Sustainability In FRC Teams

[Garret]

I think the best things we could do to try and help these teams with sustainability problems:
Teach teams how to fundraise. Grants are giving a team a fish, teaching them how to fundraise effectively and around their district's policies will keep them going. (on a related note, anyone got any tips for my team?)
Help teams get more mentorship, and stop starting a billion rookies unless those rookies all have good mentor support as well. There aren't many ways to really combat the second problem though, sometimes you start off GREAT and get unlucky.
Get some information and pro tips out there to help teams work with their district, or better yet, have some of the better off teams write letters or talk to "uncooperative" districts about how great robotics is aand why they should be supportive.

I agree.

Teams who do not receive enough support from mentors and their schools are extremely vulnerable. My guess is that the most fatal or devastating to an FRC team is when they lose mentors (not just because this can mean losing a monetary sponsor as well). When a team loses mentors they lose guidance which without how can students hope to learn the skills necessary to run a team. This statement may not apply to very established teams because those teams have a strong support system and foundation. But for teams who have essentially restarted from scratch each year this sort of foundation and stability is nonexistent and as such the team can fail if they lose that critical student who has been the backbone of the team.

Basically when a team is carried on the back of one or a few team members that team's lifespan (generally speaking) is limited to four years (graduating from high school). If we could figure out how to teach students how to be leaders (not just get something done) but how to manage an organization and tell other team members what to do.

Over this summer I have realized that a FIRST robotics team is much more like a small business than anything else (well at least my team) and as such when a team is composed completely of robot builders and technical people that team cannot exist just like a company cannot exist if it is only made up of engineers.

Again this only applies to teams that are completely student-run due to a lack of mentors/advisors.

I hope some of this ramble makes sense.