun before finding out that it's hard, so that, you know, they actually want to do it.

You don't need to have been alive 53 years ago to appreciate the goal of landing on the moon, nor to appreciate the bigger meaning behind it when people talk about landing on the moon. Indeed, the idea of a "moonshot" doesn't literally mean going to the moon- it now means so much more.

I highly recommend Google's Moonshot Thinking video, and reading Larry Page's interview with Wired on moonshots.

To the best engineers, scientists, and thinkers, something that is "hard" isn't something to avoid; it is something that begs for us to prove that we can do it. Don't tell people that a team folded because "STEM is hard." and it quit. Tell them that "STEM is hard" and that they can do better- that STEM is built on the very idea of trying something, failing, and trying something different.

[GeeTwo]

If I were to quote everyone I'm going to address, it would get too silly, so I'm just going to include by context.

I'm the oldest active mentor on 3946, and I won't be 53 until next month. Nonetheless, the message stands. Kennedy's message inspired the generation of engineers and technicians a generation before me, and their results inspired my generation. Manned space flight peaked in the early '70's, and since then, space boundaries have been pushed by autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles and devices. Satellites also look back down at earth and AUVs (autonomous undersea vehicles) probe the ocean volume. Robotics is how we learn more about the universe. Robotics is how we make more stuff at home less expensively. Robotics is eventually how we shall achieve the Hellenistic dream of a society in which people are for deeper thinking, planning, and imagination, and all of the routine is taken off our hands. So robotics matters. And yes, STEM is hard. But if you apply yourself to it, it's not too hard.

Sean and Jon are 100% correct about downsizing. I don't recall the source, but as I was entering the workforce (late '80s, early '90s), I recall reading "No company ever downsized its way to greatness." The same is even more true of a political or cultural movement - and let's remember that at its core, FIRST is a cultural movement. There may be individual cases where teams can and should merge, and FIRST is right to acknowledge and support it, but should never force it or even encourage it as a regular thing to do.

As much as organizational structure, the "hierarchy of needs" is wildly variant across FRC. 3946 seeks to change the local culture as a primary mission. Diversity, improving student career selection and marketability, and developing leadership are secondary. And while building a competitive robot is tertiary, we don't kid ourselves that it's the engine that pushes the ship. The mission isn't to kill the gators. The mission isn't to drain the swamp. The mission is to make this area that was once a swamp a seat of productivity, creativity, and development. And that will almost certainly involve killing a few gators and running some pumps.

Here in Louisiana, school-based teams are the norm, and essentially mandatory in order to attend competition, at least for public school students. High School students are allowed five non-school-field-trip absences per semester, or they fail every class that semester. Period. No excuses, exceptions, ifs, ands, or buts. As such, community FRC teams are like hen's teeth around here. Going to districts wouldn't change things - two Fridays cost just as much as Thursday and Friday of Bayou Regional in terms of field trip time, and more in terms of travel. Then, if you were to get a trip to DCMP, you'd fill up the budget of days, and if any of your students went to CMP on top of anything else, they'd fail the semester. How inspiring would that be?

Learning from failed teams - Slidell High School had a team (2182) which did very well in competition (ranked 3rd at Bayou in 2007, rookie year, and 5th in 2008). However, it starved for funding and did not compete after 2008. When we formed a new team in 2012 (not a single student or mentor in common with the old team), we made a point to get enough funding to continue past the first couple of years. When we qualified for CMP, we did a blitz to find more sponsors. We now have our own trailer, and list 9 platinum sponsors ($1000+ in a year), and a couple dozen gold and silver sponsors on our web site, and we're still pushing on a few more. And most important, we are changing the school and the community, creating bonds among the different segments of our student population, encouraging clean living, and promoting school spirit. Not bad for a team that has never ranked over 20th at a regional.

Finally, districts. Louisiana only has 42 teams listed on usfirst, and a few of those no longer exist (or at least compete). 37 of those teams are within 100 miles of a point midway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. So while districts would be great for those of us in southeast LA who can already day-trip to Bayou, it would probably just double travel costs for the others. A few years with a regional in the center or northern part of state (perhaps along the growing I-20 tech corridor) would be a good in-between step to get the rest of the state up to district density.