IEEE: A Call to Action from Dean Kamen

Originally Posted by Steve W

A quick note on funds. Ifyou spend any time with FIRST personel, you will see that they are overworked. They spend more hours than they are paid for and work on a tight budget. A price increase after 4 years, I believe, is not out of line.

As for having to explain to you the customer a break down of costs, why do they have to? When you go to the store to purchase a coat, do you ask for a breakdown of costs to find out if you are paying too much? Nope didn't think so. FIRST is producing a quality product. You are not forced to purchase or use it. Therewas an organization up in Canada that did basically the same as FIRST but charged more, gave less and seemed to be profit driven. The product that was produced did not even come close to what FIRST offors. They are no longer in business. We must stop looking at what the cost is, look at the quality of product and figure out a way to purchase. It may mean that we have to work that much harder to get the money but we will be better for it. No one ever said that it was a right to be part of FIRST. It is a privilege. It may mean that some teams have to join with others to afford the cost.

FIRST will continue to grow because of the leadership, quality and mission. I for one am glad to be part of it. I just wish that I had started sooner.

Not asking for a cost breakdown seems reasonable ... for now. But blindly paying unreasonable prices for a product just because it is quality is not wise. Not to take away from FIRST, but money must go into other quality education also (and don't suggest that FIRST is the only quality education, it just might be one of the better ones ).

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by rforystek

Nothing against kamen or FIRST, but there is one big problem with this. How does he expect a FIRST team in every school if you have a base 6000 dollar entry fee? Not many places can come up with 6+ thousand every year. I think this would become a much more realistic dream if modifications were made so that FIRST did not cost so much. (I'm still waiting for that cost breakdown )

I hate to call you on this but $6,000 for every high school in the country isn't unrelalistic. Just look at the money school districts use to fund athletic teams. My school's district is currently working out an 8 million dollar bond issue. Nearly half of that eight million is headed to athletic teams. This is in a school district with only one high school and aroun 700 high school students. To say they don't have 6000 dollars is untrue. To say they might not place education as high as athletics some time is true. At least how I see my district. If you can consider putting field turf in for the football team you should be able to appropriate $6,000 for a robotics team. IMHO.

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by ngreen

I hate to call you on this but $6,000 for every high school in the country isn't unrelalistic. Just look at the money school districts use to fund athletic teams. My school's district is currently working out an 8 million dollar bond issue. Nearly half of that eight million is headed to athletic teams. This is in a school district with only one high school and aroun 700 high school students. To say they don't have 6000 dollars is untrue. To say they might not place education as high as athletics some time is true. At least how I see my district. If you can consider putting field turf in for the football team you should be able to appropriate $6,000 for a robotics team. IMHO.

I know. It's really sad. Odyssey of the Mind has the same problem here. My first year here, the district provided buses to transport the 6 or so teams going to World Finals. The next year the district began a 'pay to play' program- They payed for the membership, we provided everything else.

[For OotM, you have ~6 weeks to raise $$. It's about $750-$1,000 a person to go. (7 team members, 2 coaches, and any parents.)]

Is there a high-school sport with (inter)national championships?

[Adam Y.]

Not asking for a cost breakdown seems reasonable ... for now. But blindly paying unreasonable prices for a product just because it is quality is not wise. Not to take away from FIRST, but money must go into other quality education also (and don't suggest that FIRST is the only quality education, it just might be one of the better ones ).

Personally its one of the most expensive forms of quality education. I can't think of anything in my school that involves that amount of money. Science Olympiad is probably the only event that can come close to that due to the sheer number of events. Personally I feel that a vast majority of teams have the tools needed to become as competitive as chiefdelphi even though they may not know it. My advisor from 564 managed to bring up two CNC lathes that the school had in storage. They probably dated back from 1980's since they still worked on floppies. One actually works though the other one the computer is working. My school also has an oscillascope that probably still works also. I also found a robot that dated back from the 1980's in some cabinets. Who knows what stuff is lurking in basements, closets, and other areas that teams could use? Learning how to use it is another story. And if that doesn't work you could always buy some cheap chinese imort....

[EStokely]

In response to
<<Well, I would like to know where that 6000 goes to, and why it costs so much. I think FIRST should be responsible to us (the customers) to tell us what they are doing with that $.
>>


http://www.usfirst.org/about/


Look at FIRST Audited financials



Its not very detailed but it gives round numbers.
6K is the tip of the iceburg.

I agree with the idea that 6000 is not that much for a high school team to need. Try and get numbers for a football team in high school. (My favorite line is "But HS football *makes* money" Then why are they always getting money from the school systems?

In another thread I mentioned that from a resource point of view every school that has a football team is essentially a FIRST team.

Summer is almost here (2 days till school is over)

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by EStokely

I agree with the idea that 6000 is not that much for a high school team to need. Try and get numbers for a football team in high school. (My favorite line is "But HS football *makes* money" Then why are they always getting money from the school systems?

In another thread I mentioned that from a resource point of view every school that has a football team is essentially a FIRST team.

Yes, but how many schools have 2 varsity football teams?

[Ryan F.]

Originally Posted by EStokely

In response to
<<Well, I would like to know where that 6000 goes to, and why it costs so much. I think FIRST should be responsible to us (the customers) to tell us what they are doing with that $.
>>


http://www.usfirst.org/about/


Look at FIRST Audited financials

Yeah, I've seen this page, but that brings up more questions for me. I see it as the teams buying the kit of parts, and admittance to the regional with the entry fee. The costs I would really like to know are 1) The kit of parts. and 2) How much it costs FIRST for one team to go to one regional.....the other thing I really don't get is that from some posts, I've been getting the idea from others that regionals are supposed to be self supporting? Does this mean that our kit is costing us 6,000$?? That wouldn't make sense.

[Steve W]

Plese look beyond the kit. There is infrastructure that must be in place. Buildings that are rented, phone, hydro, water, gas, office supplies, internet access, servers, computers, advertising, development costs, game supplies, furniture, travel (transpotation,hotels, food, misc.), and salaries. I am sure that I have missed some but as you can see, it can add up very quickly.

[Marc P.]

Don't forget insurance. I'd hate to see what type of policy an event like a regional would require.....


I've seen in other threads the average regional costs between 200 and 300 thousand dollars. Assuming even just 2,000 goes towards the kit (which is very reasonable... the control system alone is roughly $1100, plus motors, relays, speed controllers, pneumatics, sensors, etc. etc.) even a regional with 40 teams would only bring in $160,000. Regionals are usually subsidized by sponsors (UTC sponsored the New England regional), who generously cover as much as they can. Unfortunately though, not all regionals have enough sponsor support to be self sufficient. This is where FIRST steps in. If a regional has already been completely planned out and ready to execute, but the budget falls $40,000 short, FIRST must eat this cost to ensure teams have a place to compete. And as has been said, and is common sense, no company can run at a loss forever.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

While the engineering profession has earned an A+ for contributing to society, we get a D for communicating to the public and in particular to kids about what is important.


I think engineers have to be a voice to the next generation. ... there needs to be a venue where engineers and scientists can show kids what an engineering career is all about. If professional engineers of the world aren’t willing to tell them about engineering, who will?


When the IEEE has a big awards event, it’s extraordinary electrical engineers who are telling other extraordinary engineers what extraordinary work they’ve done. The public is unaware of their activities. ... Where is the voice of the IEEE, the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), the NAS (National Academy of Sciences), and the NAE (National Academy of Engineers)? Where are the professionals who need to have some kind of context for the general public to be involved with and engaged in what they do?

What Dean Kamen SHOULD realize (read the Code Ginger book to see what I mean) is that many engineers CAN'T communicate their activities, because they are involved in "secret," "proprietary," or otherwise clandestine activities! Whether these projects involve working for the defense industry, or developing new products, the government and corporate leaders are PARANOID about "the enemy" (Russia, China, or Honda, to name a few) getting hold of the latest technology and using it to beat us in a war or in the marketplace. Actors and sports figures, on the other hand, are SUPPOSED to show off their skills.

A personal example:

When I was growing up, my dad was an engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company (Southern California, aerospace industry). He worked there something like 25 years. In all that time, the company held open houses exactly twice, that I was able to attend. I actually remember seeing my dad's office ONCE in his entire engineering career! Most of what I knew about Dad's work involved carpools, lunchtime bridge games, or practical jokes. Later, when Mom was taking programming classes at the same time as my older brother in college, dinner table conversations usually revolved around the difficulties of computer programming, so my sister and I were always left out of the conversation. I had no idea of what my dad was paid to do, other than working with computers, because he was FORBIDDEN to speak about his actual work (as were DEKA employees before the Segway was revealed to the public).

When I was little, I asked Mom what Dad did for a living. She replied that he used to be an electrical engineer, but now he was not exactly an electrical engineer any more. She couldn't or wouldn't explain to me what his occupation was. The only "work" I ever saw him do was electronics, carpentry, or home repair projects in our garage workshop. (I didn't know much about electronics, except that Dad had a stock of little tiny cylinders with wires coming out the ends, and they had little prettily colored bands on them. I thought then that they were transistors, but actually they might have been resistors--or something; I don't really know. I had to use two of them for a high school physics project in our house, which my parents later remodeled over.)

Finally, when I was in my early thirties, someone I had just met "by chance" told me that my dad, who had just been "retired" by his company, was a package designer! --Not marketing, but electronics device packaging, in case you didn't figure that out. (This person I met was none other than Ric Roberts, who, along with his two kids, has been heavily involved with FIRST and Team 330. Thanks, Ric, for communicating what my own family forgot to tell me. Moreover, you definitely deserved that Volunteer award this year!)

My point is:

It's not just the engineers' fault. Under these working conditions, how can they communicate the excitement of engineering to outsiders? Can anyone blame me for having zero interest in becoming an engineer, even though I'm a creative person, too?

No wonder my husband got sucked into FIRST--it's like flypaper for him!

[Erin Rapacki]

Originally Posted by KarenH

When I was little, I asked Mom what Dad did for a living. She replied that he used to be an electrical engineer, but now he was not exactly an electrical engineer any more. She couldn't or wouldn't explain to me what his occupation was.

My Dad is a Mechanical Engineer at Hamilton Sundstrand. I had no idea what he did at work, until I used my connections through FIRST to get an internship there.

It's nice to know what dad does, it was also a great way for a father & daughter to grow closer when we saw each-other's "professional side."

I enjoy providing alternate perspectives.


ByE

erin